Elias Player Rankings

Good news for the Phillies today: both David Dellucci and Aaron Fultz have been classified as a Type A free agents. The complete Phillies free agent list is below:

Type A's: Dellucci, Fultz, Mike Lieberthal
Type B's: Arthur Rhodes
Type C's: Rick White, Randy Wolf

I'd definitely offer arbitration to Dellucci, I'd almost certainly offer to Fultz, and I'd think long and hard about offering it to White. Ideally, you want to put yourself in a win-win position with each player - if the player accepts arbitration, you get a useful player back for a (typically) reasonable price; if the player declines, then you get the subsequent compensatory draft picks owed to you based on the level of free agent you lose (assuming another team signs the player). Either getting picks for Dellucci or having him back would be great; I wonder if any team out there would be willing to give up a first rounder to sign Dellucci. Getting picks for Fultz or White would be super and even if either player accepted the arbitration contract, it wouldn't kill the team to pay for either to come back.