MVN - Most Valuable Network

Arbitration Filings Spur Negotiations

Players with between three and six years of service time filed for arbitration on Friday. Should the teams and their agents not come to an agreement, each side will file a proposed salary tomorrow. Then it gets interesting. If they don’t bridge the gap, they’ll head to arbitration in early February.

Arbitration is probably the most fascinating contractual process at any level of professional ball. The Tribe had four players file for arbitration: Jason Michaels, Rafael Betancourt, Jason Davis, Matt Miller.

Michaels is tough to gauge. Positions players are paid better than pitchers, and he made $1.5M last season in his second year of arbitration. Michaels figures to make around $3M this season.

The rest of the filings are middle relievers, who are among the lowest paid of all positions on the baseball food chain. No saves and no holds (yes, “holds” are a major point of contention in negotiations)? Then you won’t sniff the big dollars.

Betancourt figures to make somewhere a tick below $1M, Davis 3/4 of a million, and Miller, coming off injury, will likely fail to double the new league minimum of $380K.

Miller Avoids Arbitration

The Plain Dealer is reporting Matt Miller has agreed to a one-year contract and avoided arbitration. CBS Sportsline is reporting the deal is worth $560K.  Miller has signed on the cheap, and he’ll be that much more attractive to the Tribe for the coming season.

Sikorski Outrighted to Buffalo

Brian Sikorski was designated for assignment to make room for Keith Foulke on the 40-man roster. Sikorski went unclaimed on waivers, and today he accepted an assignment to join Buffalo, also per the PD.

Mulder Stays in St. Louis

Mark Mulder made the smart move, staying in the National League after resigning with the St. Louis Cardinals.

Mulder is guaranteed $13M in the deal. Through incentives and a 2009 option year, Mulder can make $45M over three years with the Cards. Because he’ll likely miss the first half of 2007, Mulder won’t reach full incentives.

With the guaranteed cash and the incentives, Cleveland’s incentive to sign Mulder dwindled. He is capable of throwing league average baseball (and perhaps a bit above league average if healthy), and his presence would have given Mark Shapiro some options in terms of making a deal.

With the guaranteed cash he received and considering his injury, it just wasn’t a fit in Cleveland. Fair enough.

Reds’ Olmeda DFA

A solution as the backup middle infielder? Ray Olmedo is a defensive-minded middle infielder who can switch-hit. He hasn’t done very well offensively at the Major League level with the Reds, but he’s only 25.

Hector Luna is far superior on offense and 40-man roster infielder Mike Rouse might be just as useful, but Olmedo may be the defensive backup the Indians hope to have behind Jhonny Peralta.

North of 60

Much has been made of Cleveland’s decision to operate on a budget

“Spend within your means?” It’s an idea many fans can’t seem to grasp. Considering the average personal debt in America, consider me not surprised.

But Larry Dolan didn’t earn enough cash to buy a baseball team without being a good businessman. Mark Shapiro has done an excellent job building an organization in front of a stadium that can’t draw fans. Given an extra $20M to spend, I don’t think Mark Shapiro is the kind of guy who gives Barry Zito $18M per season anyway.

So as we come toward spring training, Cleveland certainly has raised its payroll north of $60M. I have a spreadsheet that I’m going to crisp up, but guess which Tribe position player has the highest guaranteed salary in 2007?

If you said Casey Blake at $4.2M, then you were right.

Murphy’s Law?

You know, that Browns fan got me thinking. What can go wrong this season, and the answer is, quite naturally, everything.

 I think the biggest fear has to be the team’s health simply because it has the ability to absolutely submarine the entire season.  Shapiro has done his very best to supply the team with depth at every position, particularly in the bullpen, where he’s reacted to last season’s implosion with a much-warranted bout of paranoia-induced free agent signings.  I can point to a message from Brian in reply to Rick’s last post stating that “With all the veterans they’ve added, they’ll have an entire second bullpen waiting at Buffalo or Akron to replace anyone who struggles or gets hurt — Miller (I’m guessing, since he has options left), Mujica, Mastny, Slocum, Sipp, Perez, and Lara. Plus Carmona if necessary…” The pessimist in me likes the idea of there being a Jr. Varsity bullpen waiting for the big kids to graduate (to the DL, I guess, if you want to stay true to the high school analogy), but the economist in me wonders whether a trade shouldn’t be made to bring in that lights out guy that the assembled staff seems to lack.  Okay, Foulke could be that guy, but while I like the fact that he’s on the team and all, I don’t really expect him to stay healthy.  So, while I don’t mean to quibble, I just wonder if the limited resources of the Indians couldn’t be used to better effect.

I’m going to hope, as usual, that Shapiro is saving his bullets to shoot them wisely and, when the time comes and guys like Lara are at their peak value, he’ll trade them judiciously for the right pieces to shoot the team into the World Series stratosphere.  In the meantime, I’m going to watch the very good core of this team perform to its ability and count my lucky stars that I didn’t grow up cheering for Kansas City.