I think we should take the best offer, all things considered.

The main purpose Byrd is serving at this point is to keep games winnable so the team doesn’t become an embarrassment. Our depth had gotten so thin that that easily could have become an issue — Ginter has been more or less respectable, so that gave us the luxury of sending Laffey down for a few weeks. But if Ginter isn’t respectable, and if Byrd gets traded, then who do we have to keep the club from looking like an utter joke?

Believe it or not, I think this is one of the main reasons we acquired Reyes — just to keep the club from looking foolish without having to call up David Huff, who probably is going to be shut down in terms of innings well before the season ends.

Okay. Arbitration is an issue for two different types of players. The first type is players who have (almost) three years of service time but less than six years, i.e., they’ve never been free agents. The second type is players who are eligible for free agency.

For the first type, the team has until Dec. 12 to tender each player a contract for next season. If the team doesn’t tender him a contract, he’s released and basically a free agent. (I say “basically” because he’s still subject to service-time rules and will be under the same type of control of the next team with whom he signs.) This is what’s called “non-tendering” a player. (A team technically could non-tender a player who was not yet eligible for arbitration, but it’s basically unheard-of.)

If the team does tender this type of player a contract, however, then they’re committing to pay him whatever the two sides agree to, and if they can’t agree, then they go through the arbitration process. The great majority of the time, when you’re hearing about arbitration, it’s this situation.

For the second type of player, any player who is eligible for free agency also can be offered arbitration, and teams have until Dec. 1 to do this for each player, and the player has until Dec. 7 to accept or decline the offer. If the player accepts, then he’s no longer a free agent — he’s essentially signed to a one-year deal with his old club, with only the salary yet to be settled. Just like the first type, the two sides have to agree to a salary or else go through the arbitration process — and just like the first type, the two sides can agree to a multi-year deal rather than a one-year deal, if that’s what they want to do.

For this type of player, a free agent, if the team offers arbitration and the player declines, then the team is eligible for draft pick compensation (if the player is classified as a Type A or Type B player, that is).

If the team offers arbitration and the player accepts, then the player is no longer a free agent, so of course there’s no compensation.

If the team does not offer arbitration, the team cannot get any draft pick compensation for that player.

If the team offers arbitration and the player signs with another team before accepting or declining, that is considered equivalent to the player declining arbitration, so the team can get draft pick compensation.

If the player signs with another team before the team offers arbitration, that too is considered equivalent to the team offering and the player declining, so the team still can get draft pick compensation. In fact, teams actually must go through the formality of offering the arbitration, which of course the player cannot accept because he’s already signed with another team.

It’s not uncommon for a team to opt not to offer arbitration to a departing free agent, even if it means foregoing draft pick compensation, if the team is sufficiently concerned that the player will accept. A player who has accepted arbitration cannot be paid less than 80% of his previous annual salary, and it’s usually going to be the same salary or more — sometimes much more. It’s not uncommon for a player not to be worth anywhere close to what he would get in arbitration, particularly in the case of a player who was released mid-season and then picked up by another club for the minimum salary.

I wasn’t suggesting the Indians chose to keep Gutierrez over Barton, I was responding to Joeee’s “meh” about Barton’s offensive performance. I was trying to point out how truly awful Gutierrez and Garko have been. Most people seem to have abandoned hope on Garko, but there’s still some diehard optimism on Gutierrez. I had high hopes for Franklin, but he’s been pretty terrible this year. Now, if he really puts it all together, he has a shot at being Jason Michaels. And, yes, he is seven months younger than Barton.

Just to be clear … the choice that was made was between possibly losing Barton and definitely losing Snyder. It isn’t clear to me that Snyder isn’t the better player anyway.