Outfielder Denard Span (Signed a five-year, $16.25MM deal with Minnesota in March 2010):

“It was after my first full season in the big leagues, after the '09 season. It took me a little bit of time to get to the Major Leagues, I didn’t get there at 20 or 21 years old, so at the time the Twins came to me about the extension, it just made sense for me and my family. We realized what we possibly were leaving on the table if I had good years but we also thought about the risk of if I got hurt or anything like that. It just made sense for my situation.

“My agent set out numbers and I remember after my best year in '09, he said if you just do this for the next two, three years and don’t take this contract, this is what you would get in arbitration so we compared the numbers and it was a little bit of a discount to take the contract at the time and he put that out there, but the decision was ultimately my decision.

“I’ve been on the DL the past few years so I’d like to think it worked out fine but there’s so many unknowns and that’s the risk you take when you're dealing with any kind of guaranteed contract, whether to take it or play your cards and wait for that big payday.

“I wouldn’t say it was an easy decision. It was something that me and my family had to pray about. It was a situation where we felt like if I were to get hurt and never play again, at least all the hard work that I’ve put forth in this game, I’d at least have something to walk away from. That was one of the determining factors. I realized that when this contract is up, I wouldn’t be naturally young but I wouldn’t be old. I’m going to be 31, lord willing when I’m a free agent, so what I didn’t get in the beginning, I believe that I’m going to get at the end.”

Catcher Kurt Suzuki (Signed a four-year, 16.25MM deal with Oakland in July 2010):

“It’s a tough decision obviously. At the time you work so had to get to a point to where you're starting to get paid I guess and I think I was signed during my last season before arbitration, so it was the year leading up to arbitration, and obviously I knew I was going to arbitration next year but the multi-year deal, to have the security for your family, it was hard to look that much money in the mirror and say I don’t want it, I’m going to wait. You get security for your family. It’s a pretty good chunk of change. It was hard to turn down. Some guys take that route and some guys don’t. I thought it was a deal where I felt it was enough security for my family and I. I was married at the time.

“Obviously if you sign a long term deal before arbitration years, you’re going to have to take a discount because you’re obviously not in line to make the money yet. You’re kind of predicting the future so you have to take a little bit of a discount but at the same time, how much of a discount you want to take, you have to ask yourself and what are you happy with. After deciding with my wife, we felt OK with taking the deal and having that security.

“You break it down and you have comparables. My case was a little different because they said I didn’t have many comparables. I don’t know, they just said there wasn’t many people to compare me with that signed multi-year deals so like Russell Martin was a comparable but he didn’t sign a multi-year deal so it was kind of hard to gauge off somebody for a deal.

“There’s a risk. It was an amount that my wife and I felt comfortable with and it was worth taking. Later on I might have been looking to make more, obviously if I went year to year, but at the same time, we felt that money was sufficient enough to take the deal. I’m happy with how it worked out. Obviously there’s a chance you could have made more money but at the same time, with how things [worked] out I think it was a good deal.

“Denard and I talk about it all the time. He comes from Minnesota who has the similar philosophies as Oakland to try and lock players up long term before their arbitration years and we talked about giving up money but we also talked about how its hard to turn that much money down because you’re making a really good amount of money. The Major League minimum is a really good amount, but when you’re talking millions of dollars, to turn that down is tough to do. When you get offered that much money in your face, what are you going to do?”

Pitcher Gio Gonzalez (Signed a five-year, $42MM deal with Washington in January 2012, a record at the time for a first-year arbitration eligible pitcher. He was traded from Oakland just a month earlier): 

“I looked at as you know what? The organization gave me a chance to play and Mike Rizzo (Nationals GM) believed in me from the beginning and he gave me something that I felt was reasonable and gave me an opportunity and I said why not? The only way to keep getting up there and is keep improving and try to make the best of it.

“You also look at the team and the guys that were coming up, you had Strasburg, Jordan Zimmermann, Ryan Zimmerman, Jayson Werth, Bryce Harper, you had all these guys and the pieces they were putting together, I felt like that rotation was going to get better and better and I was like why not be a part of it?

