The Pittsburgh Pirates reached pre-arbitration deals with five players in the last two days, but were unable to come to a deal with their final two players. The club exchanged arbitration figures today with those two players: Garrett Jones and Casey McGehee. According to the figures produced by Rob Biertempfel, the sides are close.
Jones submitted for $2.5 M, while the Pirates submitted for $2.25 M. McGehee submitted for $2.725 M, while the Pirates submitted for $2.35 M.
From here, Jones and McGehee will have arbitration hearings set up sometime between February 1st and 15th. The Pirates can come to a deal with either player up until the hearings begin. If no deal is reached, the two sides argue their case and an arbiter determines which side’s salary figure should be used.
It would seem to be unlikely that either player makes it to arbitration with figures so close. Submitting figures is more or less each side showing their hand. The Pirates are only $250 K apart from Jones, and $375 K apart from McGehee. My guess is that they’ll meet in the middle before the hearings take place.
The 2012 40-man roster/payroll has been updated with the new figures taken in to account. Previously Jones was projected for $2.4 M and McGehee was projected for $3.1 M, based off of the MLBTR estimates. I used the mid-point for each player for the new estimates, which didn’t change much for Jones, but lowered McGehee by about $600 K. The estimated 40-man payroll is now barely over $46 M.
