Players Avoiding Arbitration: Tuesday

With more than 30 players still needing to settle arbitration situations (as of Tuesday morning, that is), word of agreements should continue to steadily pour in over the weeks. All of the outstanding situations — as well as those that have already been settled — can be monitored using MLBTR’s Arbitration Tracker. For today’s minor agreements, we’ll keep track of them in this post as well, with all projections coming courtesy of MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz…

• Miguel Gonzalez has agreed to a $3.275MM contract to avoid arbitration with the Orioles, Heyman tweets. That number lands just $50K over the sides’ filing mid-point, and less than $500K shy of the projected figure. Any way you cut it, it’s a handsome first-year arb-eligible payday for the 30-year-old righty, who took a circuitous path to establishing himself as a solid big league starter. As the arb tracker shows, Baltimore now needs to resolve just two cases: Zach Britton and Alejandro De Aza.

Earlier Updates

• Also avoiding arbitration with the Royals was outfielder Lorenzo Cain, who will earn $2.725MM next year, according to Jeffrey Flanagan of MLB.com (Twitter links). Cain can also earn $25K for reaching 505 plate appearances and would pick up $50K with an All-Star selection. Cain had a breakout season last year, putting up about five wins above replacement on the back of a .301/.339/.412 slash, 28 steals, and outstanding center field defense. He had filed at $3.6MM in his first year of arb eligibility, with the club countering at $2MM. MLBTR/Matt Swartz had projected Cain to earn $2.3MM, but he lands slightly above that — aided in part, no doubt, by his quality postseason work.
• The Royals and Mike Moustakas have agreed to a $2.64MM contract for the 2015 season, tweets Jon Heyman of CBS Sports. Moustakas, who had filed at $3.1MM compared to the team’s $1.85MM filing number, will come in a bit north of the $2.475MM midpoint between those figures. The 26-year-old Moustakas hit just .212/.271/.361 in 2015, though he did manage 15 homers and also tacked on five more in the postseason. His salary will fall just $60K shy of Swartz’s $2.7MM projection, though Heyman tweets that Moustakas can boost his salary a bit, as he’ll earn an extra $10K upon reaching 550 plate appearances.
• As the Arb Tracker shows, the Royals still have four remaining cases: Greg Holland, Eric Hosmer, Danny Duffy and Kelvin Herrera.