“I think it was just me wanting to play baseball and I think it helped secure my family and me and it almost was to the point where it was like, you can roll the dice and see what happens, but you can never promise tomorrow. I was more excited to play here than anything. It was a new team, new uniform, I think the thing that really drove me to want to play here more was the fact that ‘Rizz’ believed in me from the beginning. He didn’t question anything and he gave me a opportunity and I felt like he gave me a great price for what was reasonable. He didn’t skyrocket me but he got me right where I needed to be to go out there and prove my performance.

“I liked it. Like I said, nothing is promised tomorrow. I think what ‘Rizz’ did was more than reasonable. He thought it was fair, I thought it was fair. We worked both sides out with no complaints. I was ready to grab a baseball and start pitching. Trust me, I was thinking way beyond the money. I was thinking more like World Series. Let’s go. Great rotation, great offense and defense. I was more than happy to play for them.”

How did you come in contact with your agent Mike Milchin?

“I was with an agent right out of high school after I got drafted and I did my own deal but I ended up having to fire him. The guy who drafted me, Jim Olander, was good friends with Mike Milchin and he ended up calling me and Mike and Mark Pieper came out and sat down with me and basically told me what they were all about. I was in low-A ball and going into my second full year of professional baseball. That’s a time where you can really get taken in and smoothed by agents promising you equipment deals and wining and dining you and for some reason I had the ability to look past that and go with what was most important and that’s what can an agent do for you in arbitration and free agency.

“As a young player obviously you want to hear, ‘I’m going to be able to get you this bat deal and be able to get you this glove deal and this equipment deal’ but at the end of the day that’s not what’s important. What’s important and what sold me on them is they didn’t make any promises like that with me. What they talked about mostly was arbitrations and free agency contracts that they’ve signed and the way they go about it. They had a very good reputation as far as arbitration goes and I actually ended up going to a hearing with them and we ended up winning so I got to see it first-hand. The work and preparation that they do for each one of their clients, there’s a lot of good agents out there, but they put in the time and the work needed to be prepared to go to a hearing and that was huge. A lot of guys don’t do that."

What was it that impressed you about SFX?

“I actually sat down and interviewed quite a few agents and ultimately ended up picking SFX and couldn’t be happier. I’ve built a relationship with these guys that’s going to last not only through my playing career but throughout the rest of my life. I’ve built those kinds of friendships and that’s what you really want. That’s what the game is about, friendships and being able to call somebody your friend when the game is over. Obviously it’s a business and you want the best out of your agent. I’m not sitting here saying you should hire your friend as your agent. Not at all. You want to go out as a young player and interview multiple agents and ask them what they do in arbitration and what they do as a free agent and look at their rap sheet and their history and that was big for me.

“Here’s my thing. With my agent, Mike is always available, no matter what. I can call him at two in the morning or at noon on a Sunday and he’ll always be available and if he’s not he gets back to me ASAP. He makes me feel like I’m his only client and at the end of the day that’s what you want. You want to feel like your agent is almost like the movie Jerry Maguire, where your agent will do everything for you no matter what. That’s the feeling I get from my guy.”

How did SFX and Mike help get you what you wanted in your recent free agent experience this past offseason?

“Free agency is definitely an interesting process because it’s finally the time where you put in all that hard work and you get to choose where you want to play but sometimes choosing where you want to play doesn’t always end up being where you want to be. Fortunately for me it did and it worked out. A lot of times you go into free agency and teams you would like to play for don’t really have that sort of need.

“At the beginning of the offseason you know I was getting calls here and there and some feelers but it was kind of quiet and Mike just kept telling me to be patient and I was, and I believed in him that he was going to get the job done, but I’d be lying if I said there weren’t times where we would go a few days without hearing anything. But he always called me every night no matter what to kind of go over everything and some guys like that some guys might not. Some guys might not want to be called until they have an offer but I wanted to be in the process and know what was going on.

“I wasn’t picky although I did tell him I definitely wanted to try and get back over to the west coast because my family was from Arizona and I have two kids who are in school so those are things that we talked about, what’s important, location, length of contract, the AAV, those were the types of things we went over and like I said, luckily I got the best of both worlds. I basically got what I wanted and to be where I wanted to be. That was a lot to do with him being patient, us both being patient, but him really trying to look at every opportunity that was out there.”

