While we move our way through a dreadfully boring winter, it’s worth noting another milestone date that passed just ahead of the weekend. The Royals have three arbitration-eligible players. Friday was the date for sides to exchange numbers.
This is the obligatory disclaimer that Dayton Moore has never had a case appear before an arbiter.
First though, the Royals cleared a little business by agreeing to a one-year deal with Eric Hosmer valued at $12.25 million. That reduced the number of arbitration-eligible Royals by one and took care of potentially the most difficult case ahead. Hosmer, if you’ll recall, made his debut in May of 2011 and as such, was a Super Two case. That doesn’t mean much at this point in his career, other than he was eligible for arbitration for a fourth time. He signed a two-year deal before his second year of eligibility, so this was the first time in a couple of years the Royals and their first baseman would go through this dance.
Remember, arbitration takes into account the more “old school” baseball stats. Home runs and RBI count. So too presumably does things like All-Star game appearances and performance and World Series production. Hosmer, as noted on this site, is considered “clutch.” That means he’s going to get paid.
MLB Trade Rumors estimated a $13.3 million salary for Hosmer. They’re usually very solid in their predictions, so for the Royals to come in a shade over a million off that estimate feels like a win for a team who says they are searching the couch cushions for extra coins.
A fun note: The agreement was announced just too late before numbers were to be submitted by both sides. It would be interesting to see the salaries both sides were gunning for ahead of the process, right? Ahhhhh… Those tricksters had some fun with us. Hosmer and the Royals both submitted a number of $12.25 million.
The Homser deal and the trade a couple weeks ago of Jarrod Dyson gives us a little more fiscal clarity. The Royals are now at around $106.5 million on the contracts to 14 players.
The Royals are very clearly in a hold steady mode when it comes to payroll. They’ve removed Dyson and Wade Davis and their combined estimated salaries of $12.5 million. (A $10 million option the Royals picked up last November and a projected $2.5 million for Dyson in his third year of arbitration eligibility. He reached an agreement with Seattle last week for $2.8 million.) In their place you have Jorge Soler at $3,666,667 million and Nate Karns who is not yet eligible for arbitration. That’s a savings of around $8 million for the Royals.
This of course means there are still two outstanding arbitration cases out there. Duffy asked for $8 million and the Royals countered with $7.25 million. That seems like an easy gap to bridge. And with rumblings about a potential extension in the works for Duffy, a part of a new long-term deal for the left-hander would certainly be backloaded to give the Royals even more salary relief for 2017. If they can’t reach an agreement by the hearing date on an extension, there’s no reason to think they can’t settle somewhere close to the midpoint on a one-year contract.
Their other case remaining is with new closer Kelvin Herrera. He asked for $5.6 million versus the Royals offer of $5.05 million. Again, this is close enough to assume Moore will emerge from this winter once again with his perfect record at avoiding arbitration intact.
Assuming (and as noted above with Duffy extension talks in the air, this is a very rough and likely wrong assumption) both players settle around the midpoint, that’s around $13 million for the two pitchers. Add those two to our salary spreadsheet above and you have close to $120 million for 16 players.
As mentioned, that could change by as much as $3 to $4 million depending on a Duffy extension.
That leaves nine players, each of whom will make around the major league minimum of $535,000. Obviously, not everyone will make exactly that amount, but historically salaries for players with less than three years of major league experience are very close to that amount. The total would be $4.815 million. Why not just round it up to an additional $5 million for those nine players. That brings total payroll to close to $124.5 million.
Except, we have to end this article with our usual bad news when discussion the Royals payroll. They still owe Omar Infante $8 million. That brings their total projected Opening Day payroll to around $132.5 million. That’s about $1 million more than their payroll last April.
It’s all about the fiscal responsibility.
Cot’s Contracts says Soler makes $3M this year.
Soler receives a base salary of $3 million, but has a signing bonus of $666,667 each year of the deal, so for payroll purposes, he makes $3.666667 million in 2017. For some reason, some sites have his bonus ending in 2016, but for that $666,667 bonus figure per year to reach the full $6 million he signed, it would take all nine seasons.