Happy salary figure exchange day. May the odds be ever in your favor.
The Dodgers’ two salary arbitration-eligible players, A.J. Ellis and Ronald Belisario, will present their contract proposals to the team today. Both might end up signing a new contract today. They might end up negotiating with the Dodgers for a couple weeks. Or, they might let an arbitrator decide how much they should earn next year — their proposed salary or the team’s. That rarely happens.
In fact, the Dodgers haven’t had an arbitration case since Joe Beimel on Feb. 9, 2007.
Last year, only Clayton Kershaw got close to going to arbitration before signing a two-year deal on Feb. 7.
Ellis made $490,000 in base salary last year and Belisario made $480,000, according to Cots. Roll out a starting catcher and a set-up man with comparable stats, at comparable points in their careers, with comparable injury histories (or the lack thereof, in the case of these guys) and you have the basis for a negotiating point. Sometimes that’s easy to get to, sometimes it isn’t, but it’s fair to expect these guys will be getting raises very soon.
For other arbitration resolutions around the league, MLBtraderumors.com has set up an updating “arbitration tracker” link here.
Or, just do what everyone else does and stay glued to Twitter. Today’s links …
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