“Obviously it’s a very long process. Negotiations are usually never quick. We negotiated all the way up until the time we had to give each other the numbers. My case was a little bit different because with the Marlins, once you submit your number, there’s no more negotiations. Usually in arbitration you can submit your numbers and still come to an agreement but with the Marlins, if you don’t come to an agreement before that then you're going into the room and going to the hearing, so mine was different.

“It made sense for me to go ahead and take that chance and go into the room because there was such a big difference and we were so far apart. I didn’t know it until they put their number in, but they put in $4.4MM and they were offering me $4.5MM or something like that, that was their highest offer, so it made sense for me to go into the room. Plus I believed that I was supposed to earn what I put in for.

“When I was as confident as I was in my case, it was worth every penny to go into the hearing. Say if I thought I was worth $5.35MM and they were coming in offering me $5.1MM, then you have to start weighing your options. If they are offering you $5.1MM and then they drop it down and put their number at $4.4MM, you have to weigh your options and say, ‘Hey, I don’t know if $200K is worth the chance of losing a million,’ but we were never close. We were never close. I had a chance to lose $100K from where they offered me because we never got within $800K or $900K.

“Inside the room, it’s not them truly trying to put you down. It’s a business thing. My side is business and their side is business. They are trying to get me for a certain price and I’m trying to get my salary to a certain price. It’s not necessarily them telling you how bad you are, they are just trying to present a case to where they believe you should earn X instead of Y. I knew that going in. It didn’t bother me at all. It’s just a process, the business side of it. A lot of people would say, ‘Man, I didn’t know I was that bad’ or ‘I can’t believe they would say that about me,’ but you better prepare yourself to hear it because they will say it. It’s not to demise your character or not to put you down in any way, it’s just for them to present a case to win their case, just like we’re presenting a case to say I’m a little better than I actually am.

“I talked to my agents and they’ve been in many cases before and they prepared me the best they could. They have booklets and stuff and I had a book real thick of comparisons and charts and stuff. My agents did a great job of going over everything. Anything and everything you could find it was documented.

“It’s a crapshoot. There’s no guarantee. You can present the best case you can and still get beat. I still have a great relationship with the front office of the Marlins to this day. You have to understand as a player, they aren’t trying to personally attack you. They are trying to get their payroll at a certain point and that’s one of the ways they are trying to do it. It’s the business side of baseball.”

A three-time All-Star with impressive career credentials, Haren figured he would someday hit free agency and cash in with a long-term and lucrative deal.

But Haren, a ten-year big league veteran who has been traded three times, became a free agent for the first time in his career this past offseason coming off a down year and injury concerns to his hip and back.

“I didn’t necessarily hit free agency at the high point of my career,” Haren admits. “I had a lot of good years that if I would have hit the free agency at any of those times I would have been paid extremely well, not that I’m not paid well, but it just so happened that I got a little banged up last year. I’ll just have to prove myself again this year.”

Haren, 32, posted a 4.33 ERA in 176 2/3 innings with the Angels last season, the highest ERA he’s had in any of his eight full seasons. But must of his struggles were due to lower back tightness that he pitched through before eventually landing on the disabled list for the first time in his career in July.

With teams scared due to the back injury and a hip issue that hasn’t bothered him but always shows up during physicals, Haren was forced to take a short-term deal and try his luck again in free agency next year.

The right-hander signed a one-year, $13MM deal with the Nationals in early December, choosing a chance to compete for a World Series over more lucrative offers from other teams.

“I understood,” Haren said of the medical concerns. “I think baseball, their physicals are a lot more thorough these days. I think there were some red flags about my hip issues that I’ve had since my days in Oakland but I’ve never missed a day because of it. I had some back problems, which a lot of people obviously have back problems but structurally everything is fine in my back. Really it was my hip which was a little bit frustrating just being that I had never missed any time because of it.

“I was on the disabled list for a little less than three weeks for my back but I came back and I finished off the season pretty well. I saw the way the market was going and I just wanted to come to a team that was going to give me the best chance to win.”

