True, but Ortiz would have had to sit and wait until late January early February for such a situation to develop. If he was a free agent, when that happened, the presence of Fielder would have depressed Ortiz market and vice versa, so we don't know how that would turn out. The fact is that Ortiz had plenty of time to generate interest by other teams. He did not. If the Sox had not offered arb, they could have locked him up for 2 years for $18 million. I think that would have bee a reasonable number considering he had no higher offers from other teams.