(Update: Of course, 5 minutes after I post this, Todd Zolecki tweets that Chad Durbin has avoided arbitration with 1 year, $2.125 million contract.)
Shane Victorino, Joe Blanton, Chad Durbin and Carlos Ruiz have all filed for arbitration.
That much is known. What isn’t known is how much those four players are going to get paid this season.
Last season, the Phillies had to deal with 11 arbitration cases. Four should be relatively simple for the Phillies’ front office this offseason. The Phillies and the players’ agents have been extremely busy doing research on how to approach each other with salary figures.
The Phillies have been very good at coming to an agreement and avoiding an arbitration hearing, getting to that point only twice in the past nine years ,with Travis Lee in 2001 and Ryan Howard in 2008. The Phillies “lost” big time with RyHo in `08, setting a record for a player in his first year of arbitration, paying him $10 million. I’d say that deal worked out pretty well for the Fightins’.
Durbin has been relatively easy to deal with in arbitration, generally taking a deal in between the two offers. He shouldn’t be a problem to get signed. He made $1.635 million last season, so he should be seeing a raise up to around $2 million in 2010.
Blanton has been a very durable starter for the Phillies, so he will make a bit more than the $5.475 million he made last season. He’ll be in line for a raise of a few million, and the Phillies shouldn’t have a problem paying him in the $7-8 million range.
Carlos Ruiz really emerged as a leader on the team last season, and is finally entering arbitration. This is the first year he is arbitration eligible and everyone knows he was extremely underpaid at only $475,000 last year. He is definitely due a big raise, and I could see the Phillies offering just over $1 million for Chooch. He’ll probably end up in the $1.2-1.4 million range and that would be a great deal for the Phillies.
Victorino will be the hardest case. He truly emerged as a star last season, appearing in the All Star Game for the first time. The Hawaiian has also matured into one of leaders of this team, bringing that crazy amount of energy to every game he plays. You only have to watch him play the Dodgers to see how much he is worth to the Phillies. Now, they have to put a dollar figure on that worth. Being one of the top OF in the league, he is definitely due a significant raise. He made $3.125 million last year and will probably make upwards of $6 million this season.
There is always the possibility that any of these players could be signed to a long term deal, but the only one I could see that happening with is Ruiz. With no catching prospects in the system, the Phillies will be looking for a catcher to hold down the spot for a few years. There is pretty much no shot that Victorino will be signed long term. While I love him, there area few options that the Phillies are looking at to take over for Victorino in a few years, such as Anthony Gose and Tyson Gillies, newly acquired from Seattle in the Cliff Lee deal. While the current outfield of Raul Ibanez, Victorino, and Jayson Werth is literally an All Star outfield, the time will come in a few years to replace them. The Phillies hope they can be replaced with younger, cheaper versions, so they don’t want to lock up too much money on those three players for long term deals.
Arbitration hasn’t been bad to the Phillies, this is still a stressful time. Players and agents pitch themselves as being more valuable than they were last season, while teams try to knock them down a few pegs and keep their salaries in check. The best hope is that all the cases come to a settlement and no hard feelings are left after the arbitration cases come to a close.
With the expected raises, the Phillies payroll will be approaching $140 million, at the very high end of the reported cap set in place by the owners. The Phillies can’t afford any extravagant arbitration awards, so hopefully everything gets settled and the Phillies can move into Spring Training with no distractions.
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