Red Sox left-hander Eduardo Rodriguez has lost his arbitration hearing against the team, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reports (Twitter link). Rodriguez will now receive an $8.3MM salary for the 2020 season, as opposed to his sought-after figure of $8.975MM.
Amidst an overall disappointing year for the Sox, Rodriguez was a major bright spot, delivering a performance that earned him a sixth-place finish in AL Cy Young Award voting. The southpaw posted a 3.81 ERA, 2.84 K/BB rate, 9.4 K/9, and 48.5% grounder rate in 2019, and perhaps the most important statistic for Rodriguez is that those numbers came over 203 1/3 innings. After multiple injury-plagued years, Rodriguez stayed healthy and became a workhorse out of Boston’s rotation, as only ten pitchers topped Rodriguez’s innings total last season.
Originally acquired for Andrew Miller in 2014 trade deadline deal, the man they call E-Rod has been a solid (if inconsistent) pitcher over his 699 career Major League innings, and the Red Sox now hope that he can match or surpass his 2019 numbers going forward. As a Super Two player, Rodriguez has a fourth year of arbitration eligibility remaining next season before hitting free agency after the 2021 season. There hadn’t been any extension talks between Rodriguez and the Red Sox as of last September, though it wouldn’t be surprising if new chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom and Rodriguez’s reps at Octagon have a few discussions this spring now that this hearing is out of the way (and now that the Sox have cleared a lot of future salary off their books by trading David Price to the Dodgers).
Dodgers reliever Pedro Baez remains the only player to emerge victorious in an arbitration hearing this year, as Rodriguez joins Jose Berrios, Shane Greene, Joc Pederson, and Tony Wolters in coming up on the down side of the arbiter’s decision. You can follow along with all of the arbitration results with the MLBTR Arbitration Tracker.
Curious as to why both parties didn’t settle over $700k which is peanuts in baseball context and arguably their #2.
It’s a long term strategy for both sides (both sides meaning teams and players). Remember, every number sets precedent so both sides have vested interest in getting their numbers.
That I get but we all know that for some players that the process is an unpleasant experience. If you understand that it’s just business and not personal, go for it.
Conspiracy anyone? Owners have I believe won every case this year despite the huge contracts some free agents just got. I realize the correlation is a bad comparison but the union can’t be happy.
One case for the players. Just seems like auto correct on a phone, mistakes and all. This is correcting last year.
Good now they can sign the Brockstar, bring him back to Boston!!
Bringing Brock but would be great news. Maybe it is in the works. Brock not signing anywhere else makes me think that is the case
I’ve been saying it for a while as have many others. My guess is by the weekend JBJ will be gone and Brock will be signed.
When does a player get all they want ? They are pronounced a loser in the headline of every article yet they all going in knowing they are not going to get every dime they are seeking
Why put Rodriguez through the arbitration process for the sake of $675K? Poor choice, just adding to the unrest in Boston.
Why not agree to the $8,300,000.00 that the team offered in the 1st place? I mean, really, that is a “pretty good” salary for 1 year.
because he is worth more than that? pretty simple reasoning, there.
@pinstripes – pretty clearly he wasnt… or at least, we KNOW he isn’t worth 8.975m because the arbiter heard and considered all the evidence presented before saying so.
You’re saying arbitrators are always right? I disagree. And I would say E-Rod is easily worth $8.9MM. He’s a VERY good pitcher.
One healthy year does not equate to automatically winning your case. I love what he did last season but looking at his body of work to date, he’s fortunate to have the deal he has. Having said that and another big year without injury and he sets himself up to being one of the most sought after pitchers if he gets to free agency. My guess is after the season ends the Sox will try to extend him. They just can’t now because the average salary will inch them closer to again exceeding the tax threshold.
This is sad for the Red Sox. E-Rod was the only pitching bright spot of last year and they couldn’t even give him a better raise.
As if a 6 million dollar raise isn’t good enough?
As if he is easily worth $8.9MM as a player. (He is.)
A “better raise”….
You mean more than the $4M Raise he got…
If you made $100,000 a year…you would have to work 40 years for just the amount of his raise. Or 83 years for this 1 years salary… He’ll be ok.
Why no “defeat” this time?
Real sad RedSox67, maybe you should know the facts before you comment, he made 4,325,000 last year, so I’d say asking for over double his 2019 salary was a stretch, he should be more than happy with 8, 300,000
“Asking for over double his 2019 salary”…Erod has a good season last year, so the ask feels more than appropriate. I expect he will vastly overproduce relative to his salary.
Also, the two were separated by only $675k, so I’m not sure what the point of your comment was.
It was to show RedSox67 the numbers he was missing when he stated the Red Sox should of given E-Rod a better raise, when he got almost double what he earned in 2019, do you get your salary increase 2 fold every year?? Probably not if you are so concerned about peoples meaningless comments on a sports site
They should have agreed to give him the full asking amount if he agreed to give some back if he had a bad year.
EROD should be very happy about this. GM Tal Smith years ago said, it becomes very contemptuous when a arbitration case goes to a hearing. He always said it was better if the team and player settled
EROD should be very happy about this. GM Tal Smith years ago said, it becomes very contemptuous when a arbitration case goes to a hearing. He always said it was better if the team and player settled
EROD should be very happy about this. GM Tal Smith years ago said, it becomes very contemptuous when a arbitration case goes to a hearing. He always said it was better if the team and player settled