Haren has proven to be one of the most durable pitchers in recent years, ending a streak of seven straight seasons of at least 200 innings pitched when the short stint on the DL left him at 176 2/3 innings last year. He’s also proven to be one of the best pitchers in recent years, posting a career 3.66 ERA in nearly 1,900 innings since breaking into the big leagues with the Cardinals in 2003.

But it’s been an interesting career path for a pitcher of his caliber. The former second round draft pick of the Cardinals was traded to the Oakland Athletics in a deal for Mark Mulder after making 28 appearances for the Cardinals in 2003 and 2004.

Haren pitched three seasons in Oakland before he was traded again, this time to the Arizona Diamondbacks prior to the 2008 season. He signed a four-year, $44.75MM extension midway through his first season with Arizona but was traded to the Angels at the 2010 trade deadline.

With an option remaining on his contract with the Angels for 2013, Haren wasn’t sure what would happen this offseason. The Angels could have picked up the option to bring him back or released him and allowed him to become a free agent.

Then came news that he had been traded a fourth time, this time to the Chicago Cubs for reliever Carlos Marmol.  Or so he thought. The trade appeared to be all-but-done but fell through at the last minute.

“I thought it was happening,” said Haren, who was in communication throughout the day with Angels GM Jerry Dipoto. “We had been texting back and forth all day that day and he told me the deal is pretty much done but it’s not completed so you’re not traded yet, even though everyone was calling me and saying I had been traded and it was on the internet that I was traded.

“I was assuming that I was traded. My family was there and we were all prepared to be with Chicago. It kind of prepared me for free agency, the chance of being on the east coast or the Midwest.”

The Angels declined the $15.5MM option on Haren’s contract by the deadline after being unable to complete the deal or find another willing trade partner. Haren received a $3.5MM buyout and became a free agent.

He went nearly a month before signing, eventually deciding to join an already stacked Washington rotation for a one-year deal shortly before the Winter Meetings. 

“Part of it is me proving myself and part of it is coming to a team with one of the best chances to win a World Series,” Haren said. “Obviously their offer financially was competitive with other offers I was getting. That’s always a factor. If anyone tells you that money isn’t a factor, that’s a lie, but their offer was competitive with other teams and then it just gave me the best chance to succeed both personally and team wise.

“As the offseason went along and I was a free agent and taking a short term deal was going to happen, when taking a short term deal, you want to come to a team that is set to win that year and I think the Nationals give me the best chance. To be surrounded by a good rotation, a great bullpen, this lineup and what they did last year, it was kind of a no brainer. It just made sense for me to come here.

“Probably if I waited a little while longer I probably could have gotten another year or two (from another team) but when the Nationals showed interest I was just kind of content coming here for a year and seeing what I could do and seeing how far this team can go.”

And if he proves to be healthy, Haren just might finally get the chance he's waited for next winter.

On how he first came in contact with representatives from ACES…

“I guess just like any other agent, they have guys in the agency that come out and scout some of these tournaments and stuff and try to set up interviews with players to have them, I guess you can’t have an agent before the draft but an advisor, and I remember I just clicked with the guys from ACES and in particular Keith Miller. I remember he came down and watched a couple of my high school games and we hung out and talked and obviously I had quite a bit of respect because I knew who Keith Miller was, he was a former player, a former Met, and it opened up my eyes that this guy played, he knows what it’s about. 

“Then he sat with my family and I at home and he showed us some arbitration briefings and just how much work they put into free agency and what they do for their players during arbitration and stuff and that obviously opened my eyes and being fans of some of the players they represented, it seemed like they were a big enough company where they could throw their weight around and people knew them and respected them but at the same time, they were small enough where you got a lot of individual attention and they’ve lived up to that and more.”

On when Sam and Seth Levinson came into the picture…

“It was after I got to know Keith quite a bit, I had kind of narrowed my choices and agents down and that’s when Sam and Seth got involved and like I said, just the work ethic, it was something that attracted me to them. Just hearing them talk for the first time. It wasn’t so much a sales pitch. They were going over what they do for players as far as marketing, endorsements, obviously contract stuff. I was just really impressed with not only their body of work but also just their enthusiasm for what they do. It just seemed like they are very loyal and enthusiastic for representing baseball players and kind of drew me to them.

