According to the San Jose Mercury News’ Andrew Baggarly, San Francisco Giants GM Brian Sabean left a strong impression that Cody Ross will be tendered a contract for the 2011 season.

For those not familiar with the term “tendering” or “non-tendering” a contract, I’ll make my attempt to explain it to you as simple as possible:

Each team has a 40 man roster that consists of active players in the Major Leagues, players on the disabled list, and player in the Minor Leagues.  The 40 -man roster is like a protective cover over the team’s best 40 players.  Every December, each team has to decide which of their 40 players on their roster they want to keep for next year.  For most of the 40 players, the decision is simple.  You already have a contract and are living the good life, or the team values you enough that they will pay you a fair market value for a contract for the upcoming season.  For those players on the 40 man roster that have performed poorly or may not be worth the investment for the next season, a team will non-tender them or not give them a contract.  The player then becomes a free agent and is removed from the team’s roster.

Prior to the post-season, Ross was a likely candidate to be non-tendered a contract. Now that he’s hit four home runs, with three of them in the first two games of the NLCS, he’s likely changed the minds of the Giants.

Ross made $4 million this season, and will likely receive a raise in his final year of salary arbitration.

“His number isn’t going to go off the map,” Sabean said. “His platform year was last year, not this year, so it’s a very affordable situation if we go that route.”