The Diamondbacks renewed right-hander Zac Gallen’s contract on Thursday, meaning he’ll earn roughly the major league minimum of $570.5K this season. That’s standard operating procedure for most teams when it comes to players who aren’t yet eligible for arbitration, though Gallen said it “wasn’t fair based on my performance last year,” Zach Buchanan of The Athletic tweets. While Gallen acknowledged there’s “a business side to this game,” he would like to see the pre-arb salary situation addressed in the next collective bargaining agreement because the system’s “not necessarily in the favor of younger players.” Whether or not you agree with Gallen, there is no doubt the 25-year-old has vastly outperformed his salaries since he debuted with the Marlins in 2019. So far, the 25-year-old has logged a 2.78 ERA across 152 big league innings. Gallen is not on track to reach arbitration until after 2022. There will be a new CBA in place by then, but it remains to be seen whether it will address Gallen’s concerns on this subject.
- Righty reliever Shane Greene spent the previous year-plus as a member of the Braves, with whom he held his own, but he remains a free agent as the regular season nears. Greene could prove to be a late-spring bargain for someone, but it doesn’t appear the Braves will re-sign him for anything other than “a really cheap offer” in the $1MM range, David O’Brien of The Athletic writes. Unless Greene elects to settle for that type of deal, the Braves will be content to start the year with Will Smith, Chris Martin, A.J. Minter and Tyler Matzek as their main end-of-game options, according to O’Brien.
- A groin strain has slowed Blue Jays right-hander Nate Pearson this spring, but manager Charlie Montoyo said Friday (via Shi Davidi of Sportsnet) that he’ll throw a bullpen Saturday. Pearson will not have enough time to build up for a five-inning role by Opening Day, though the Blue Jays aren’t ruling him out for the start of the season, according to Montoyo. A healthy version of Pearson could play a major role in a Toronto starting staff that has little in the way of surefire answers after ace Hyun Jin Ryu.
- Orioles righty Hunter Harvey exited his outing Friday with a left oblique issue. The severity isn’t known yet, but Harvey – who had been in line for a bullpen spot – is unlikely to be ready for Opening Day, per Roch Kubatko of MASNSports.com. It’s the latest injury-related setback for Harvey, a 2013 first-round pick who has dealt with multiple health issues (including Tommy John surgery) during his professional career. The 26-year-old has totaled 15 innings out of the O’s bullpen dating back to his 2019 debut.
Hunter Harvey is glass
It’s crazy. I feel bad for him. I’m still hoping he can become an good to great reliever. He’s got some stuff
I like him too,
Problem is, well two problems
1.) always hurt
2.) no hammer, he is like Chris Tillman in a way (or was) always throwing all these pitches like 20 at least just to get three outs
Don’t worry, your future closer is Tanner Scott anyway.
Not sure about that but Scott is gonna be elite. O’s bullpen is also coming along really nicely too.
Agree.
The Orioles figured out a way to save money on jerseys by signing Matt Harvey to go with Hunter. As there is little chance either will ever be healthy enough to be on the roster at the same time they simply just share the Harvey jersey
@RSox…. well that is a thought
The Braves back end of the bullpen isn’t bad, it’s quite good and I’d trust most of their relievers with a late lead, but it’s just so lefty heavy. Unless they plan on slotting Bryse Wilson or Kyle Wright in the back end of the pen, they’d definitiley benefit from another right-hander.
I’m personally in favor of rolling with what they have to start and trying to add someone at the deadline.
They’ll be fine with the pen they have until July. No need to spend of someone like Greene. Wait and pick up someone better, use your prospects to your advantage and get the other team to take on salary for a better prospect package of it’s a question of a tight budget
Raisel Iglesias or Archie Bradley would be a pair of potential targets of LAA and ARI are out of contention
Until Snitker throws in Luke Jackson and the game is blown
Once you get to the Postseason, you lean very hard on your Bullpen. Having a few good guys in the back end of the Bullpen is great but you have to use those guys wisely.
It only takes one bad arm in the Bullpen to mess the whole season up. The market is also low. Even if he flopped, it wouldn’t be a huge loss.