On staying with ACES despite the PED rumors and links to them last fall…

“I think for me I wanted to hear it from Sam and Seth’s mouth exactly what was going on before I even talked to the union or anybody else. I called those guys up and asked them point blank what was going on and they’ve always been open and honest to me. It’s easy to make assumptions or believe everything you read in the paper but I’ve known these guys for 12-13 years now and the only thing I can go on is the track record for how they’ve treated me and what they’ve done for me and there’s been no complaints on my end and no blemishes on their end. I’m very appreciative of everything they’ve done for me and I think they’ve done a terrific job.

On how they’ve been compared to what he hoped they would be when he signed…

“That and more. I never would have thought that when I was talking to Keith Miller back home in Chesapeake, Virginia, that I would get a chance to participate in six All-Star Games and go from start to finish of my career with one team. I never would have thought that. They have far exceeded the expectations that I had. It’s tough, you’d like to think that when you are 18 years old that you’re going to become an All-Star and be able to sign a nice deal but realistically I always tried to be more realistic than that. They have done a terrific job for me and I’m thrilled.”

In the arbitration case involving catcher Jeff Mathis and Angels in 2010, a difference of $600K was decided in large part because of one simple stat: games started.

Mathis and the Angels couldn’t agree to a contract for 2010, leaving them no choice but to go to arbitration. The club filed at $700K while Mathis countered with a request of $1.3MM.

“If there was any chance to work it out for us to get what we thought was fair, we would have done it,” Mathis said. “We wouldn’t have chanced to go in there and go through all of that.

“It’s not something that any player wants to go through or deal with. It’s a rough process, especially if you go all the way to the hearing like I did. There’s stuff that goes on in that room that I wouldn’t suggest anybody experience or be a part of. … You don’t want to be a part of anything like that.”

The case turned out to be one of the more fascinating arbitration hearings in recent memory. The Angels centered their case around Mathis’ poor offensive numbers. They pointed out that his career .200 batting average was among the worst in arbitration case history. His on-base percentage, slugging percentage and strikeout totals weren’t much better.

“They were really centered in on what the offensive numbers were,” said Mathis’ longtime agent BB Abbott. “That was their entire case, what Jeff had done offensively for the team.”

Because the numbers were poor, it was an easy and obvious area for the Angels to focus on. It seemed like the team had a good argument. And Abbott acknowledged this, saying in his case in chief that Mathis wasn’t someone who would usually impact a game with his bat.

But Abbott and his group found an area where Mathis did impact the game: defense became the focus of their case. A former catcher himself, Angels manager Mike Scioscia put heavy emphasis on the defensive side of catching. Mathis certainly fit that bill.

Mike Napoli received much of the attention in Anaheim because his offensive numbers were much better. He was seen by most as the starting catcher and Mathis was looked at as the backup. And that’s what the Angels argued.

The only problem with this analysis was that Mathis had started more games behind the plate the previous two seasons than Napoli. Mathis started 168 games at catcher during the 2008 and 2009 seasons while Napoli started 155.

“Because of Mike Scioscia and how he handles his catching tandem, they really had a couple of different starting catchers,” Abbott said. “That’s just a very rare thing. Because of Mike Napoli’s numbers and the offensive output that he had, it would be easy to slap that label as a starting catcher on him. Usually in those situations you have a starting catcher and a backup catcher.

“In Jeff’s case, the whole central theme of our case was that they had two starting catchers. They were co-starting catchers. Jeff had caught just as many games, in fact he caught more games than Mike over a two-year period. To put this guy into the salary structure of a backup catcher, in our eyes wasn’t appropriate. In the team’s eyes it was.”

To help prove their case, Abbott and his group used 12 quotes from Scioscia and other front office personnel to show how much weight the club put on a catcher and his defense. They also used a three-year comparable prior to their first time eligible arbitration years to show that Mathis had more starts behind the plate during that time.

The three arbitrators reviewing the case were Elliott Shiftman, Steven Wolf and Margaret Brogan. They took 24 hours to deliberate before deciding in Mathis’ favor, awarding him his number of $1.3MM.

