The Chicago Cubs were able to avoid a salary arbitration hearing with all seven of their arbitration eligible players.
Even though salary arbitration was put in place to resolve salary disagreements between a player and a player’s organization, the process could potentially create a rift between both sides. After each side submits their salary figure for the upcoming season, they will have the opportunity to plead their case before the arbitrators select one of the salary figures.
During this process, a player will argue for why they deserve their submitted salary figure and a player’s organization will argue for why the player should not be awarded their requested salary figure. As the player’s organization has the same obvious goal of winning the salary arbitration hearing, they will have to explain their reasons at the expense of their own player.
An example of a salary arbitration hearing angering a player involved the reaction of Marcus Stroman after losing his hearing to the Toronto Blue Jays last offseason. Following the hearing, Stroman tweeted, “Lost arbitration. Is what it is. Looking forward to going out and dealing again. The negative things that were said against me, by my own team, will never leave my mind. I’m thick-skinned so it will only fuel the fire. Can’t wait for this year!”
In an interview picked up by the Associated Press, Stroman made additional comments after his Tweet. “It has nothing to do with the money at all why I was upset,” Stroman said. “Sitting in a room hearing how bad you are for five hours, I’m upset because I had to go through the process again. I may have been wrong for taking it to Twitter. I’m sorry if I vented my frustration the wrong way. It’s an extremely tough process.”
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Even though the Blue Jays likely covet their right-handed starting pitcher and Stroman has expressed his desire to remain in Toronto, the salary arbitration process can lead to animosity between a player and a player’s organization. Due to this, it was a significant achievement for the Chicago Cubs to secure contract agreements outside of an arbitration hearing with the following seven players.
According to Bruce Miles of the Northwest Herald, after earning $657,000 last season, Javier Baez and the Cubs were able to settle on a $5.20 million contract for the upcoming season. During the 2018 regular season, he compiled a career high 34 home runs, a career high 111 runs batted in, and a career high 101 runs scored. His impressive slash-line of .290/.326/.554 also helped him earn his first career All-Star appearance, his first career Silver Slugger award, and a second place finish in the NL MVP voting.
After setting a record by earning $10.85 million in his first year of arbitration eligibility last season, Kris Bryant and the Cubs were able to settle on a $12.90 million contract for the upcoming season. Kyle Hendricks earned $4.175 million last season and he was able to settle on a $7.40 million contract for next season.
Kyle Schwarber earned $604,500 last season and he was able to settle with the Cubs on a $3.40 million contract for next season. Carl Edwards Jr.earned $594,000 last season and he was able to settle on a $1.50 million contract for next season. Mike Montgomery earned $611,250 last season and he was able to settle on a $2.40 million contract for next season.
Addison Russell earned $3.20 million last season and he was able to settle with the Cubs on a $3.40 million contract for next season. Even though Russell will serve the remainder of his 40-game suspension for violating MLB’s domestic abuse policy, he could potentially earn an additional $600,000 of incentives to bring his contract for next season up to $4.00 million.
Although salary arbitration figures can be estimated ahead of time by an organization, the Cubs now have seven pending payroll question marks answered for the upcoming season. Due to this, it will be interesting to see if the organization has enough financial room to make a splash in free agency or a trade, or if the organization will continue into next season with the current group of players.