The Red Sox and catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia have avoided arbitration by agreeing to terms on a one-year, non-guaranteed contract, the team announced. The deal is worth $2.5MM, tweets Scott Lauber of the Boston Herald.
Saltalamacchia, 27 in May, hit 16 homers and posted a .235/.288/.450 line in 386 plate-appearances for the Red Sox in 2011, his first full campaign in Boston. Once a highly touted prospect with the Braves, Salty has been something of a disappointment as a Major Leaguer, hitting .244/.307/.406 in nearly 1,300 career plate appearances over parts of five seasons, although catchers are known the develop late.
Matt Swartz of MLBTR projected Salty would earn $1.6MM in 2012 through arbitration, so the reported $2.5MM is favorable for the Munsey Sports Management client based on that projection.
Boston's remaining arbitration eligible players are Alfredo Aceves, Mike Aviles, Andrew Bailey, Daniel Bard, Jacoby Ellsbury, Franklin Morales and David Ortiz, according to Peter Abraham of the Boston Globe.
Salty needs to be more consistent offensively and raise his batting average this season
Yeah all he needs to do is make better contact, hit for more power, run faster, and play better defense.
Simple enough.
At least he’s not having problems throwing to the mound anymore.
Wasn’t really that bad on D. 16 HR is more than most starting catchers. Catchers arn’t fast and its not really something you can improve much on. So making better contact, pitch selection, and refining his D would be the things he really needs to work on.
Salty was within .5 WAR of guys like Soto, Ruiz, Martin, Suzuki, and Ramos in 100 fewer plate appearances (he was actually higher than Soto an Suzuki).
Yep.. He was not bad all in all. Threw pretty well after the 1st month of the season once runners figured out he was going to get the ball to 2nd base and in a hurry.
how about 500 thousand for every letter in his last name
Start planning the parade!
/every red sox fan last year with minor yankee signings
Salty is not without his flaws but I like his chances of building on his progress.
salty’s d is very good but raiseing his avg and he could be the redsox catcher for a long time
What makes this non guaranteed? It’s obviously not a split contract.
Arbitration contracts by default are not guaranteed. This includes any cases that end in hearings (win or loss). Some teams will guarantee arbitration contracts but it has to be a negotiating point.
For most players it won’t matter as the contract essentially becomes guaranteed after the player makes the team out of spring training. If a player on a non-guaranteed arbitration contract is cut in spring training, he’s given at least 1/6 of the contract in severance pay (and this fraction increases the closer it gets to Opening Day).
Wow, $2.5 mil for SALTY? Well, that’s $2.5 mil less the Sawx have to spend on GOOD players, so I like it!
Typo alert: “catchers are known the develop late”? Switch “the” for “to.”
A possible 500% raise for Ellsbury, yet there’s never a drop in salary if a player doesn’t do squat. And the owners are great businessmen?