“There were absolutely no hard feelings on either side,” Abbott said. “Jeff knew what was going to be presented in front of him, he was very well prepared. He knew exactly what the team's case was going to be and, like I said, the only thing we made and ultimately what won it for us was that, listen, we understand that he’s going to be at the bottom of the starting catcher salary structure but he should be in that salary structure and not at the bottom of the backup catchers' salary structure. Ultimately the arbitration panel agreed.”

The case was a big one for Mathis because of the future implications it could have had on his earnings. A player’s salary in his first year of arbitration can set the pay scale for the years to come.

“The arbitration panel is going to pick one or the other, so Jeff would have been coming off of either $700K or $1.3MM the next year,” Abbott said. “A win or loss in arbitration can continue to follow you. He was coming off $1.3MM and Jeff went to $1.7MM. If he comes off $700K, he’s going into the low $1MM figures.

“It’s either the gift that keeps on giving or the gift that keeps on taking away so that’s why going to arbitration your first year is a very tough decision and a very tough proposition because the salaries that come in subsequent years could be based on what that award is or that first year salary is and that’s something you have to consider when you are considering whether or not to take a case to a hearing.”

Mathis, now with the Marlins, broke his collarbone in the spring opener Saturday after a foul tip from Matt Holliday fractured his right clavicle. He could be out for as much as six weeks.

But reflecting back on the arbitration process and hearing, Mathis said, “When you first sign up to play this game you don’t ever think of that part of professional baseball and the more years you get into it and the stuff that starts happening with arbitration and free agency and all that. You really get to understand the business side of it.

“It stinks. It’s not something that you want to do or hear or hear from anybody else. It’s part of the game and baseball and the business side and you just deal with.”

It was probably much easier for Mathis to deal with it since he won.

Kyle Lohse reflected on past arbitration hearings in the debut instalment of this series.

After all, it helped land him a contract to keep playing.

The 35-year-old Pierre signed a one-year, $1.6MM contract to return to the Marlins despite the belief that many free agents wouldn’t want to sign in Miami after they debuted a new stadium and high hopes for 2012 and then quickly dumped several high-priced players at the first sign of trouble.

“To me it was a no-brainer,” Pierre told a group of reporters at Marlins camp about signing with the Marlins. “I’ve been the underdog my whole career. This type of stuff isn’t bad. I know the media and the fans are upset with what’s gone on, but we had nothing to do with it.

“I’m probably here because they did do the trade. Honestly, a lot of other guys are here because of the trade. So, all you can do is make the best out of it.”

Pierre played three seasons with the Marlins from 2003-2005, playing a key role on their World Championship winning team in 2003. He stole 65 bases in 2003, which remains a club record, and in 2004 set the franchise record with 221 hits.

He returns to the Marlins for his 14th big league season after hitting .307/.351/.371 in 439 plate appearances for the 2012 Phillies. The left-handed hitter broke into the Major Leagues with the Rockies in 2000 and has also played for the Cubs, Dodgers and White Sox.

Pierre has seen plenty during his career but not even he could have predicted the path the Marlins took just months after a spending spree and the promise of huge things in Miami.

But he doesn’t see a big problem with it.

“People don’t understand the business side of baseball,” Pierre said. “I don’t even get all of it. That’s the part of the game I don’t even touch. I know it’s tough for the fans because you do grow attached to a player or grow excited, and then they trade them away for business purposes and bring in another guy. Fans don’t want to hear that.

“These guys that own teams are businessmen first. You don’t get to own teams being dumb businessmen. I know fans don’t want to hear that. Sometimes baseball players don’t want to hear it when you get attached to a city.”

The Marlins signed veteran infielder Placido Polanco to a one-year deal in late December and gave utility man Chone Figgins a chance to win a roster spot with a minor league deal and an invite to big league Spring Training shortly before camp opened.

Their roster is filled with an interesting mix of veterans looking to extend their careers and youngsters looking to break in and make a name for themselves. As Pierre sees it, it’s the perfect combination.

“If you’re a young guy or a guy on the fringe or whatever, this is where you want to be,” Pierre said. “I call it the land of opportunity right now. If you play well, the Marlins will have you in the big leagues, or they’ll get you to somewhere you can go play.

