The Rangers avoided arbitration with outfielder Nelson Cruz, Andy Slater of 640-AM Sports in South Florida tweets (hat tip Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com via Twitter). Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News reported last night that the sides were nearing a two-year deal.
Cruz filed for $7.5MM in arbitration, while the Rangers countered with a $5.5MM offer. It's unclear whether they settled on a one-year deal or agreed to a multiyear contract. The sides had an arbitration hearing scheduled February 17th.
Cruz hit .263/.312/.509 with 29 home runs in the regular season before hitting eight postseason homers and being named the 2011 ALCS MVP. The 31-year-old ACES client is arbitration eligible for the second time after earning $3.65MM in 2011. A two-year deal would buy out both of his remaining arbitration seasons, but no free agent years. MLBTR's Tim Dierkes examined the cases for Cruz, Adam Jones and Alex Gordon yesterday.
This post was first published on February 9th, 2012.
I wonder how much dropping that ball in the World Series cost him?
He didn’t drop the ball, he never got to it. Thanks for starting off with the negative.
You do remember his throw that one the game and the amount of homers he hit in the playoffs, right?
still he was playing too shallow at that point. anyways, no complaints from me, glad to see an NL team win world series in that extraordinary fashion.