Oakland Athletics Arbitration Totals
By Tony Frye
Yesterday, January 16, was the deadline for teams to present contract offers to their arbitration eligible players. The Oakland Athletics have several players eligible for arbitration this year and would probably love to continue their streak of settling these matters without having to go through the incredibly awkward process of arbitration.
The arbitration process is not ideal for team building in that it is basically a hearing where team owners sit at a table and list all the reasons you’re not worth what you think you are while the player has to list all the reasons that ownership is wrong. You should keep in mind, however, that this process involves agents and projections and market comparisons and is often a matter of the player basing his number on one set of comparisons and the team basing theirs on a different one. Also, agents are greedy and teams are cheap.
The Athletics have settled most of their arbitration eligible contracts for 2015 but there are a few notable hold outs. This does not mean that they will have to go to the arbitration table because those hearings won’t begin until the first of February. Last year, Josh Reddick was a notable hold out but he managed to settle on a number without going through the arbitration hearing.
There are four players who have submitted salary figures that the team cannot agree on, however, and the process of negotiation and potential arbitration begins in earnest with these players over the next two weeks.
Eric Sogard has asked for a $1.4 million salary which is about $900,000 more than he made last season. The A’s, probably citing his very slow start in 2014 and unlikeliness to be an everyday player in 2015, have offered him a $900,000 payday for 2015. This is Sogard’s first arbitration year and he may be attempting to set a precedent for future arbitration years but he was projected to make $1 million in 2015 and the halfway point between the two offers would fall just above that estimate.
Jarrod Parker has countered Oakland’s $850,000 offer with a $1.7 million request. Like Sogard, this is Parker’s first arbitration eligible season but it is unlikely that he’s going to receive a $1.2 million raise having not pitched in a full season and coming off a second Tommy John surgery. Parker was estimated to make $900,000 in 2015, very close to the offer made by the A’s, and the team can make a pretty healthy argument for their offer considering his high risk factor. I expect this to settle at around the $1 million mark.
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Oakland’s latest acquisition, Tyler Clippard, has asked for a shade more than the A’s $7.7 million offer. This one seems like a no brainer, considering it’s such a small gap. Clippard was estimated to make $9.9 million in 2015 which is higher than his counter offer so this should be a fairly easy negotiation.
The final arbitration holdout is Fernando Abad who has countered Oakland’s $850,000 offer with a $1.2 million request. Again, his estimated salary was around the $900,000 mark and the A’s are unlikely to give a $600,000 raise to a pitcher who only pitched 57.1 innings in 2014, even though they were 57.1 awesome innings.
The rundown of players who have settled with the team is as follows:
- Josh Reddick – $4.1 million ($400k above estimates)
- Sam Fuld – $1.7 million ($100k above estimates)
- Jesse Chavez – $2.1 million ($400k below estimates)
- Craig Gentry – $1.6 million ($100k above estimates)
- Fernando Rodriguez – $635k ($265k below estimates)
- Ryan Cook – $1.4 million ($100k above estimates)
- Ike Davis – $3.8 million ($600k below estimates)
- Brett Lawrie – $1.9 million ($100k above estimates)
There are quite a lot of incentives built into these contracts. For example, Lawrie, Reddick and Fuld stands to make $50,000 for an All Star game, $50,000 for a gold glove, $100,000 for an MVP award, $50,000 for an LCS MVP award, $100,000 for a World Series MVP award, and $100,000 for a Silver Slugger award.
Ryan Cook has similar incentives for the All Star game and MVP awards but also will receive a bonus for placing 2nd ($75k) or 3rd ($50k) in MVP or Cy Young voting.
We will keep you posted in regards to the four holdouts. If things go as they did last year for Reddick, don’t be surprised if these players are missing from Fanfest this year but I think that Clippard will be a done deal some time next week.