Diamondbacks closer Archie Bradley won his arbitration hearing against the team, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reports (via Twitter). He’ll earn the $4.1MM salary figure submitted by his representatives at the BBI Sports Group rather than the $3.625MM sum proposed by the D-backs. That’s a $2.27MM raise over last season’s $1.83MM salary. Bradley will be eligible for arbitration for the final time next winter before becoming a free agent in the 2021-22 offseason.
The 27-year-old Bradley, the No. 7 overall draft pick back in 2011, never quite panned out as a starter but has found his groove in a relief role. The righty has gradually been entrusted with increasing amounts of high-leverage innings and eventually supplanted Opening Day closer Greg Holland as Arizona’s top ninth-inning option in 2019. Overall, he pitched to a 3.52 ERA with 18 saves, 10.9 K/9, 4.5 BB/9, 0.63 HR/9 and a 45.2 percent ground-ball rate. He’s the clear favorite for save opportunities heading into the 2020 season.
Since moving to the bullpen full time in 2017, Bradley has helped to anchor the Arizona bullpen with a 2.95 ERA (3.24 FIP) and 10 strikeouts per nine inning pitched over the course of 216 1/3 innings. He’s appeared in at least 63 games and pitched at least 71 2/3 innings in each of those three seasons. As it stands, he’s slated to hit the open market in advance of his age-29 campaign, so if he continues on his current trajectory without incurring a significant injury, his age should put him in position for a relatively handsome payday.
With Bradley’s victory and this morning’s last-minute settlement by Phillies closer Hector Neris ($4.6MM with a 2021 club option), all of this year’s arbitration cases have now been resolved. Teams rushed out to an early 4-0 lead over the players but ultimately wound up at a more balanced 7-5 when all was said and done. Now that all of this year’s cases are in the books, you can see the full slate of pre-trial agreements, extensions and hearing outcomes in MLBTR’s 2020 Arbitration Tracker.
Is it just me or is Bradley a very much over-rated relief pitcher. One good year a couple of years ago and then very mediocre since … if not for the beard, he’s pretty average.
AJ Pollock burner detected
No. $4.1 million for a stable closer is worth the money. Nobody is calling him elite.
statman, no Bradley is not overrated, if anything he is overlooked. Yes, he had a great statistical year 3 years ago, but has since moved from low-leverage middle reliever to high-pressure closer. Yes his stats are not as good as that great year, but they are still very good. I think the fairest thing to say about Archie is that he takes a year to adjust to new roles, then fairly dramatically improves the following year. He is a much more mature back end of the bullpen arm than he was 2 years ago. As Dbacks fans, we were very nervous every outing fearing he would implode. But he grinds through to improvement year to year. We have a lot more confidence in Archie as a closer coming into this year, in fact we have high expectations for him.
I am not too confident. He was bad at the beginning of last season, than very nicely fought himself back into high leverage innings again, but just allows too many batters to reach base to be a trustful closer. But then again, we haven’t had a trustful closers for quite some years now. We’ll see if Archie sticks in the closer role.
He deserves it.
I understand that one of the conditions of their agreement is he shaves his stupid £#€king beard.
Sure seems like a lot more cases than normal have gone to arbitration this year — is that true?
Teams are now using “file and trial” . Considering the fact they were less than 500 thousand apart, seems silly not to meet in the middle.
Archie DEXTER Bradley?
Is he still in the robbery game?
Or in the forensics game?
Hi I heard that he was some kind of a lumberjack.
SMH @ that ending.
Good for Archie! I hope he is the elite version for the rest of his deal and he’ll be more than worth it.