"If there is any lingering ill will between the Pirates and Matt Capps, the closer they released late Saturday night because of a salary dispute, it was difficult to detect yesterday.

And there is cause: The team needs bullpen help even more than before, and it might take Capps back at the right price. And the player, suddenly a free agent, might find that his value on the open market is not as high as the final salary offer he rejected from the Pirates.

Thus, if neither party finds what it seeks between now and spring training ...

"We'd love to have Matt Capps back in our bullpen," Pirates general manager Neal Huntington said yesterday. "We really would. We feel he's going to have a bounce-back year, and we hope, for our sake, that the market shows we were appropriate in our offer. If it shows that we were light, then Matt benefits."

"Would I rule out a return?" Capps said. "Not at all. The door's not closed, in my mind. If the Pirates end up being the best fit for us, I would come back."

Just before Major League Baseball's midnight deadline Saturday, the Pirates declined to tender a contract offer to Capps that would commit both sides to salary arbitration. In that process, hearings are conducted in February in which each side submits a salary proposal, and an independent arbitrator chooses one number or the other. A settlement can be reached at any point until the hearing.

Capps, 26, made $2.425 million this past season, one in which his numbers dipped to career lows: 4-8, 5.80 ERA and 27 saves in 32 opportunities. In talks with the Pirates, it is believed that he and agent Paul Kinzer told the team they were intent on submitting an arbitration figure in the range of $3.4 million. The Pirates offered a much smaller raise. The sides never came close.

So, Capps suddenly became a free agent, and the Pirates were left with just two relievers -- Joel Hanrahan, now the default closer, and Evan Meek -- certain to make their seven-man bullpen for 2010.

"The reality is, we've now got some money to apply to the bullpen to fill Matt's spot and elsewhere," Huntington said. "We'll continue to explore. If you're talking about the Matt Capps of '07 or '08, that would be very, very difficult to replace. He's probably not somebody we non-tender. The second half of '08 and into '09 ... it's not that hard to replace a reliever with a 5.00 or 6.00 ERA."

Huntington said his preference was to keep Capps at the team's perceived value of his services, not the salary he might be awarded through arbitration.

"Once you tender a player, it's really a no-lose situation for the player. Even if he loses, he's going to get a substantial raise. We didn't feel like going through the process with Matt was a good decision for us."

Huntington added his view that Capps "felt like it was better for him to become a free agent than to accept our offer. He feels like he's going to get that much, if not more, as a free