Non-tendered

A player is said to be non-tendered when a team declines to make him a contractual offer as he is heading into salary arbitration. The player immediately becomes a free agent. There is an official date by which this offer must be made - usually in the first few days of December - and the passing of this date results in a bunch of players becoming free agents, joining those whose contracts expired at the end of the World Series and who were not eligible for arbitration.

A non-tendered player can re-sign with his original team, but that will mean accepting a cut in pay, as the team's decision not to tender him a contract is almost always based on a calculation that whatever salary the player would make through arbitration is more than it is willing to pay for his services. As this is strictly a business decision, prominent players still in their productive years have been non-tendered.