Lefty Jerry Blevins has emerged victorious in his arbitration hearing against the Nationals, James Wagner of the Washington Post reports on Twitter. He will take home $2.4MM instead of the team’s $2.2MM submission.
Blevins, 31, had a mixed bag of a first season in D.C. He threw 57 1/3 innings of 4.87 ERA ball, hardly the result that the team hoped for when it dealt for him last winter. But his peripherals (a career-high 10.4 K/9 vs. 3.6 BB/9) led ERA estimators to value his effort much more highly. His 2.77 FIP, 3.25 xFIP, and 2.93 SIERA are all career bests.
Other than an unseasonably low strand rate (60.5%), Blevins’s biggest enemy was his difficult in limiting free passes to right-handed hitters. He walked nearly 14% of all righties who stepped in against him.
The Nationals will hope that the results catch back up to the peripherals this time around. Blevins is set to hit the open market at the end of the season.
