The Oakland Athletics will be fairly quiet this offseason as they continue trying to figure out their stadium situation. While they will be signing few significant free agents, there are still some pertinent dates that will impact their offseason. Although the A's will likely not be re-signing several of their bigger free agents, they still have transactional issues to deal with in order to get the corresponding draft picks in return.
November 23 is the deadline for the A's to offer salary arbitration to their Type A and Type B free agents. In order to get draft pick compensation, salary arbitration must be offered to the player and then rejected by that player. A player rejects it when they don't think they can get any sort of deal that would beat the arbitration offer. In the A's situation, Josh Willingham is expected to get several sizable offers. David DeJesus will likely get some offers, but it remains to be seen how valuable they will be. The players have until December 7 to accept a salary arbitration offer.
The winter meetings kick off the first week in December and A's GM Billy Beane will be as popular as anybody at this meeting. The A's have made it known that a vast majority of their roster is on the market for the right deal. Considering the A's have a boatload of quality starting and relief pitching, there will be plenty of teams knocking on Beane's hotel door.
December 12 is the deadline to tender contracts to arbitration-eligible players. The A's have ten arbitration eligible players and all are expected to get contracts. That could change over the next few weeks, but it would be a bit of a surprise.