He is also eligible for arbitration. That makes four guys — Ethier, Martin, Broxton and Repko — that the Dodgers will go through the process with. Just a primer, the way it works is that the club will try to reach agreement with each of the four in advance of arbitration — that is what is known as “avoiding arbitration.” If a player doesn’t reach an agreement, he will exchange salary figures with the club, then go to a hearing in early February in Phoenix, where a three-person panel will choose either the club’s figure or the player’s figure, with no wiggle room in between. There is also a period between the exchanging of figures and the actual hearing when the two sides still can reach an agreement and avoid a hearing.

… but he DID have an arm injury that was going to keep him out for all of 2009, and given that he was on the 40-man roster, he would have had to be on the big-league DL all year accruing big-league service time. This also clears a 40-man spot. Also, I just spoke with Ned, and he reiterated that the Dodgers are open to re-signing Saito and Berroa. If Saito ISN’T re-signed, the closer’s role could go to Broxton, Kuo, someone else in the organization or someone outside the organization. Even if Saito IS re-signed, he won’t necessarily be the closer.

The others were Scott Proctor, Yhency Brazoban, Angel Berroa and a guy I had no idea was arbitration-eligible, Mario Alvarez. Anyway, the important thing to note is that all of these guys can still be re-signed. All this does is take them out of the arbitration loop, leaving only Martin, Ethier and Broxton. Haven’t spoken with anyone about this yet, so I should have more information when I do.

Tom Hoffarth, the Daily News’ media columnist, reports today that the Dodgers will move Charley Steiner to a full-time radio role and hire someone to handle TV during the non-Scully innings/games. Who should it be?

Dodger do some TV repair work for ’09: Steiner back on radio fulltime; gig opens for 40-game slate

Don’t believe it for a second, though. This is just, as they used to say in Boston, Manny being Manny.

http://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/ny-spmanny115960657dec11,0,548502.story