“Most of the guys in our 30s, we’re still hungry because we know pretty much we’re a year from not having a job. It’s a lot of our guys’ last go-round as far as being Major League guys, so we’re as hungry as ever.

“These young whippersnappers, they ought to be excited to be in a big league camp with a chance to make a Major League roster. So, I think you get all that hungriness together, it can pan out for a good season.”

But that problem with the fans remains. Most feel betrayed by the Marlins ownership group and attendance doesn’t figure to be very good. At least at first. “Our job as players is to go out and play hard,” Pierre said.

“The front office, for whatever reason, whatever they did, that’s something they’re going to have to mend. I know how it goes in Florida. You win and you win in consistent fashion and the fans are going to come out.

“All we can control is how we go about our business on the field every day and, hopefully if the fans get around guys, especially young guys who are going out and busting their butts every day, hopefully we get some wins and the fans will come around.”

The sexy pick by some to win the World Series a year ago, the Marlins went out and posted a 69-93 record in the regular season. With a depleted roster and first-year manager in Mike Redmond, nobody will be picking them to win much of anything in 2013.

There’s not much to look forward to this year in Miami. But happy and thankful to still be playing, Pierre has the perfect formula to turn things around.

“I live here, I know the buzz,” Pierre said. “With the new park, you get to winning, you get the momentum going, fans will come out. Winning heals all wounds.”

Here is what Holliday had to say about Boras:

"I signed with Scott Boras after my first year in the big leagues in 2004. My brother had him as an agent so I was familiar with him and interviewed him when I interviewed a bunch of agents while trying to decide after the 2004 season.

I went to California to meet with Scott and Mike Fiore (works for Boras) and Steve Odgers (a training guru employed by Boras) and some of their people and saw their facility and I just felt like to me, in doing the research and looking into all of the possible agents, I felt like it was a good fit. I felt like they did a fantastic job. They had research capabilities and staff and they had an institution in California for working out and longevity of careers and it just felt like they had all of their bases covered. Scott had a lot of experience as a player and obviously his resume as an agent spoke for itself and the players he’s had.

You want an agent that you can trust that they know what they are doing. I think for me, he’s somebody that has your best interest in negotiating your contract and he also has people on staff that can help you with your game and not just your contract. They offered a lot of services outside of here. They have a psychologist on staff, people who are doing research for arbitration cases years in advance. They have a research team, a marketing team, a sports nutrition team. I just felt it wasn’t just about negotiating your contract. They offered a lot more.

Also the personal relationship with somebody that you enjoy sitting down and talking to them. Scott is as accessible as you want him to be. I could call him right now. He’s got a lot of clients and people say they don’t hear from Scott but he’ll give you as much or as little attention as you want. I’m not a high maintenance guy, I don’t need to talk to him a lot, but if I need anything, I can call him anytime. I talk to Mike Fiore once a week, but like I said, Scott is as accessible as you want him to be.

I see him from time to time. Whenever we play in L.A. I’ll have lunch or dinner with him. If I wanted him to come to St. Louis he’d come anytime I want. It’s just one of those things where again, I don’t need a lot of maintenance.

Scott has been better than I hoped he would be. I’ve really enjoyed it, not only what he’s offered me as an agent but just getting to know him as a person and the father and husband that he is and all the wisdom that he has that I’ve enjoyed from not just baseball but all walks of life.

I laugh a lot of times when people have opinions of Scott. They couldn’t be further from the truth, the majority of them. I enjoy spending time with him and I think he’s really fun to be around and really good at what he does. I don’t have a negative thing to say about him."

As Lohse remains on the free agent market despite spring training games starting later this week, MLB Trade Rumors spoke with the right-hander about his two arbitration cases with the Minnesota Twins in 2005 and 2006 for the first of our six-week series looking back at arbitration hearings from the player's point of view.

The dynamic of an arbitration hearing is fascinating. On one side of the long table sits the general manager, his staff, representatives from Major League Baseball, and a lawyer. On the other side sits the player, his agent, members of their staff and folks from the Players Association.

