It’s been a while, but we have one more deadline!
This Friday, teams and arbitration-eligible players will have to exchange salary amounts for 2023, unless they have already agreed on contracts for this season, i.e.
At this point, the Pittsburgh Pirates have just come to terms with the Miguel Andújar from its arbitration pending class, with five players remaining: JT Brubaker, Ji-Man Choi, Mitch Keller, Robert Stephensonand Duane Underwood Jr.
For reference, here are the projections for each player, via MLB Trade Rumors:
Choi: $4.5 million
Keller: $2.4 million
Brubaker: $2.0 million
Stephenson: $1.9 million
Underwood Jr.: $1.0 million
Teams and players can still reach an agreement between the application deadline and any scheduled hearings, which are set to begin on January 30th. Of course, like many in baseball now, the Pirates consider themselves a “file and trial” team, meaning they prefer not to make deals—outside of long-term pacts (ie. Bryan Reynolds)—after putting up their numbers .
A change to the arbitration process this season—likely as part of the new CBA—if teams and players agree to terms outside of a hearing, salary is guaranteed. This differs from previous years, where arbitration salaries were not guaranteed until the start of the season. This simply means that if Andújar is not on the final roster, his entire $1,525,000 would be guaranteed, while he would only be guaranteed 30 or 45 days of salary prior, depending on when the contract was terminated.
One last aspect of the process that doesn’t need to be mentioned—any player who reaches arbitration for the first time after the 2022 season and played during the 2020 season, their stats must be extrapolated to 2020 as if it were a full season, not a partial one actually was. For the Pirates, that includes Brubaker, Keller and Underwood Jr.
On an individual player level, I was personally intrigued to see how Underwood Jr.’s situation would play out. and Stephenson. Two players that many considered to be safe causes on the roster entering the season, both have resisted many additions to the roster to this point. Now, with the bullpen appearing, at least at this point, to be pretty full and more moves likely to come, it’s possible that at least one doesn’t make the team on opening day.
Off-season calendar update
As noted above, the deadline to submit a request for arbitration is Friday, January 13thth.
Also, this is more in John Dreker’s purview, but it should be mentioned that the 2022-2023 international signing period. starts on Sunday, January 15th.
Pirates payroll updates
— After it has been designated for allocation, Bryce Wilson was traded to the Milwaukee Brewers for cash.
I had already outperformed Wilson at one point in my projections, so the payroll dropped by $279,089 after I officially took him off the ledger.
—The Rich Hill the signing was made official this week, and Zach Thompson has been assigned the task of making room on the roster,
This surprised me a bit, as I had Thompson on my currently projected list and didn’t have him projected as ahead of the curve as far as suitable moves on the list. I replaced it with Yohan Ramirezand wages decreased by $135,199 as a result.
— For 2023, the salary estimate is $67,867,909 for the Department of Labor Relations, while $84,284,576 is for CBT purposes.
A longtime reader of Pirates Prospects, Ethan has covered payroll, transactions and rules in depth since 2018 and has been dealing with these topics for as long as he can remember. He began writing about the Pirates at The Point of Pittsburgh before moving to Pirates Prospects at the start of the 2019 season.
Always a lover of numbers and finding answers, Ethan prefers to dive into these topics rather than what actually happens on the field. These under-covered and often inaccurate topics are truly his passion and he goes out of his way to educate fans on topics they may not always understand but are important nonetheless.
When he’s not updating his beloved spreadsheets, Ethan works full-time as an accountant while fathering two young daughters and watching too many movies and TV shows at night.