The Twins have won their arbitration hearing against right-hander Jose Berrios, tweets MLB Network’s Jon Heyman. He’d filed for a $4.4MM salary but will now be paid at the $4.025MM figure submitted by Minnesota.
Berrios, 25, just wrapped up his first 200-inning season and turned in his third consecutive sub-4.00 ERA season, working to a career-best 3.68 ERA with 8.8 K/9, 2.3 BB/9 and 1.2 HR/9. The former No. 32 overall pick has emerged as Minnesota’s most effective starter since cementing himself as a big league regular, pitching to a combined 3.80 ERA with a strikeout per frame through 538 1/3 innings and earning a pair of All-Star bids along the way.
Berrios’ relatively affordable salary for the upcoming season only serves to underscore the difficulty that first-time-arbitration-eligible starters have had in moving the needle forward. Dallas Keuchel is still the only first-time-eligible starting pitcher to topple the $4.35MM benchmark set by Dontrelle Willis way back in 2006, and it took Keuchel winning a Cy Young Award to do so. Others starters who have been in position to best that mark (e.g. Clayton Kershaw, Tim Lincecum, Aaron Nola) have instead opted for multi-year deals.
That there’s only one example of a pitcher besting Willis’ mark — and that it took extraordinary circumstances — emphatically drives home the reason that teams are willing to go to hearings over what appear to be such trivial sums. The Twins, like other clubs that have drawn a hard line in comparable situations, surely care less about immediate cost savings than they do about preserving the standards that allow arbitration salaries to remain so manageable.
If the Twins (and every other club) simply conceded and met the player in the middle, those contractual agreements would be used as data points in future arbitration negotiations. Were it not for teams continually drawing a hard line, the Twins and Berrios would’ve been arguing over figures much greater than the ones discussed in today’s hearing. That’s not to suggest that teams are in the right or wrong to take such firm stances — even against their best players — but rather to point out that their motivation for doing so is rather obvious when considering the full breadth of the arbitration mechanism.
As for Berrios, he doesn’t hold any hard feelings toward the Twins organization, Darren Wolfson of SKOR North Radio tweets. Berrios has made it clear in the past that he’s keenly aware of the business side of the equation. He said as much when revealing last spring that he turned down an extension overture from the Twins, and it’s surely no coincidence that the number he filed would’ve bested the aforementioned Willis benchmark — even if only by a narrow margin of $50,000. Again, every slight step forward would factor into future negotiations for other first-time-eligible pitchers.
The Twins and Berrios can, of course, continue to discuss a long-term deal. Minnesota controls him through the 2022 season, leaving plenty of time to broker a deal. Given his previous quotes about the financial side of the game — “I have to manage my business, too. … We’re waiting for the best for both sides,” Berrios told Phil Miller of the Minneapolis Star Tribune last spring — it doesn’t seem likely that he’ll be signing on for a team-friendly discount.
This dude is gonna break the bank if he continues like he has.
Maybe…maybe not. He’s amazing until August….the stats don’t lie
You don’t cherry pick stats to make an argument. You take all the stats as a collective whole and place what value that has on your team. If he’s killing it until freaking August, that means he’s very valuable to the team for majority of the year. If that’s the case, then he should get paid and paid well. Plus he’s still young, so wouldn’t be surprised if end of season fatigue is a thing for him, which typically improves as they get into their prime. Idk, just bothers me for someone to say they guy shouldn’t get paid well simply because he tails off a tad towards the end of the season…. guy provides way more value before then… enough to get them to the playoffs which the twins can’t replaces
I hope Berrios stays healthy and gets to test free agency.
NO!!!!!
In terms of testing free agency. I want him to have a healthy and long career of course.
I hope falv and Thad can work out something soon. If José can get as much as Aaron Nola did, he should be happy. I think he is definitely worth more than Marco Gonzales, but he deserves an extension. Get er done
I’d be quite surprised if Berrios took the Nola deal. I was surprised that Nola took the Nola deal.
Hi Steve. I’m pretty sure you meant Nola was underpaid?? But I do agree that José could do better than the Nola deal
I doubt Berrios signs a “Nola deal”——-$36.25 mill over next 3 seasons/ $12.08 avg with a team option ($16mill) for 2023. Saying that, if Berrios expects a $45mill+ 3yr deal/extension, he MUST, imo, have a much better year in 2020. ERA must drop into the mid 3.50’s, with a better WHIP and more quality starts. Needs to avoid the midseason slump he had last year as well as his tendency to have a below average 2nd half of season.
Twins have a lot of pitching moving up the minors and will be ready very soon.
Hard to believe that they went to arbitration over $400,000. You would think that they could have found a number that both sides could have lived with
As explained at length in the post, the present-day difference was almost certainly inconsequential (or at the very least secondary) to both parties.
But which first-time-eligible starting pitcher has the current record? Who had it before him, and how much did that guy make?
Says it right there in the article.
Geez…
We will be reading a similar story this time next year as this guy wants to squeeze out every dime he can. No way he signs a extension before he hits free agency.
The arbitrator should have given Barrios the $4.4M. Dontrelle Willis’s $4.35M in 2006 is worth $5.52M in 2020 dollars..
Berrios didn’t have close to the year in 2019 that D-Train did in 2005 though.
Fangraphs says that Berrios has been worth $79.5M in his career to date, while Willis was worth $57.8M through 2005, which is $73.3M today using the same inflation calculator. Yes, Willis had a better last season before the first arbitration, but Berrios still deserved the $4.4M number by virtue of greater career value.