Every year at this time each club negotiates with the players in their system that are eligible for arbitration. The Dodgers had 10 players that reached arbitration eligibility, and they were able to reach agreements with 9 out of the 10. The players the club reached agreements with were Julio Urias, Walker Buehler, Will Smith, Dustin May, Trayce Thompson, Evan Phillips, Yency Almonte, Brusdar Graterol, and Caleb Ferguson. Yency Almonte, Will Smith, and Gonsolin were all first-year arbitration-eligible players, and Brusdar Graterol and Evan Phillips became eligible as Super 2’s.
First, let’s back up a little bit and explain the process of arbitration and how it works.Â
Players who have 3 or more years of Major League service, but not more than 6, are eligible for arbitration. The “not more than 6” is in place because the 6-year mark is when a player becomes eligible for Free Agency. Super 2 players, like Graterol and Phillips, can reach arbitration before reaching their 3-year service mark by ranking in the top 22% in terms of service in comparison to all players that have reached between 2 and 3 years in the Majors. A year of service time is calculated by 172 days of being on the 26-man roster or on the injured list.Â
Now that we have that out of the way, let’s take a look at Tony Gonsolin’s case.
Gonsolin’s Case
Gonsolin is in his first year of Arbitration and is wanting $3.4 million while the Dodgers are offering $3 Million. So, the 2 parties are off $400,000 which doesn’t seem like a whole lot, because, while $400,000 is a helluva a lot of money for almost all of us, we the fans, for a club like the Dodgers it’s a fraction of their earnings. So, everything is relative, which are the terms we will be using in this article.Â
Gonsolin made $720,000 last year which was just $20,000 above the 2022 league minimum and equal to this upcoming year’s league minimum in 2023. But, as we know, he greatly outperformed that salary by posting a 2.14 ERA, a WHIP of just 0.87, an average against of just .172, and a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 3.4 to 1. Those numbers made him an All-Star and gave the Dodgers premium production for a bargain basement price.
From that perspective, the Dodgers should be appreciative of that and be willing to meet the additional $400,000 that Gonsolin is asking for, even if the club, rightfully or not, thinks they might be overpaying a little.Â
Of the pitchers on the NL All-Star roster last summer, all of them avoided arbitration in their ARB 1 year by making a deal with their teams, and here’s how the most recent deals have come out.
In 2018 Carlos Rodon signed for $2.3, in 2019 Tyler Anderson signed for $2.6, in 2020 Joe Musgrove signed for $2.8, in 2021 Max Fried signed for $3.5, and in 2022 Corbin Burnes signed for $6.5 million. Sandy Alcantara also signed a 5 year $56 million dollar contract in 2021 as well, which, obviously avoided the arbitration process.Â
Gonsolin should use Max Fried as his prime example.Â
When Fried signed for $3.5 million in 2021, the first year he was eligible for arbitration, he had pitched in parts of 4 different seasons to that point and had thrown 280 innings, and had thrown over 56 innings in just one year, 2019. Gonsolin, to this point, has thrown 271.5 innings, and his 2nd highest amount of innings thrown in a season is 55.2, which is just one out away from being identical to Fried.Â
That comparison, at least the regular season aspect of it, favors the side of Gonsolin and the arbitration panel will take into account the salaries of pitchers with similarities.
The Dodger’s rebuttal would be that in 2020 Fried threw 23.2 postseason innings and had an ERA of just 3.04 in the playoffs when it matters the most. They will then compare that to Gonsolin’s post-season from last year and that aspect of it would favor the Dodgers.
At that point, when Gonsolin’s team is done making their arguments, and the Dodgers are done giving their rebuttals, the script will flip and the Dodgers will get to make their case with Gonsolin and his team following with their rebuttals.Â
The Dodgers Case
The Dodgers will most likely argue that Gonsolin only made it through 1.1 innings in the postseason last year and has a career Post Season ERA of 9.20 in his 3 years of post-season work and that he has a history of injury, including last year. In 2021 he was placed on the 60-day injured list in May, then was also placed on the 10-day injured list at the end of July. Then, this past season in 2022, he was placed on the 15-day injured list at the end of August and didn’t seem fully recovered in his playoff performance.
They will also likely argue that, before this past year, a year in which he ended on the IL, the most he had thrown in one season was 55.2 innings, so, while last year was spectacular for Gonsolin, at least in the regular season, his track record isn’t extremely long.Â
Each side gets an hour to make their argument, so the arguments certainly won’t be limited to the above, but I do think those factors will be key.
The Arbitration panel will weigh each part of both sides arguments and determine whether the underpaid regular season performance of Gonsolin last year outweighs his post-season history combined with his injuries and thin track record prior to 2022.Â
I could easily see this case going either way, because, in my opinion, both sides are right, or, at the very least, neither side’s argument is wrong. That’s also why, although arbitration can be messy, and can hurt feelings, I don’t think it will in this case. That’s because the Dodgers won’t be arguing that Gonsolin isn’t good enough, or trying to devalue his contributions when healthy. They will simply be making the case that he hasn’t been healthy enough to create an extensive track record, especially when referring to the Post Season. The Dodgers also have team control over Gonsolin through the 2026 season, so, even if a feeling or two does get hurt, if Gonsolin puts a track record together between now and then, the club has plenty of time to make up for it in the future negotiations.
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