Players Avoiding Arbitration: Wednesday

We’ll keep track of the day’s smaller arbitration deals in this post, with all projections mentioned referring to those of MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz. Here’s the latest…

• Kristie Rieken of the Associated Press tweets that the Astros have avoided arbitration with Chris Carter, settling on a one-year, $4.175MM pact. Carter, 28, cut back on his strikeout rate to an extent in 2014 (it still checked in at 31.8 percent), but the real improvement came in terms of his power production. The slugger finished with 37 home runs, trailing only Nelson Cruz and tying him with Giancarlo Stanton for second in the Majors in long balls. His elite power served him well, as Swartz’s projection model had him ticketed for $3.5MM.
• In addition to avoiding arb with Drew Stubbs (link) and Tyler Chatwood (who inked a two-year deal), the Rockies have also avoided arb with right-hander Jordan Lyles, tweets Jon Heyman of CBS Sports. Lyles will earn a salary of $2.475MM in 2015, per Heyman. A client of Palmetto Sports Group, Lyles enjoyed a nice season with the Rockies that was shortened, to an extent, by a fractured broken left hand (his non-throwing hand). Still, the 24-year-old worked 126 1/3 innings, posting a career-best 4.33 ERA with 6.4 K/9, 3.3 BB/9 and an excellent 51.7 percent ground-ball rate. Lyles’ performance prior to the injury — 3.52 ERA, 3.76 xFIP — was markedly better than his post-injury performance, though the discrepancy between his post-injury ERA  (5.31) and xFIP (4.23) indicates that there could be further improvement. He had been projected to receive $2.5MM.
• The Yankees have announced a deal to avoid arbitration with righty Ivan Nova. He will earn $3.3MM, per a tweet from the New York Post’s Joel Sherman. That sum also matches Nova’s salary from 2014, unsurprisingly, as he missed most of the season due to Tommy John surgery after struggling out of the gate. Nova, who just turned 28, had a highly productive 2013 campaign (3.10 ERA in 139 1/3 frames). Though he posted significant innings totals in prior years, he had never put together a season like that in terms of both results and peripherals (3.47 FIP). All said, it was an easy call for New York to roll the dice on Nova’s rehabilitation.