Get the Foulke out of town? Not so fast...

The back and forth on whether Keith Foulke is coming back to the team continues to take some interesting turns. Before we get into the ins and outs of that, lets take a quick peek at why we would even want him. Here are Foulke's numbers from after the All-Star break:
2.04 ERA, 6.6 K/9, 4.33 K/BB, 1.13 WHIP - pretty tasty.
If you recall, the team had a $7.5 mil option on Foulke for 2007 which they paid a $1.5 mil buyout when they (understandably) declined to exercise. That left Foulke with a $3.75 mil player option which he turned down.
Earlier this week, the team offered arbitration to the former closer. We went over the compensation rules earlier, but here is some more info on how arbitration works:
Both the player and the team submit an amount, and the arbitrator has to pick one or the other bid - nothing in the middle. Under the previous collective bargaining agreement, a team could not submit a bid that amounted a pay cut of any more than 20%. That clause has been removed from the new collective bargaining agreement, meaning that if Foulke accepts arbitration, they could potentially offer a price as low as the minimum.
Michael Silverman at the Herald reports that the Sox do not exptect Foulke to accept arbitration, but that his agent, Danny Horwits, said he was more enthusiastic about coming back after having positive conversations with the front office, team doctors, and his teammates.
Foulke is a type-B free agent, and the Sox would get a draft pick if he were to sign elsewhere.