As I supposed in my original post, the Mets have indeed settled with Mike Pelfrey and thus avoiding arbitration.
ESPN New York is reporting that arbitration-eligible Mike Pelfrey has settled with the Mets. An organization source said the deal will pay Pelfrey $3.925 million during the upcoming season. He can earn $50,000 extra in performance bonuses.
Pelfrey, who turned 27 last Friday, made $3.3 million in 2009 as part of his original deal after signing as a first-round pick in 2005. But he did not yet have enough service time last offseason to be arbitration-eligible, so his salary dipped to $500,000 this past year.
Angel Pagan and R.A. Dickey also are also due to exchange salary figures today for a February hearing if there’s no settlement.
Updated on 1/17 12:00 PM
On Tuesday, Mike Pelfrey, Angel Pagan and R.A. Dickey will each exchange arbitration figures with the team for a 2011 contract.
Alderson said last week, that sometimes exchanging figures can pave the way for a settlement to be reached, and he hoped that would be the case with one or more players.
As I said in my original post, I believe the Mets will probably settle on a deal with Mike Pelfrey to avoid arbitration.
Original Post 1/12 2:00 PM
Ask any Mets fan to name three players who they were pleasantly surprised with in 2010, and no doubt you will hear the names of Mike Pelfrey who rebounded from a terrible season, Angel Pagan who finally played a full season and exceeded all expectations, and of course R.A. Dickey who was by far the biggest and best surprise of them all.
Not coincidentally, all three of them are spiraling toward an arbitration hearing that each of them would like to avoid.
Arbitration hearings can get very nasty and in most cases can damage the sensitive relationships between a player and their team. The reason for that is because the team’s representatives appear before an arbitrator and try to make their case for not giving the players the raise they seek. Rather than discussing the high points of the players prior season, they show up with a detailed case outlining all of the adverse information they can find against their players, painting them in the poorest light possible so that the team can win their case against the player. It’s a bad scene for the players who have to sit and watch their teams shred them to pieces.
In an interview with Adam Rubin, general manager Sandy Alderson indicated that it could be possible that an agreement could be reached with one of the players, but didn’t say who. He also said he would have a better indication about reaching an agreement with one or all of them after arbitration figures are exchanged next week.
“I think it does promote settlement, and sometimes the expectations of parties aren’t clear until the numbers are submitted.”
If a settlement cannot be reached, arbitration hearings will begin on February 1st.
Last season, Dickey earned a base salary of just $600 thousand dollars. One look at his performance and you could easily see him doubling or tripling that in arbitration.
Angel Pagan earned $1.45 million dollars in 2010 and he could approach $3 million or more in arbitration and he would still be worth every penny of it.
Pelfrey had a breakthrough season and much will be expected of him in 2011 as he takes over as the ace while Santana recovers. With Scott Boras running the show, the sky’s the limit and there’s no telling how much he’ll get in arbitration. I’ll go out on a limb and say that of the three, this one might be the one the Mets will try to avoid arbitration with.
