In the wake of a couple of newsworthy pre-arbitration contract renewals over the weekend, MLBTR’s Jeff Todd took to YouTube on Monday to offer a detailed explanation of the process. If you’re interested in checking it out, click the video below:
Here are the some of latest and most notable team-imposed pre-arb salaries for 2020:
- The Rays have renewed the contracts of outfielder Austin Meadows and left-hander Ryan Yarbrough, Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times reports. Meadows will earn $578,900, and Yarbrough will get $563,400. In Meadows’ case, it’s possible he and the Rays will work out a long-term arrangement in the near future. There’s interest from both sides in making that happen, after the 24-year-old broke out in 2019 with a .291/.364/.558 line, 33 home runs and 12 steals. For now, Meadows still has five years of team control left; he’s not slated to even reach arbitration until after the 2021 season. Yarbrough has the same amount of control left, but the Super Two player is scheduled for his first trip through arbitration next winter. The 28-year-old was a rather effective member of the Rays’ pitching staff from 2018-19.
- The Red Sox have renewed third baseman Rafael Devers for $692,500, Alex Speier of the Boston Globe tweets. This will be the last pre-arb year for Devers, who’s eligible to reach arbitration for the first of three potential times next offseason. It stands to reason the Red Sox will try to keep Devers around for the long haul, considering his tremendous output last year, but the two parties haven’t engaged in extension talks yet.
- The Athletics have renewed first baseman Matt Olson on a $603,500 salary, per Jon Heyman of MLB Network. Oakland was interested in extending Olson as of last season, but there haven’t been any rumblings about his long-term future since June. If nothing changes by next winter, the big-hitting Olson will head to arbitration for the first of three possible trips.
I’d be thrilled to extend meadows. but yarbs, I mean I love the guy, but that money could be used on someone like wander or willy
Any regular MLB player should make $2 million per year. There’s way too much money in the game not to reward those guys.
Hopefully they make the change in the next CBA. But for now, not gonna happen.
Pay them even 5 million a year, but the ones that don’t make it have to pay back their signing bonus.
So the Uber rich owners can have it? Pass
there needs to be a balance. fringe players probably like the current starting saleries because they give them a better shot of making the Majors. there needs to be a balance, for sure, but that’s not going to do it.
Things like this are why I’m ok with some players being massively overpaid when they are in their mid-late 30’s. These guys are all criminally underpaid relative to their market value.
Criminally Underpaid???? OoooooK. Relax there buddy. 99.9% of us on this app, would give up our jobs/careers for 2-3 years of playing baseball for $578,900 a year.
Stay in reality, hes not going hungry and never will……… (drug abuse and poor financial decisions excluded)
Poor baseball players with their free college education and or their 3 million dollar signing bonus having to work 3 years for a measly 1.8 million dollars. I am going to go start a go fund page or charity right now. Until then I guess poor Austin is going to have to wait one more year to get that gold plated shark tank.
well, you’ll never have to worry about things like that (since no one actually wants to see you work. oh wait, i guess if i want fries with that, i would)
If you read my post to the end, you would see that it said relative to their market value, which is true. We can argue all day about how overpaid players are in general (which I don’t necessarily disagree with), but I would always rather see more money go to the players than the owners.
Agree Dark14, I never understood why people care about how little ball players make now. It doesn’t affect them as a fan at all. In fact it helps the ballclub by allowing the team to sign more veteran players.
@Dark14ry 2-3 years? You fool, these players have been dedicating their ENTIRE LIVES to the game. Many literally start at 5 years old. Your comment is based on no facts.
@Dark your post was idiotic. Clearly the original poster was saying they were way underpaid by MLB standards. Which they are way under paid by MLB standards. OBVIOUSLY all althletes are over paid in general, but that wasn’t at all what the original poster was talking about. Use your common sense…
I’m on record to pay young studs more and to increase the minimum for being on an MLB roster and also to all free agency one year earlier but there has to be a trade off and that should be in th3 current arb system which refuses to lower a salary after a poor or injury plagued year. Answer in my view is to either have a more typical type arb with a high/low limiting the extremes and let the hearing officer choose the salary without knowing the high or low guaranteed submissions. Alternatively, lower the guaranteed salary based on service time and then change the CBA to allow for specific production bonuses. Players will play through injuries like in the “old days” when bonuses are involved.
all = end.
I like that more than the current system. Unfortunately, I doubt the mlbpa approves a performance-based system.
Correction: us fans are criminally overcharged.
Devers has been my fave since he came up, even with some defensive lapse. I always saw him as the baby faced Ortiz, I hope for all the fans he flourishes as he ages. I really hope Alex Cora gets a chance to return to Boston, the fans appreciate his effect on the players. I do hope he’s learned about bad choices, cuz I would want him back as does Raffy n X man, n I could go on.
Lol no. He’s never setting foot in Fenway again unless he’s got a ticket
Lets see first if he did anything as Red Sox Manager with the ongoing investigation. If he only did things as the Astros bench coach and not in Boston, I could see them bringing him back, depending on the length of the penalty of the Astros situation. It all is going to depend on the results of the Red Sox investigation.
I don’t care if he was a saint w the Sox. His Astros stench and how he infected the 18 Sox with it forever makes him persona non grata, no matter how diplomatic ownership and players are.
Speak for yourself daddio. He sucks.
Connor: can you discuss with others the poster having at least a few minutes to edit the post like on other sites? Many like me don’t see the autocorrect or typos until after the comment is posted.
Me too
I think many of us are somewhere on the same page. No reason why a middle of the order hitter/ace pitcher (maybe even with MVP or Cy votes) should make salary near his bench player teammate just because of something simple like service time. On the flip side though, it is really complicated with forecasting payroll for the following season and so on if you dont know what you will be able to spend relative to what you want your overall payroll to be. It seems to me like this will be very hard to find common ground for low payroll teams that are loaded with young superstars.
Is Devers the new face of the franchise since they gave up Betts for next to nothing?
Maybe they should have spent their time picking up Stanton or signing Cole. LOL
All players under 30 need to make much more
All players over 35 need to make a little less.
All owners need to make massive amounts less.
Fair?
That’s too logical.
It’ll never happen.
LOL
I’m a little desperate—Day 2 without Spring Training–the schools are closed so no Junior High baseball or above to follow even.
I would like to see the RSox put Devers into an extended contract and buy out his arbitration years before he gets into a Betts situation.
Baseball should raise the league minimum to $1 or 2 M Prorated for those on the 26 or even the 40 man roster. In many cases the last 6 players on the Major League roster are probably pretty close in ability to those sent out to AA or AAA when the Opening Day Rosters are announced.
How does a guy like Devers feel—an all star making a few bucks more than the league minimum($650,000) and he’s expected to carry a good part of the load when Bene is signed for $10 M over 2 years and JBJ $11M and Pillar $4M, Peraza is @ $3 M. Moreland along with several of the 13-14 man pitching staff is making more.
People might say–he can wait, his day will come–he’s at the mercy of a population of pampered owners who can easily sit back and wait out the Covid 19 situation and not think about the long term impact, while Devers is probably sending his family, in the Dominican, money to help them out.
John Henry/ Tom Werner should be looking to promote Raffy as one of the new faces of the franchise along with Xander, Christian, Bene & ERod.