Next in our arbitration eligibles series, the Diamondbacks.
- First time: None
- Second time: Joe Saunders, Stephen Drew, Miguel Montero, D.J. Carrasco, Blaine Boyer
- Third time: Kelly Johnson, Ryan Church
- Fourth time: Augie Ojeda
The Diamondbacks will be spending significant money on arbitration raises for 2011. Saunders, Drew, Montero, and Johnson are locks to be tendered contracts. They're all coming off respectable seasons, though Saunders led MLB with 17 losses and Montero's season was shortened by knee surgery. Having made $3.7MM in his first arbitration year, Saunders is operating from a high base salary and could land around $5.5MM. Drew should manage a similar salary. Johnson, with close to six years service time, could attempt to draw a comparison to Orlando Hudson, who signed for $5MM last winter.
Carrasco pitched decently since coming over via trade from the Pirates. Given the state of their bullpen I expect him to be tendered a contract, although the White Sox did cut him loose last year coming off a good season. He has a $950K base salary. Boyer's best traits are throwing hard and getting groundballs, but he could be non-tendered. He was designated for assignment in May by former GM Josh Byrnes.
Church turned around his season after coming to Arizona, but I have to think they non-tender him rather than pay him around $1.5MM in 2011. Ojeda is not an expensive player, but his ugly offensive stats may get him cut too.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens with KJ. His salary last year was just $2.35MM, so while his play does merit a raise to $5MM, that’s also over a 100% jump. And ’09 was so bad for him (BABIP can be cruel…).
Yes…not sure what approach KJ’s agent will take. He can ignore the raise concept entirely and just explain how KJ is worth whatever amount. Could be risky though.
This is true, but then how much do you ask for – his fair market value is so far above even that $5MM number. Do they try to argue for a percentage of his fair market value? And if so, how do you keep that from being totally arbitrary?
It just seems like if there was any chance of this ever working, it would have been done by now, right? After all, players are routinely ripped-off through the arbitration process. It also seems like an awfully slippery slope to start traversing on with the basic foundations of the arbitration process for the sake of one strange case.
Something tells me that avoiding the arbitration process altogether could be the best decision for all involved – it’s the odd cases that can become the ugly cases. Can we bring back JByrnes and his arbitration phobia as GM for a day?
We’re already paying him through 2015… (/cue depression)
Oh it’s definitely been done by now. I am still learning a lot about the history of arbitration over the last 10-15 years or so. It wouldn’t be traversing the foundation of the arb process to take a guy 45 days short of free agency and draw comparisons to guys who signed FA deals. It’s within the rules.
Good to know – clearly, the arb process is a little ahead of me at the moment. The scary thing though is that from there you can argue that KJ was nearly twice as valuable as O-Dog last year (if KJ’s 6.0 FanGraphs’ WAR and Hudson’s 3.1 FanGraphs’ WAR are to be trusted). So if you translate that literally to salary, you’re talking about historic third-arb-year raises.
You and I can argue that…but I don’t think WAR would be used by either side in an arb hearing.
I thought Saunders was 3rd year..
Crap – NM – you are right -Saunders is 2nd year.
I like Drew and Montero. Keep Saunders if you want, but he doesn’t do anything for me. Everyone else can be nontendered.
Carrasco and Kelly Johnson? Carrasco has had three straight seasons with OPS+ numbers over 110. And KJ was worth 6.0 freaking FanGraphs’ WAR last year!
Sorry, meant to include Johnson in my like list.
Here we go- Keep; Drew, Montero, Carasco, Johnson. Saunders ( I guess)
Let Boyer, Ojeda and Church go.
GO DBACKS! cant wait till next year!