Coughing up just a few Million before the season could pay itself off serveral times over if you get a clean Inning in a close postseason ball game.
If some airhead blows a game in the NLDS before they get to the back of the Pen, that’s going to hit their pocket.
Braves are being ridiculous if they are seriously only offering him $1 mil. He’s a legit enough pitcher and deserves more than that. It’s not like the Braves can fit another few million in this ridiculous budget they set on themselves…. Give him $8-10 mil for 2 years.
Agree
Budgets man. Atlanta is different than most teams. AA is known to keep a pool of money for mid-season trades, etc.
I wish that were true, but the tommy milone debacle of 2020 says you are incorrect sir. Everyone acts like he’s known to do this… he did it 1 year for the braves… why do we act like he is some gun slinger that makes the wild trades when the Braves need it. He doesn’t… two years ago the bullpen was in a complete meltdown literally costing us a easy pathway to losing the division. He made a deal, but it was brutal. Last year the rotation was even worse than the previous year bullpen, he did nothing… idk man..
You realize it takes two people to bring a FA to a team? Maybe no one wanted to come to Atlanta.
Last year AA “did nothing” to address the rotation because we brought Ian Anderson and Kyle Wright up and they were both lights out the last half of the season. He correctly saw that we didn’t need to do anything. We were only a few outs away from the World Series.
And to his credit, he did bring in guys last year. Who could’ve foreseen all of the following happening: Hamels missing basically the entire year, Felix opting out, Soroka missing basically the entire year, Folty being utter unusable trash throwing like 20 MPH fastballs? That’s 4 starting pitchers we expected to have going into the season that basically didn’t pitch at all. You can’t blame AA for not being prepared for that. But still, we were only a few outs away from the world series despite all that.
The Braves we’re definitely a pitcher short, the Millone pickup was a joke. Nobody felt comfortable with Wright and Wilson starting against the Dodgers. Wilson just happened to pitch the game of his life.
Love hearing Braves fans still bitter about Milone when there was no one available. Clevinger got a king’s ransom and got injured. ATL wouldn’t have gone after him. Who else was traded that could have given them IPs? If you did overpay for someone (remember it was a seller’s market with more teams contending for increased playoff spots) – you’d be taken vital IPs away from possibly Ian Anderson, Bryse Wilson, Kyle Wright, AJ Minter. Aside from Wright’s NLCS dud, you’d be hard-pressed to acquire someone that would have given you better IPs than what the rookies did. Starting pitching did not lose that series.
My guess is that they are waiting to trade for Kris Bryant at the trade deadline.
I think they should do a 1 yr 2.5m or two yr 4 mil. He’s solid and I’d feel better having another closer type arm back there.
He must have ticked off someone in management……. He would be a bargain at 3 million.
You lack reading the full statement, it said ” in the $1MM range”, so that could be $1.8mil for a year, not just $1mil.. If he was so valuable, he’d have a $4 or $5mil contract for a year, but that’s not the case is it? He’s obviously asking for more than he’s worth if not 1 of 30 teams has signed him.
Greene happened to be a free agent at the wrong time. There were about 4 other Shane Greene’s on the market this off season with Melancon, Colome, Kintzler and Pedro Baez. Not to mention the amount of higher-end talent like Kirby Yates, Liam Hendriks, Brad Hand, Trevor Rosenthal, Trevor May and deep mid-tier including the 4 names I previsously mentioned plus Darren O’Day, Keone Kela, Archie Bradley, Sergio Romo, Tyler Clippard, Blake Treinen, Justin Wilson and a handful of other examples.
Braves need to solidify the BP with Greene especially in case of injury, he has history and success there. Would round out the offseason quite nice with upping the rotation, bringing back ozuna and decent depth signings. Make it happen AA, one more time!
I do not know why the Braves feel he is not worth more, we have been giving 1 million to people that I have never heard of. Show Greene love
Greene’s K’s were way down last year and his walks were up. His peripheral stats like FIP and xFIP suggest that his stats should’ve been a lot worse than they were. There’s a chance we simply aren’t interested in him because we think he’s on the downswing of his career and it just hasn’t shown in the numbers yet.
