The New York Yankees avoided arbitration by signing the last two eligible players Chad Gaudin and Boone Logan to one-year deals. It was a very wise decision.
Arbitration disputes can be contentious under the best of circumstances and you don't want to take the risk of any lingering resentment heading into the baseball season. Both players could play key roles this season, with Gaudin battling for the fifth rotation spot and Logan serving as the second lefty in the bullpen.
Even playoff heros have to navigate the nasty process, which encourages teams to bad mouth their players to save dollars and forces the players to defend their resumes. Before they signed long-term deals, Yankee Captain Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera both went through the arbitration process. Jeter won his 1999 case and received $5 million, but was bothered listening to the Yanks talk about how he didn't hit enough homers. Mo actually lost an arbitration case in 2000, getting $2 million less than what he asked for.
It's good to see the Yankees have learned the error of their ways. I thought with the penny pinching the Yanks seem to be doing to keep to their budget, securing their remaining players to deals outside the arbitration process might be difficult. Glad to see that wasn't the case.
Thanks to Chrisjnelson via en.Wikipedia for the photo.
No comments:
Post a Comment