Arb Time For the Bucs; Should Be A Quiet Day

The Bucs have 11 arb-eligible players left to tender by tonight's 11:59 PM deadline:

• 1B Pedro Alvarez (4.085) – $5.5M 
• C Francisco Cervelli (4.146) – $1.1M 
• 3B Josh Harrison (3.033) – $2.2M 
• RHP Jared Hughes (2.162) – $1.1M 
• RHP Mark Melancon (4.098) – $7.6M 
• UT Sean Rodriguez (5.133) – $2.0M 
• C Chris Stewart (4.091) – $1.3M 
• OF Travis Snider (4.091) – $2.0M 
• 2B Neil Walker (4.166) – $8.6M 
• LHP Tony Watson (3.101) – $2.0M 
• RHP Vance Worley (2.139) – $2.9M 

(showing years of service/estimated arb salary per Matt Swartz of MLB Trade Rumors)

(image from KPT Sports)

They should all be tendered contracts; the Pirates have already weeded out Ike Davis, Gaby Sanchez, Jeanmar Gomez, Brent Morel and John Axford.

You know the arb drill: if the player and team can't agree on a salary for 2015, they exchange contract figures in January. If push comes to shove, they take their cases to an arbitrator, who picks one salary offer (the team or players). It's quite unlikely that it will get that far for any of these guys. It's also unlikely that any sign a multi-year contract. Assuming Swartz is right - and he's usually in the ballpark - that's over $36M the Bucs are already tacking on to the payroll.

We'd think that if the Bucs are in the mood to tie up guys, they'd be looking more at pre-arb players like Starling Marte and Gregory Polanco. And all the players now in their arb years are under at least one more year of team control except for newcomer Rodriguez, so there's no real urgency yet.

That's today's housecleaning chore - tender the arb guys and make offers to the pre-arb gang of players, who require no more than (and will get no more than) minimum salary. Then on to the more complicated job of inking the arb 11.