A lot of people were furious we didn’t resign Donaldson last year… that’s looking pretty great right now.
History? He has a career 4.38 ERA, and had a 5.12 ERA the year before the Braves got him in 2018.
Puig your friend
No thanks.
Honestly Gallen has some point. where decreasing time to free agency generally hurts young players, i think altering the pre-arb system is in order. i dont think pre arb saleries should get too high to discourage teams promoting young players, but maybe exceptional performers over a decent run in pre-arb should get a payout. Perhaps dont make the system progressive like the arb system, but more like a contract bonus for, say, the top x pre-arb guys. perhaps make that number tax-exempt to prevent teams from manipulating the system and keeping guys down to avoid giving them bonuses.
He should be taking up his grievance with the players union and older/establish players as they’ve had no issue leveraging the earning power of younger players for their own gain.
Yeah, I mean, I can’t see how the membership of the MLBPA is going to want to shift money to younger players (and away from veterans) without getting some kind of guarantee that ALL players will collectively be receiving a bigger share of the revenues.
i dont think its exactly grievance material to be honest
Can anyone disagree that the MLB system does not favor younger players? You may think he shouldn’t complain since he can make more than $550K per year as a 25-year-old, but the system unquestionably depresses salaries of younger players in favor of longer-tenured ones.
Ok…then the players should focus on that instead of clubhouse chefs in their next round of collective bargaining.
The players who are getting screwed the most are the ones coming into the system. Most of the MLBPA is made up of veterans. If the PA advocates for money paid to younger players, it’s going to hurt older players. The MLBPA membership doesn’t have a huge incentive to shift money from 30-year old players to 22-year old players.
I’m aware of that and I know this is how they think, but I disagree. If you make younger players more expensive, they become less attractive alternatives to take veteran’s jobs.
That’s not really important though because regardless, the way for that to change is going to take the PA caring about it. Maybe Gallen should spend some time trying to convince other’s of how important he thinks it is.
This guy gets it. The players wanted better amenities. They got them, but lost pretty much everywhere else. Clark shouldve gotten the boot.
Yeah, I mean it’s more or less explicitly the way the system is set up.
@Oddvark
There’s another way of looking at that. You could say that someone like Madison Bumgarner is finally getting paid for all of those years he performed well in his prime, even if he is no longer the pitcher he once was.
i actually disagree. it does favor younger players in the sense that they are cheaper and thus more are given a shot. many not long shots, granted, but shots all the same. for every player whose service time is manipulated. there are at least a dozen other youngsters who get shots over expensive veterans.
Interesting take.
I think the usual argument is that expensive older players block younger cheaper ones, at least with minor league options.
I see the way it can work in their favor, but I think the system seems to be setup to their disadvantage the most.
counter to that is optioned players still get more then regular minors guys, and having options makes a player more valuable to a team. (namedly relievers)
Why should anyone care outside of the players and the players families?
God forbid people care about others. you’d think the pandemic would make people realize the importance of such.
we should care whether a 25 year old makes more than $550K, when the average 25 year old is lucky to make 10% of that? No need to make this a PC issue about caring about others…
In this case I think both sides are in the wrong… Zac needs to keep this out of the media, it’s a bad look, just shut up and do your job and build your value and you will get a big pay day, not that half a million a year isn’t already a big pay day… The DBacks should give him at least a modest raise based on his performance… they are taking advantage of the system… like many teams do… ask Mike Trout
All unions operate that way. Salary is based on seniority, not performance.
Gallen is absolutely right, the pay scale should go from higher in the younger more productive seasons and lesser in the older, less productive ones. Instead we get the other way around and many fans mistake these later career “correction” salaries as “overpaid” ones, and therefore get angry at an older player making lots of money for playing badly, ignoring how underpaid they were in their early seasons.
2 years in the League and he wants to tell them how they should do things?
Listen to Zac.
They can give Drew Smyly 11 mil but wont give Greene a contract SMH.
