Back in April, I outlined the arbitration records for catchers, other position players, and starting pitchers.  As expected, some records will fall in 2012.

Going to arbitration for a fourth time, Mike Napoli is a lock to top Ivan Rodriguez's third-time catcher salary of $6.825MM.  Players have to love Super Two status.  Napoli's 2012 salary range is $8.3-11.5MM, with a $9.9MM midpoint.  We'll see whether long-term extension talks kick back up.

As first reported by MLBTR's Ben Nicholson-Smith, Boston's Jacoby Ellsbury settled at $8.05MM for his second time through arbitration.  Ellsbury never had much chance at what I consider the second-time record, Miguel Cabrera's $11.3MM salary from 2007.  That salary was folded into a multiyear deal a few months after the agreement, but it remained unchanged.

The third-time position player record could be Prince Fielder's $15.5MM, though that was preceded by a multiyear deal.  Limiting it to year-to-year players, Alfonso Soriano's $10MM from 2006 fell with Andre Ethier's new $10.95MM deal, which could be topped again if Napoli or Hunter Pence win an arbitration hearing.  Pence's filing figures are $9MM and $11.8MM, with a $10.4MM midpoint.  He gets to cash in one more time as an arbitration eligible player in 2013, assuming he doesn't sign an extension with the Phillies.

This year David Price was unable to push past Dontrelle Willis' first-time starting pitcher settlement record of $4.35MM, set in 2006.  Some may consider Jered Weaver the record holder at $4.365MM, if an earned $100K award bonus is included.  Regardless, Clayton Kershaw crushes them all with his new $6.5-10MM range ($8.25MM midpoint).  Should Kershaw win an arbitration hearing or settle at the midpoint, he'll be at the Tim Lincecum pay scale.  The midpoint would beat Lincecum's first-time starting pitcher record filing figure of $8MM, which preceded his two-year deal.

The third-time starting pitcher record is Carlos Zambrano's $12.4MM.  With a $17-21.5MM spread and $19.25MM midpoint, Lincecum will fly past that, though he's coming off a multiyear deal.  Similarly, Cole Hamels settled at $15MM as a fourth-time arbitration player, but his first three years were covered in multiyear deal.  In a technical sense, Hamels' salary is second only to Fielder's $15.5MM in terms of arbitration settlements, and Lincecum will easily top both unless he signs a multiyear deal.

Be sure to keep track of all the arbitration settlements, submissions, and midpoints with MLBTR's arbitration tracker.

The dust appears to be settling from today's arbitration agreement madness.  A few more settlements may trickle in, but at the moment our arbitration tracker shows 59 unsigned players spanning 22 teams.  Big names include Tim Lincecum, Hunter Pence, Matt Garza, Clayton Kershaw, and Mike Napoli.  These players all exchanged figures with their teams.  The deadline was noon central time today.

After figures are exchanged, teams and players often agree at the midpoint.  A few teams, however, have traditionally treated the exchange of figures as a deadline, and as a policy go to hearings after that point.  If these teams are still using the "file and trial" strategy, we'll see hearings for Jed Lowrie (Astros), Casey Janssen and Brandon Morrow (Blue Jays), Emilio Bonifacio and Anibal Sanchez (Marlins), and John Lannan and Mike Morse (Nationals).

Any of the 50+ players to file are candidates to go to a hearing in February if an agreement cannot be reached.  At a hearing, the team and the player's agency each take an hour to defend their salary submission, and an independent three-person panel picks one of the salaries.

Last year, 33 players filed numbers, three went to hearings, nine signed multiyear extensions, and 21 settled within $250K of the midpoint.