Kendall Graveman has lost his arbitration case against the Athletics, Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports reports via Twitter. Though he filed for $2.6MM in his first trip through the arb process (which incidentally also happened to be what MLBTR’s arbitration model projected for him), he’ll instead make the $2.3MM salary that Oakland filed for.
The 27-year-old ground ball artist came to Oakland as one of the pieces in the trade that sent Josh Donaldson to the Blue Jays. He’s owns a career ERA of 4.11 across 411 2/3 major league innings spanning 71 starts with Oakland and five relief appearances for Toronto. His lifetime record stands at 22-24.
Likely working against Graveman in the arbitration process is his lack of strikeouts. The righty’s K/9 over the past three seasons with the A’s stands at a paltry 5.64, a figure that ranks fourth-worst in baseball among qualified pitchers during that time span. Of course, he made up for that somewhat by posting a 51.3% ground ball rate that falls within MLB’s top 20. But arbitration panels don’t take that into account the way they do strikeouts.
Graveman’s case was Oakland’s only one to go to trial. Now that it’s been settled, the team’s arbitration salaries are all fully resolved for the 2018 season.
Kinda deserves the 2.6 though. Had a decent year. Not great but not horrible
A grave defeat it was…
+1
Do we actually know that his filing at the same figure that MLBTR projected for him and that his didn’t file at that figure based on MLBTR picking it?
I am an A’s fan. Seems petty by management.
But as his first trip through arbitration it could stand to cost the A’s millions over the next few years. I’m an a’s fan too, I’m happy cause it means we’ll probably keep him longer
Possibly, I guess I am thinking with too much emotion for an A’s fan. I guess my thinking is that we have enough trouble getting people to want to come play for us. Going through the BS of the arbitration process for 300k when our team has a good amount of budget flexibility seems a little cheap. That stated, Graveman will be fine making $2.3m to play a game.
“ . . . Graveman will be fine making $2.3m to play a game.”
Similarly, A’s ownership would have been just fine making $300K less profit on their passive investment. None of these people are starving, but that’s hardly the point here.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could take our bosses to arbitration for a raise? Most of us working people would get raises that is why in the real world we don’t get that type of a luxury.
“ . . . we don’t get that type of luxury.”
Psst. MLB salary arbitration isn’t a luxury, it’s a bargained for benefit. The fact that your skills aren’t sufficient for you to demand that your pay be subject to arbitration is no reason to resent those whose skill level is sufficient.
And who is this “we” and “us” of whom you speak—have you been authorized to speak on behalf of some group or do you have a mouse in your pocket?
Snarky
No prospective free agents are going to care about Kendall Graveman losing arbitration over 300k.
Agree, especially since our payroll is lingering in mediocre territory (if it were 1984)…guess they are not sold on him, but need him, because a player you want sticking long-term you do not treat like that.
They needed a win. Baseball is defeating the A’s.