Seattle Mariners News: Team avoids arbitration with 3 players

Today was the MLB deadline for teams to negotiate deals with arbitration-eligible players and the Seattle Mariners settled contracts with all three arbitration-eligible players. JP Crawford, Tom Murphy, and the newly acquired Rafael Montero all agreed to deals.

The Mariners’ small group of just three players who had enough service time in the MLB (3 full seasons on an MLB roster) all avoided going into an arbitration negotiation with the team. The Gold Glover JP Crawford‘s salary for next year will be $2,050,000 as reported by FanSided’s Robert Murray, and we here at Sodo Mojo had the news of Tom Murphy and Rafael Montero signing their deals, while Jon Heyman had the figure for Montero at $2,250,000.

Tom Murphy’s salary has not been disclosed yet as the club policy is not to disclose the contracts so the reports of the salaries probably came from the players’ agents. However, according to Sportrac he is estimated to make $1,600,000 in an arbitration avoiding deal.

With all contracts and Murphy’s estimated contract Sportrac has the Mariners sitting at $58 million in committed contracts and after the non-arbitration eligible players are paid in 2021 the current 40 man roster’s salary will be around $80 million.

So these 3 players avoided arbitration, what does this mean for the Seattle Mariners?

In reality, not much since none of them are true big-time star players that you need to have as happy as possible with the organization, but it’s always nice to not go into arbitration negotiations since the concept of it is the team competing with the player’s agent to pay you less.

It is also nice for the Mariners as every player is now under contract for 2021 after they avoid all arbitration negotiations and as all of the non-arbitration eligible players, like Kyle Lewis, Dylan Moore, Justus Sheffield, etc. are under club control and will likely be under contract at the league minimum.