The Pittsburgh Pirates reached agreements with nine players today, avoiding arbitration with each player. For all of the details on those deals, check out our post from earlier.
The three players who didn’t agree to terms are Neil Walker, Pedro Alvarez, and Vance Worley. Those players had a 1:00 PM deadline to exchange figures with the Pirates. The Pirates have been described as a “file and trial” team the last few years, meaning that they’ll go to arbitration with these three players, regardless of the differences. That process will result in an arbitration panel deciding which figure will be awarded to the player in 2015.
The numbers are starting to come out for each player. The first to be announced is Pedro Alvarez, who had a difference of just $500,000.
#Pirates 3B Pedro Alvarez filed at $5.75 million, #Pirates countered at $5.25 million
— Michael Perchick (@MichaelPerchick) January 16, 2015
Alvarez was projected to receive $5.5 M, which is the midpoint of those two figures. It’s hard to say which side will win if the Pirates stick to their guns and go with the “file and trial” approach.
I’ll update this post when the other two players are announced.
UPDATE 6:21 PM: Perchick also reports that Walker filed for $9 M and the Pirates filed for $8 M.
Not sure if this has been reported, but source tells me #Pirates 2B Neil Walker filed at $9 million, #Pirates countered at $8 million
— Michael Perchick (@MichaelPerchick) January 16, 2015
The MLBTR projection was $8.6 M, which means Walker appears to have the edge here if that number is accurate.
UPDATE 8:57 PM: Rob Biertempfel reports Vance Worley’s numbers.
Vance Worley file $2.45M, #pirates offer $2M. Either way, nice raise for Vanimal.
— RobBiertempfel (@RobBiertempfel) January 17, 2015
Both figures are below the MLBTR projections. If accurate, that means Worley has a better shot of winning any potential arbitration cases.
UPDATE 9:00 PM: I updated the 2015 payroll page with a few changes. Since it’s impossible for Walker to receive $8.6 M (unless the two sides come to an unlikely deal in the middle, slightly towards Walker’s favor), and it’s impossible for Worley to receive $2.9 M, I went with the most likely arbitration outcome. To get this, I used the MLBTR figures ($8.6 M for Walker, $2.9 M for Worley) as a guide for how much each player was worth. Whichever number was closer between the above filings is the new projection. In both cases, the player is the projected winner, making Walker’s new estimate $9 M, and Worley’s new estimate $2.45 M.
As for Alvarez, I wasn’t sure how to handle that, since the MLBTR estimate is the mid-point between the two figures. Since the other two estimates favor the players, I went with $5.75 M for Alvarez. There’s a reason for this, and it is as follows.
The total estimated payroll is $90,511,750. The minimum payroll is $88,561,750. The only difference between the two payrolls is that the minimum represents what would happen if the Pirates win all three cases. The projected payroll represents what would happen if the Pirates lose all three cases. This means that the Pirates are looking at a payroll right now between $88.5 M and $90.5 M. This doesn’t include Jung Ho Kang’s deal, since the annual amounts haven’t been announced. It also doesn’t include specific numbers for the league minimum players, although I doubt that will change the projections much.
As for the sum of today’s arbitration moves, the projected payroll didn’t change that much. The total difference was a $437,500 increase to the payroll. If Alvarez loses his case, then it will be a slight decrease in payroll from where things stood with just the MLBTR projections. That puts the Pirates at $90 M, which is a figure I think they’ll be sitting at even if they win all three cases, due to the eventual addition of Kang’s salary.
