Free agents are often well-paid and extensions provide arbitration eligible players with security, but going year to year can be lucrative, too. Many players have already doubled or tripled their 2010 salaries through arbitration and some of the 14 unsigned arbitration eligible players are set to do the same this month, as our Arb Tracker shows.
These are the ten arbitration eligible players who will earn the most on one-year deals in 2011 (not counting players like Dan Uggla, Joey Votto and Wandy Rodriguez, who agreed to extensions):
- Prince Fielder – $15.5MM
- Jonathan Papelbon – $12MM
- Heath Bell – $7.5MM
- Matt Capps – $7.15MM
- C.J. Wilson – $7.05MM
- Ryan Ludwick – $6.78MM
- Cody Ross – $6.3MM
- Chad Billingsley – $6.28MM
- Josh Willingham – $6MM
- John Danks – $6MM
Three players (Josh Hamilton, Jose Bautista and Jered Weaver) will definitely crack the top ten if they agree to one-year deals and six others (Rickie Weeks, Hunter Pence, Luke Scott, Jeremy Guthrie, Kelly Johnson and Delmon Young) could make the list if they settle for enough money or win their case in a hearing.
Every time I see Capps’ salary I have to resist the urge to let out a Shatner/Khan-esque cry of:
“SMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITH!!!!”
Wow Ludwick certainly got a lot of money for not doing all that much
All of his production was with the Cardinals. One great year did get him a rather large salary. He is barely a plus WAR guy. That should make him worth about 3 Mil … at most. He really sucked for the Friars. I guess one All-star appearance and a Silver Slugger is worth an additional 4 mil, even if it was three years ago.
Wouldn’t Cano qualifiy in that category?
I believe Cano was extended a few years back.
I wonder if Papelbon is still going to attempt to become the highest paid closer ever. He’s in a tough situation. Next offseason is rich with solid closers. His only shot at becoming the highest paid closer ever is by Heath Bell and Joe Nathan stay put with team friendly type deals. Even still, Capps, Cordero, Broxton, and maybe K-Rod. That’s a very rich free agent class for closers. Paps won’t get his big payday from Boston, since they have Bard and Jenks there when he hits free agency. It’ll be interesting to see what happens within the coming months. Overall, he needs to have a dominating season and hope the market for closers shapes up to where most of the guys stay put with their former teams. Even then, it will be a stretch to land him the biggest contract ever for a closer.
pap won’t set any records, but he’ll have no problems feeding his family.
I’d think Marmol should be on this list, or, more accurately, he should be on the “still to settle but will be in the top ten” section.