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daveinexile
daveinexile

Givens: 9 MM for ‘08 ( per cots). 80% is the best the team could get in an arbitration ruling 3M was the buy out paid to avoid paying 11M in ‘09. So: 9M*.8 =7.2M + 3M =10.2M So in an absolute best case Tigers gain $800K but just how likely are they to win a best case? And it would take pretty much a best case for them to avoid paying the same or more then the original contract they just bought out of. The Tigers offering arbitration with out Renteria already being signed else were would be one of strangest things I've seen a team do in the hot stove in a long, long time.

Chris
Chris

We'll see. After shuffling through a few Tiger blogs, a few of them seem certain that Detroit will offer him arb. He'd have a salary baseline of $8M -- by the 80% rule -- if that happened. I can see arguments for and against offering it. Renteria is getting older, surely he'd want the security of a multi-year deal, right?

obsessivegiantscompu
obsessivegiantscompu

I don't think the Tigers would do that, they risk getting him back and given that he made $10M with them last season, he probably could get $11/12M via arbitration, or even if he asked for the same $10M, that would still be more than what he would have gotten in the rumored deal. Why not take the easy and more money, and get another season to do well before going free agent? I think he would Maddux the Tigers in a heartbeat if they were to do that. Another reason he was unlucky in 2008 was because his hitting peripherals were still good in 2008, despite the drop in hitting. And, his season was two different halves, bad first half, great second half, 812 OPS after ASG, which is excellent for a SS. Basically, he was bad from sometime in May to July, but good in April and excellent in August and September. However, his strikeout rate and BB/K ratio was as good pre- as post-ASG, and just as good as previous years. In addition, his poor road stats was due to some horrific hitting at a number of pitcher's parks (including SD and SF), plus poor hitting at known hitter's parks, like D-backs and ChiSox. He had sub-510 OPS at almost two handful of parks, and had 3-4 sub 300 OPS parks. That horrific hitting. So he's getting paid lower for the lower hitting line, but his peripherals (and the points made above about BIP and BABIP) suggest that he's a low risk/high reward signing at the rumored deal. Of course, he could still stink anyway, but the data suggest that he's not done yet, just was unlucky in 2008.