- Oct 12, 2012
- 56,880
- 8,971
So having dinner with Stewie here and we started talking about how to open up the second buyout window if we take a player to team elected arbitration. The only RFAs eligible for arbitration are Lance Bouma and Paul Byron as far as we could recall. But we were both surprised that Byron received a qualifying offer, because quite frankly we think he's not good enough to make the team this year.
We think that we would avoid arbitration with Bouma because we don't want to risk souring the relationship with him, but Byron is expendable and it won't hurt us long term to sour the relationship with him. So we think Treliving is an evil genius and only gave Byron a qualifying in order to take him to arbitration to open up this second buyout window in which we would buyout Mason Raymond.
tldr:
Take Byron to arbitration to allow us to buyout Raymond
We think that we would avoid arbitration with Bouma because we don't want to risk souring the relationship with him, but Byron is expendable and it won't hurt us long term to sour the relationship with him. So we think Treliving is an evil genius and only gave Byron a qualifying in order to take him to arbitration to open up this second buyout window in which we would buyout Mason Raymond.
tldr:
Take Byron to arbitration to allow us to buyout Raymond