The players may be suffering through a winter of discontent in the free agent market, but they have now scored some notable wins in arbitration. Trevor Bauer of the Indians, Gerrit Cole of the Astros, and Alex Wood of the Reds have all been awarded the contract values they sought by their respective arbitration panels, per ESPN.com’s Jeff Passan (Twitter link).
Bauer will take home $13MM, a full $2MM more than the Indians had sought to pay him. Cole’s $13.5MM salary was about the same amount higher than the Astros’ $11.425MM filing figure. And Wood secures a $9.65MM payday that tops the $8.7MM the Reds defended.
[RELATED: MLBTR Arbitration Tracker]
Those cases break what had been a tie in arb hearings. The players already had a solid edge in the more significant cases, with Blake Treinen ($6.4MM vs. $5.6MM), Carlos Correa ($5MM vs. $4.25MM), and Tommy Pham ($4.1MM vs. $3.5MM) all coming out ahead while Kyle Barraclough ($2MM vs. $1.725MM), Michael Taylor ($3.5MM vs. $3.25MM), and Ryan Tepera ($1.8MM vs. $1.525MM) lost smaller-value contests.
In coming away with wins, all three of the starters also managed to top their projected earning power from MLBTR and Matt Swartz. Bauer ($11.6MM), Cole ($13.0MM), and Wood ($9.0MM) had projected in range of what they ultimately earned, but took shots on securing bigger paydays by making their cases to panels.
Bauer’s situation is particularly noteworthy, since he won a previous arb hearing and remains eligible for one more trip through the process after the 2019 season. This time last year, Bauer emerged with a $6.525MM salary rather than the $5.3MM the team proposed. That made him $1.225MM richer this time around as well, since his raise was dropped on top of a greater starting point. The same will hold true next year.
That serves to illustrate how important these cases can be to an individual player. But there’s also a broader market significance. Each data point that trends north can be cited by another player in the future, either in seeking a bigger arb number or in negotiating out the terms of an extension.
Looks like the arb panels are siding with the players. With this the second straight off season, free agents have been left in the cold, I wonder if the arbitrator(s) have took that into any consideration before making their decision.
Idk enough about the arb panels and who technically hires them mlbpa or mlb bc that would be the biggest factor, one wants them making more one making less
If these arbs are selected the same way as arbitrators in grievance arbitrations are selected, then both parties (in this case MLB and MLBPA) have a list to work from. Unwanted arbitrators are struck from the list and the remainder are ranked in order of preference. Since 3 arbs are used for each of these panels, the individual arbs may be randomly selected from the approved list.
Or perhaps the emerging tactic of penny-pinching by front offices that is mostly working in free agency is also coming back to bite them when they also try to apply it to arbitration hearings.
Are we sure free agents have been left in the cold? Looking at the names still out there, excepting the obvious big names, who knows how many of them have received offers and turned them down? Further, is there some reason why free agents seem to think they are entitled to be signed? The competition for spots on MLB rosters is intense, and once a player has shown that his upside is limited or that his decline is predictable or palpable, it only stands to reason that clubs would turn to their prospects of short-term fill-ins.
*”or” short-term fill-ins.
Agreed! We don’t know what offers have been made or rejected. What we do know is that Harper turn down 10-years $300M from Washington and Mike Moustakas two years ago turned down $17M to eventually sign a $4M contract. Free Agency isn’t broken, the collective bargaining agreement is broken. Forget the seven years under team control and allow the players to get paid earlier/younger…
So paying them more at a younger aged will fix things? Why not do away with the draft too & let the big market teams sign all the good young talent too? I’d give your dumb idea about 5-10 years & baseball will begin retracting until 1/2 the teams are gone & all that’ll be left are the NY, LA, & Chicago teams & maybe a few other big city teams.
Baseball’s problem is no salary cap & true revenue sharing by all 30 teams. The NFL is 3 times as popular because all 32 teams have equal chances every year. It’s a sports league of individual, but fiscally equal teams. It works. Period. The NBA is a joke, & baseball popularity is declining to their level because after many strikes & work stoppages, they still can’t get it right.
Harper turned down 10 years & $300 million. I hope no one signs him. He’s not even worth 1/2 that.
Arbitrators are hired by MLB… I know one personally who does various kinds of sports arb including MLB…..he said it’s usually a toss up and there usually is no truly right or wrong number from either of the two sides but arbitrators who want to get hired again for next year typically have to show balanced opinions/decisions. I think MLB uses 1 arbitrator per case.
So you personally know an arbitrator but don’t know that MLB uses a panel of arbitrator’s on every case…..
Bauer and Cole had really good numbers last year ao they deserve every penny. Alex Wood is getting paid big bucks the 8.7m should be more than enough for his production last yr.
Bauer definitely deserved that raise after the way he performed last year. Tribe fans, however, should be concerned since CLE now has to pony up another $2M which increases the likelihood they’ll shop him hard next winter.
Imagine what Bauer’s hearing would be like. Haha. He’d drop some stats that haven’t even been invented yet and use some hardcore vocabulary that no one understands to plead his case.
Lol!
Bauer is my favorite mlb player
Baseball is killing itself with paying so low in the minors and the first three or four years of MLB. That’s a big part of why they’re not getting the top athletes out there. I know athleticism translates easier in football and baseball but I think hb’s last five years on average.