At the end of the long table sits the three arbitrators. During Lohse’s first hearing in 2005, the arbitrators were Christine Knowlton, Robert Bailey and Elliott Shriftman.

“I’ve never been in a court case but it feels like that,” Lohse said. “They talk about how bad you are and why you deserve their number and everything that’s wrong with you and then your team has equal amount of time to pump you up and say everything good about you. You’re sitting there, ‘Man I stink’, and then, ‘I’m the greatest ever.’”

Coming off a season in which he went 9-13 with a 5.34 ERA in 35 games, Lohse filed at $2.4MM for 2005 season. The Twins countered at $2.15MM, a difference of $250K.  When the two sides weren’t able to reach an agreement somewhere in the middle, they had no choice but to go to the hearing.

As most do during a player’s first year of arbitration, agent Scott Boras used Lohse’s career production up to that point in his argument. The right-hander was 40-39 with a 4.86 ERA but won 13 games in 2002 and 14 games in 2003.

The Twins instead focused on his down 2004 season, which included giving up 240 hits and 28 home runs in 194 innings.  He also had a 1.63 WHIP.

“It’s not a pleasant thing,” Lohse said. “It’s hard to sit there and listen to the lawyer say how bad you are when the GM is sitting right there and you feel like he fed them the info to talk about how bad you are yet they still want you.

“It can get almost a little personal in there at times. I think it kind of helped me because they tried to get a little personal and they weren’t going off facts and it kind of hurt their case during one of my hearings.”

Each side has an hour to present their initial case before time is given for rebuttals and even surrebuttals. Case in chief books are exchanged before the start and some will even send representatives out of the room to spend the two hours examining the document and working on their rebuttal presentations in advance.

Multiple people usually speak for both sides, but rarely do the general managers speak. In Lohse’s case, Twins GM Terry Ryan didn’t say a word. Instead, the club’s lawyer did much of the talking. Boras handled much of the talking himself on Lohse’s behalf.

Both sides use charts and diagrams to try and help prove their case.

“It’s quite a bit of stuff,” Lohse said.  “They bring in charts and are handing papers out. You’re sitting there thinking, ‘Really? Why do you guys want to keep me?’ It’s a tough thing to sit through and its part of the business. That really kind of opened my eyes up to the business side of it really.”

Lohse said the basis of any arbitration case is to find similar players with similar stats and try to compare your case to them.

“It’s all about comparables,” Lohse said. “If you can find a comparable that gets you over that midpoint, that’s where you try and pin your case to as a player and they are doing the same thing, trying to pin me to the lowest comparable they can to bring my worth down.

“It’s all about finding the numbers, whether it’s a starting pitcher, innings pitched, starts, stuff like that is real important. The first time coming through arbitration, it’s not based on your previous year really, it's based on your body of work and you just look at what you did and the numbers you have and you focus on that.”

Lohse was notified 24 hours after the hearing that he had won and his salary went from $395K in 2004 to the $2.4MM he requested for 2005.

But despite the uneasiness in the room and Lohse’s distaste for the process, the two sides were unable to come to an agreement the following year and were forced to go to another hearing.

This time Lohse requested $3.95MM while the club countered with $3.4MM. And again, Lohse won.

“It’s not a pleasant thing and that’s why you see so many people settling at or around the midpoint because it’s not something you want to go through,” Lohse said. “But in my case, neither time we could get to the midpoint and both cases I won so that basically proves I was worth the midpoint or above.

“The second time it was over such a small amount of money, it was tough to believe that we were really doing it again. You’re sitting there looking at it thinking, ‘They aren’t going to come up to there?’ They were sticking to their number and weren’t coming up so there was nothing to lose, and sometimes that’s the way it goes.”

General managers usually reach out to the players in the days following the hearing to ensure no hard feelings are left. The lines are always the same, and predictable.

“Oh yeah, definitely,” Lohse said. “They have all the quotes where it’s just a business and it doesn’t mean they didn’t want us and all that. That’s where you see the business side of it and it is part of a business and you have to deal with it and move on. “

MLB Trade Rumors will look at Marlins catcher Jeff Mathis and his 2010 arbitration case with the Anaheim Angels in next week’s installment.