Yainer Diaz won his arbitration hearing against the Astros, reports Francys Romero. The catcher, a PRIME client, will be paid a $4.5MM salary instead of the team’s $3MM filing figure.
Diaz earns a strong payday in his first trip through the arbitration process. The benefit of the win goes beyond the extra $1.5MM he’ll make than if he’d lost the hearing. It also sets a higher baseline for his final two years. The process is designed for players’ salaries to climb as they get closer to free agency, so there’ll be compounding benefits to today’s result.
The 27-year-old Diaz is one of the better catchers in the sport. He’s a career .279/.305/.454 hitter in nearly 1600 plate appearances. Baseball Reference has valued him around three wins above replacement in each of his first three seasons. He has topped 20 doubles in each and is coming off his second 20-homer campaign. Diaz hit .256/.284/.417 with 20 longballs and 70 runs driven in across 143 games a year ago.
That included a career-high 111 starts behind the plate, plus 24 as a designated hitter. Diaz caught the seventh-most innings in MLB. They’ll need him to take a similarly heavy workload now that high-end backup Victor Caratini departed to sign a two-year deal with Minnesota. César Salazar is expected to step into the backup role.
A $1.5MM isn’t a huge difference for a team in isolation, though it takes on a little more importance for the Astros than it would for most clubs. RosterResource estimated their luxury tax payroll within the $238-240MM range depending on the hearing result. Ownership reportedly wants to remain below the $244MM base tax threshold, so this could have a modest impact on the front office’s midseason flexibility on the trade front.
Today was a strong start for the players in arbitration. Orioles righty Kyle Bradish also won his case, pushing players to 2-0 thus far. The Diaz and Bradish hearings took place yesterday. Dylan Lee and Edwin Uceta had hearings last week, though their results are being held until other comparable cases are decided. According to The Associated Press, the Blue Jays had their hearing with left-hander Eric Lauer this afternoon, though that ruling is also expected to be held for a later date. Tomorrow is the biggest date of the arbitration class, as the Tigers and Tarik Skubal are set to present their cases with a record $13MM gap between their respective filing figures.
Now we’re all “getting along”. He’s going to hold this against them. Astros don’t make playoffs even if this guy goes nuclear. 3rd place at best.
A very nice bump in pay.
Cool. Hope he rakes.
Boo. Diaz does not deserve this money after taking a step back. However, if Diaz hits 30 homers and 100+ RBI, I’ll be happy. Show me you deserve this Diaz!
If he was a free agent, right now, what kind of deal do you think he’d get? Surely much more than 4.5MM.
Danny Jansen just got 2/14.5MM lol.
Seriously? Dude put up 2.7 WAR and you don’t think he’s worth the extra 1.5MM? He easily would have found an AAV of 10MM on the open market. What a weird take.
Yeah but he isn’t a free agent right now even hypothetically speaking. He’s going to arbitration and at his first go at it. I was surprised he won. He definitely deserves it but that type of pay raise seems substantial but nonetheless he won his case so all credit to him. He’s going to need to put up a good year or else risk being a non tender candidate at the end of the year.
If they non tender him there should be a pretty long line of suitors.
I am not impressed with Diaz by any means. I know everyone was going bonkers because he was not used in Dusty’s last season as skipper.
Myself Dusty was a great manager over Espada and more. Espada has NO CLUE. But Diaz had some moments yes but he has NO defensive skills like throwing runners out trying to steal. Neither did Caratini. What will Salazar have as back up. I had heard talk of bringing Vasquez back but myself a big no on that.