There’s still a chance the Yankees will re-sign Andy Pettitte and Bobby Abreu, but the Bombers are unwilling to let someone else determine the price.
The Yankees opted not to offer arbitration to any of their free agents yesterday, the two big ones being Pettitte and Abreu.
According to GM Brian Cashman, there were two main reasons.
The first was that the Yankees can still re-sign them at some point. The other was that each player earned $16 million this past season, and if the Yankees had offered arbitration that was accepted, the team likely would have been forced by an arbiter to pay the player at least $17 million. The Yankees didn’t want that to happen.
By not offering arbitration, however, the Yankees won’t receive compensatory draft picks if Abreu or Pettitte signs elsewhere.
The Yankees also didn’t offer arbitration to their other free agents, including Jason Giambi, Carl Pavano, Pudge Rodriguez, Sidney Ponson and Chad Moeller. None of those would cost the Yanks draft picks if they sign elsewhere.
“Today’s date really has everything to do with the compensation attached to various players, if they had some,” Cashman said in an audio statement released by the team. “And Bobby was a Type A and Andy was a Type A, and so the determination that we made today was to make sure that we control what amount we’d be spending, at least in the event that we’re fortunate enough to bring those players back.
“But we did not want to put ourselves in the position of having that determined by a third party without knowing what that figure would be. The arbitration time period falls in February, early February, so obviously as we attempt to put this team together, in Andy’s case and Bobby’s case, they made $16 million a year.
“It’s been tough in the past to try to deviate from previous years’ earnings in an arbitration setting. And so we just wanted to be able to control the cost that we would allocate for every position on the club, and by offering them arbitration . . . we would lose our ability to at least determine a final cost.”
The Yankees had offered Pettitte a $10 million salary for 2009, but neither he nor Abreu was willing to take a pay cut. Cashman said the team would “still stay engaged with the entire free-agent market, including those two players.”
The Post has reported of the Dodgers’ interest in Pettitte, so it’s possible that the veteran lefty will end up on the West Coast, reunited with former Yankees manager Joe Torre. Still, Cashman knows he can bring Pettitte back despite not offering him arbitration.
“That’s the most important thing,” Cashman said. “In the past, the previous basic agreements, you were in a position that if you didn’t offer, you lose the ability to sign.”
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A.J. Burnett was offered salary arbitration by the Blue Jays. Toronto is hoping to re-sign Burnett but could face stiff competition from several teams, including the Yankees and Red Sox. -With AP