I don’t see the other 29 teams out there giving him a contract either…
Canceled engagement? All things considered, it’s probably a good thing that A-Rod and J-Lo didn’t buy the Mets. Even Metsfan22 would be hard-pressed to put a happy spin on this.
Love is dead. I don’t believe in nothin’ no more.
Are oblique injuries common to baseball players only? I do not recall an NFL player as an example missing games because of this type of injury.
You can play through an oblique injury in football as the sport isn’t quite as technical in a lot of aspects. You can’t really do the same when your sport requires precise twisting of the core to execute your skills (hitting, pitching).
So Braves gave Luke Jackson a raise to $3mil but Shane Greene isn’t worth $1 mill in their eyes? Shoulda cut Jackson
No joke fathead!
I dont really agree with Zac. The big money veterans in MLB have mostly earned their contracts because they have played well, over multiple seasons. Continue to play well and you’ll secure your bag buddy.
I think that Snitker is a good manager but he makes some weird choices especially with veteran players. Playing Markakis over Duvall when they needed a power hitter in the lineup. After adding setup man Melachon and closer Greene he flips them around after only using Greene in one save situation. Yes he did blow that save. But after Melachon also blew his first save Snitker still stuck with him.
A healthy Nate Pearson is going to help then Jays much this year. He needs this year as a development year to learn how to be a pitcher and not a thrower.
I know the Jays and everyone in the Bluejays baseball fandom wants him as a top of the rotation starter but he may end up an excellent closer.
Luke Jackson, one of the most garbage pitchers in the league, gets signed right away but they won’t pay Greene. SMH
Yeah these pre-arb players kinda get burned but they play those first few years to get big arb salaries and finally land monster contracts.. If Gallen keeps pitching like he has he will see millions and finally 10’s of millions through his arb contracts. I just don’t understand the greed of some of these players. He has one more good year at league minimum and he will see $4m+ in his first arb contract. Then $9m+ ending with $17-18m his final year. if he stays healthy and continues pitching like he has he will have no trouble reaching $100m in free agency. If he signs a 6 year $125m FA contract and sucks the 2nd year would he be ok giving that money back to the team? Of course not. The first 3 years are when the team makes money off the young guys and they use that money to pay declining veterans. If young players want more money in their first years they are gonna have to give teams the option to void bad contracts. I am sure teams would be happy to give rookies arb starting their 2nd year if they could void contracts like Pujols, Heyward, Stanton, the last couple years of Cespedes, A-Rod, Ellsbury, and Wells. Honestly I think young players should have control of their careers after their rookie year. In order to do that teams should be able to easily shed underperforming contracts.
Gallen should be made aware that the blame for his earnings rests with TClark…
The union sacrifices young players for the sake of veterans…
So purely thinking out loud here, after Gallens comment. Why isn’t anyone considering only allowing one year contracts, with insurance for injury? What I mean is players get a one year contract every year, no team control. This solves the outperforming or underperforming a contract issue AND the service time. Then after a player has 2 or 3 years in the Big leagues their contract comes with disability type insurance. An independent arbiter determines a players potential career earning without injury prior to the season and the team is on the hook for paying for that insurance. This doesn’t solve the luxury tax problem but it could clarify it by simply turning it into a subsidy that can only be used for salaries.
Obviously this is just spit balling a lot more thought needs to go into it but?
Having arbitrators decide potential career earnings and insurance companies haggle with teams about it seems much more convoluted than the system that is in place now. Every sport drastically underpays young stars other than European football. I think we’ll just start seeing more early extensions that give young stars big signing bonuses and escalating salaries in exchange for a couple free agent years. They might not all get Tatis money, but talented young players do have that option of taking the “lump-sum” early on as opposed to waiting for free agency.
I would have liked to have seen the Braves resign Melancon over Greene, especially at the price he ended up signing for, but if they’re out of money, I’m just glad they resigned Ozuna. He was the difference maker last year, both in terms of outstanding production and being a great clubhouse guy. Braves should have enough young arms to fill in in the bullpen, or trade for some help in that department if it proves to be a problem.