The A's declined Stephen Drew's $10 million 2013 option today, though they're still trying to re-sign him, probably fairly aggressively since they traded away Cliff Pennington, who was playing short (poorly) for them until Drew was acquired.

Still, he would seemingly be a nice upgrade over Barmes. He was hurt most of the year, but seemed completely fine down the stretch. His defense is probably not much worse than Barmes's, and it seems safe to say his offense would be a lot better.

rj.reynolds and I were wondering earlier if he'll get something similar to what J.J. Hardy did last year, (3 years/22 million). Of course, he may be the best SS option on the market this offseason, so there's that as well: (per mlbtr)

Shortstops
Jason Bartlett (33)
Brian Bixler (30)
Ronny Cedeno (30)
Stephen Drew (30)
Alberto Gonzalez (30)
Alex Gonzalez (35)
Cesar Izturis (33)
Munenori Kawasaki (32)
Jhonny Peralta (31) - $6MM club option with a $500K buyout
Marco Scutaro (37)

I really have no faith in the Pirates' upper level options at SS...and as much as Barmes's glove was underrated this year, I really don't want to watch him bat every day next year, or even expect him to be able to repeat his defensive performance from a year ago.

I don't think I'd have any problem at all with the Pirates signing him for 3 years in the high 20s...though that figure feels like wishful thinking on my part...