The Matt Holliday experiment in Oakland has not gone according to plan. "Then they've got issues," said an executive of one contender. "Every day that goes by when he doesn't hit any home runs, the price [they can ask in a deal] goes down. So do they just try to [dump] the money? "Or suppose they wind up keeping him all year. Do they decide not to offer him arbitration to get the [compensation] picks? Do they say, 'We can't risk paying this guy $13 million next year just to get those picks?' So this could get really interesting."