Wut? More and more athletes are choosing baseball or football, and will continue to do so with more research on head injuries. Parents 5 years from now might not even let their kids play football at all.
It makes sense! The owners have been saying that the reason the FAs aren’t getting as much is because the players are better at a younger age, and decline sets in earlier. If that’s true then arbitration age players should be making a larger percent of ownerships total player payroll.
Cole > Bauer at MLB and getting paid by the MLB. All is right in the world.
Both pitchers had an outstanding year. There is no need to put one down to praise another. That shows a lack of class dejota.
That’s fair…but have you seen Bauer’s twitter feed? Not saying that makes my comment classier or anything but that’s the context and tone I was going for. Either way it was meant in jest not as a weak pot shot and I understand why my comment is taken that way.
Ok, I see your reasoning. I try not to judge a player by twitter. I judge a player by his on the field performance and his work ethic. I doubt that there are many pitchers that work harder in the off season to improve his craft as Trevor Bauer. That is the Bauer that I root for.
Bauer had a higher WAR last season…congrats to both for ‘winning’ their cases.
You do understand that Bauer actually is doing much better than Cole did at the same point in the arbitration process right? This is Cole’s last year through arbitration. Bauer still has one more year, and in turn will make much more than Cole did in the same process. I realize your point was probably sarcastic, but it was inaccurate because Bauer is set up much better to make a larger sum next year when he’s at the same point Cole is.
Good for Bauer. Great guy and a very talented player.
Great guy in what sense? Seems like the opposite to me…
GREAT GUY. You are a loser
Don’t let Bauer see this. I don’t need to hear his reasoning as to why he’s a GREAT GUY..
I do wonder why people think he is a great guy. I remember reading an article in SI about him around the time he was drafted and was a big fan and was intrigued by the way he went about things. But honestly, the more I hear from him these days the more he seems like an idiot. I like it though, nice to have unique personalities in baseball
Sorry Verlander, you should know better than bringing your discontent about millionaires fighting with billionaires to the public forum. You really think people who struggle with real life problems will be sympathetic to your cause? Making your feelings public only further distances the public from the image of the spoiled athlete.
EXACTLY! Verlander was wrong. Math is right
I think he will get a lot of sympathy, yes. Not just from his SI model wife, from regular people too. But I am an optimist: I believe in a world where most people’s thinking is ruled by reason instead of tribalism.
So, while it is true that the marxists and social justice warriors would have us believe that anyone who dares to earn more than $100K/year belongs to an enemy tribe and should not be treated as a fellow human being who, like everyone else, has valid problems and concerns and deserves support in the face of injustice, I believe that is not the average American’s point of view.
Some might have trouble verbalizing this the way I just did, but YES, for those of us who believe in a morality beyond just tribalism and class warfare, fairness is a universal value. Poor, rich, man, woman, straight, gay, majority race, minority race, doesn’t matter what competing tribe the neo-marxists would like us to join. Basic humanity transcends that, and I know A LOT of people who struggle with what you call “real life problems” and yet fully believe that EVERYONE has valid problems, and everyone deserves to be treated fairly.
If anything, the social justice warriors are the spoiled suburban types like AOC, who never struggled, but like to pretend they’re the “struggling class”. People who really do overcome struggles know better than to think that way.
Awesome post
Stansfield
So everyone has problems and everyone struggles, including Verlander, but not including AOC?
Leave your MAGA hat at the door.
Maybe he just foolishly hopes most people would side with the players they actually pay to see over the owners they couldn’t care less about when it comes down to who should get their money…
It’s kind of quaint to see someone who actually has faith in people to think about this before forming an opinion…
Owners raking in hand over fist while half of them refuse to be competitive, public subsidation of stadiums and benefits of owning sports franchises?
The players aren’t saying their lives are hard or unfortunate. They’re saying the system is broken, and it is. Not in the sense that good money can’t be made, but in the sense that the money making window is getting smaller and smaller. The momentum and direction is headed the wrong way.
You’re asking a group of highly driven and competitive young men to subjugate themselves to the owners because you don’t have it as good. That’s not how these guys became great and successful, and I sure hope they don’t kowtow to people like you just to be PC.
This ^. Very well said
Do people actually think that the system was working properly when most teams were still handing out huge FA contracts to everyone with a pulse, and ending up on the hook with literally hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars across the league going into broken down useless has-beens?
You know each team including the Marlins and Rays make an average profit of a around 100 million right? Forbes has these franchises all worth north of a billion for a reason.
Meanwhile these same owners try and hold the cities and their taxpayers randsom if they dont pay for a new stadium every 10-20 years.
If your head is immersed in a world where you think teams that spend are benevolent and teams that don’t are greedy cash grabbers, there’s nothing anyone can post in a comment here that’s going to get anywhere.
Congratulations to Cole! I’ve been waiting for him to finally get paid. So glad he got away from Pittsburgh, although it was long known he would get traded before the Pirates would have ante up to pay a legitimate #1 overall pick during arbitration years & beyond.
I wonder if Cole and Houston will come to a long term deal now before the season starts. With the way the high end of the FA market has been the last few years he may be better off not testing the market if Houston makes a legit offer.
Good to see the players take these higher valued cases. People pay to see stars so pay up MLB clubs!