The Tigers have won their arbitration hearing against right-hander Michael Fulmer, reports Mark Feinsand of MLB.com (via Twitter). He’ll now earn the $2.8MM salary that the team filed rather than the $3.4MM submitted by his camp.
Fulmer, 26 next month, struggled through the worst season of his young career in 2018, recording a 4.69 ERA with 7.5 K/9, 3.1 BB/9, a career-high 1.29 HR/9 and a career-low 44.1 percent ground-ball rate. The righty was also limited to a career-low 132 1/3 innings as he worked through oblique and knee injuries. While the 2018 campaign was far from his best work, Fulmer was a quality arm in each of his first two MLB campaigns, including a 2016 season in which he was named American League Rookie of the Year.
The lack of innings in Fulmer’s platform year, a career losing record thanks largely to playing on a rebuilding Tigers team (wins and losses still factor into arbitration proceedings even if they’re no longer valued by Major League front offices), and a relatively pedestrian strikeout rate all likely worked against Fulmer as he made a case for an additional $600K on top of what the Tigers offered.
Moving forward, Fulmer’s future raises and salaries in arbitration will be based upon that $2.8MM figure, meaning today’s loss has compounding downside for him in the future. He’ll be eligible for arbitration thrice more as a Super Two player before reaching free agency upon the completion of the 2022 campaign (barring a future extension, of course). Given Detroit’s status as a rebuilding club, Fulmer figures to once again see his name circulating on the rumor circuit this summer, though with so much team control remaining, the Tigers certainly hope to be competitive well before Fulmer is close to the open market. As such, there won’t be as much urgency to move him as there will be with a shorter-term asset such as right fielder Nicholas Castellanos.
Fulmer is the 10th player to go to a hearing this year, and as can be seen in MLBTR’s Arbitration Tracker, the players won six of those 10 hearings. Fulmer was the league’s final unresolved case, so this year’s slate of arbitration hearings will lean slightly in favor of the players’ side.
What a bargain
Amen
The dude sucks!! They are over paying for him
You can’t be serious Donald
He’s pretty good when he’s healthy, but he’s never healthy. Tigers missed their chance to get a good haul back for him.
Why wouldn’t he be serious? Fulmer hasn’t been that great at all.
$2.8 million is a steal for a guy who had a 3.45 ERA and 3.71 FIP between 2016-2017.
That was also two years ago. So, there’s that.
Should have settled at $3.1M
The worm has turned…
He’s getting ready to turn 26, All he needs is to stay healthy & return to form. Still a lot of time for the big pay checks.
This guy is getting a 2 million dollar raise for going 3-12? Such a joke
that’s not how arbitration works
Or, frankly, how baseball works!
I’m aware of how it works, I’m simply stating arbitration is a joke in MLB. The root cause of this was to create a fair and balanced system of payment for the players. I don’t see how having 3 yrs service and frankly sucking after a season and a half would make any player think he was worth that much. Any self respecting person would realize they hadn’t earned a raise and been ok with the 2 million dollar raise offered instead of asking for more.
On the flipside, a team can save money from a player who may earn 20-30 million as a free agent, but can’t due to the arbitration process.
Oh YES that is the way the new Baseball works….all these metrics to prove that substandard performance looked at one way, can be turned around and looked at totally differently and presto……you have brilliance where there was once mediocrity!
Welcome to the new Baseball of today!
You have it backwards
Funny, I’d argue that any “self respecting person” wouldn’t settle for less than an employer in a collectively bargained relationship was obligated to pay. Regardless of performance.
A 2.8 million salary is not that much in the MLB. Fulmer is only going to be 26 next season. Not that long ago, he was an ace level starter. He has one down year where he was injured for part of it, and he’s automatically bad.
Or a player realizes that they are an employee in a business with a limited window of income and you should maximize your earnings while you can.
The guy has only made the minimum to this point. If he has a career ending injury this year then he will have a relatively very small amount of money in his major league career, despite his window of great success
The new baseball is better, it actually requires something be statistically provable as opposed to just assumed.
If you have a problem with one of the new metrics, trying demonstrating it’s failing instead of just basically attacking the entire science of statistics because you don’t like the result.
The guy complaining about Fulmer’s W-L record says arbitration is a joke
You’re going by win loss record? On a last place team?
Look at the peripherals as well, he was a productive pitcher for 1.5 years.
No how about innings pitched given his penchant for injuries……he’s paid to pitch not sit in the hot tub nursing his injuries…….
Max Scherzer could go 3-12 on a team as frankly bad as the current Tigers
This is why pitcher wins and losses are completely irrelevant
if we went on wins and losses, how on earth does Jacob DeGrom get the Cy Young award?!
Explain that to Steve Carleton.
He seems like a bright guy, so probably doesn’t need the painfully obvious explained to him…
clearly you don’t know how it works…
Another new Baseball Millennial heard from!
Maybe if he was more successful, they wouldn’t have been a last place team….ever think of that!
How many 1-0 games did he lose….or is it maybe that in those 25 starts he didn’t get out of the 5th very often!
Rocky, my thoughts exactly. The guys era has bloated and his HR % doubled. Little perspective, considering inflation Willie Mayes made 50k his age 26 season which would be 445k today. Fulmer is making 2.5 mil. Enough said
The fact that Willie Mays and everyone from his generation were criminally underpaid and everyone knew it even then is of dubious relevancy to what Fulmer is worth today…
The average American made about $1200 a year in 1957 so $50000 was great money. The fact that you overlook that is criminal. The fact that the average man I our armed forces will never make in their lifetime what Fulmer or any other mediocre player makes in a year under the current bargaining agreement. The fact that the backbone of this country remains underpaid and the “famous” continue to make so much money and in the end we pay their salaries through merchandise and ticket sales. This country is a mess and to say it’s criminal to pay a man 50x the average wage is idiotic. Get a little perspective dope.
Why does everyone point out how much the player made then is worth today, but no one ever points out the same for the owners side from that time? There was little in TV revenue and Corporate sponsorship then. Ticket were priced affordably, as were concessions. When the Pie was smaller, the slices were smaller.
Your jealousy is showing. The money is there. Why shouldn’t the players make it?
The average American isn’t worth 10s of millions of dollars to his employer either. When they are, then anything you posted here will be relevant.
That’s the perspective here. The one you’re badly lacking.
You want to rail about the state of America, go to a political forum, this is a site about baseball.
You fight the power brother
OK., OK, we’ll stay off your lawn already.
Shout out to Curt Flood, while we’re on the topic. While changes to the salary structure of that time were likely to change sooner than later, Flood took a serious financial hit to help effect that change.
I read on Twitter that he rode to the arbitration hearing with the Tigers executives…must have been an awkward ride back
They returned separately.
Probably allowed for conversation about an extension that would reward him somewhere in the middle ground.
Really Steve, “thrice”? Are you trying to improve our vocabulary?
Not surprised, he really had a truly disappointing 2018, here’s hoping he has a nice little bounce back year in 2019.
$2.8 million is pretty fair. He is coming off of a down year, but he was injured for part of the season, pretty good between 2016-2017, and he’ll only be 26 for 2019.
I wasn’t all that great in 2018, either, and I would be well-satisfied with $2.8MM.
I’d be happy with Publisher’s Clearing House $5000 a week prize, lol.
Innings were down. Homers, walks, whip, all up. A pretty horrible year. probably should have moved him. His trade value will never be as high as it was a year ago.
Well, the bad news is he lost his arbitration hearing, but the good news is he just saved 15% on his car insurance by switching to GEICO… Sorry, couldn’t resist…
Dude has regressed for three straight years