The Tigers announced that they’ve agreed to a one-year deal with shortstop Jose Iglesias for the 2018 season, thus avoiding arbitration. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, though Anthony Fenech of the Detroit Free Press reports that Iglesias will earn $6.275MM on the deal (Twitter link). That rather handily tops the $5.6MM projected arbitration salary from MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz. Iglesias is represented by Magnus Sports.
Iglesias, 28, is entering his final year of team control and will be a free agent next winter. He’s coming off his worst season at the plate, having batted just .255/.288/.369 as Detroit’s primary shortstop in 2017. That continued a troubling trend for Iglesias at the plate; the defensive standout batted .302/.348/.377 from 2013-15 (he missed the 2014 season due to injury), but has seen his bat deteriorate considerably since Opening Day 2016. Since that time, he’s logged a combined .255/.297/.353 slash.
As can be seen in MLBTR’s 2018 Arbitration Tracker, Iglesias had filed for a $6.8MM salary, while the Tigers countered at $5.6MM. The two sides, then, settled just north of the $6.2MM midpoint. With Iglesias’ case resolved, the Tigers will avoid an arbitration hearing entirely in 2018, as they’ve now come to terms with all of their eligible players.
This is the best news of the year. Bat Iglesias fourth and let him live with Garden and his hired wife in their trailer in right field. Ron has big plans for planting and for providing new opportunities for players short on experience like Jose. Another coy example of the new garden hire.
What the heck?
Yeah. That was weird.
Put a bad bat in the clean up spot and hide a really good shortstop defender in right field.
I think he’s advocating tanking.
650 ops since 2016, ouch
Ouch, baby, very ouch!
Shazam
DFA candidate getting $6 million plus.
Hopefully he has a good offensive year around midway and we trade him. I love his defense and energy but we need more than that. Get us some more young talent.
MLBTR arbitration formula is broken. I say that with all the respect in the world but I don’t think it’s properly accounted for inflation.