Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic reports that the representatives for Joe Saunders have made a counter offer to the Diamondbacks' two-year proposal. Negotiations are ongoing. There had been speculation that Saunders is a non-tender candidate, but Arizona would like to keep him around without getting involved in arbitration. Saunders posted a solid 3.69 ERA and 1.31 WHIP across 33 starts this past year for Arizona and remains under team control through 2012, but he'd make a fairly significant raise over the $5.5 million salary he earned via arbitration in 2011.