St. Louis Cardinals Arbitration Details & Roster Moves
Seven St. Louis Cardinals players were salary arbitration eligible this season and twenty one players in the organization were pre-arbitration eligible. The team announced yesterday that they have reached agreements with five of the seven arb-eligible and twenty on the twenty one pre-arb. eligible.
Pitchers Jack Flaherty, Giovanni Gallegos, Jordan Hicks, Dakota Hudson and Alex Reyes agreed to terms to avoid salary arbitration, while outfielders Harrison Bader and Tyler O’Neill did not.
According to reports, the salary agreements are as follows: Flaherty at $5M, Reyes at $2.85M, Gallegos at $2.4M, Hudson at $1.05M & Hicks at $937K. The two Cardinals not to reach an agreement before the deadline are outfielders Tyler O’Neill & Harrison Bader. Per ESPN’s Mark Feinsand, O’Neill filed for $4.15M and the Cardinals countered at $3.4M while Bader filed at $4.8M with the Cardinals countering at $3.8M.
Players qualify for the arbitration process after reaching three years of MLB service time and remain eligible each off-season until they reach six years of MLB service time. The players come in with an offer of what they think their salary should be which is either agreed upon or countered by the team. If no agreement is reached by the hearing date, an arbitration panel will listen to both the player and team’s argument for said salary, and the panel then decides either the player or team’s proposal. There is no meet in the middle at this point.
This means both O’Neill & Bader will go before the arbitration panel to plead their case for their upcoming 2022 salaries.
For example last season Jack Flaherty won his hearing, after coming in with a $3.9M proposal that the team had filed at $3M.
As far as the pre-arbitration players, those agreeing to terms were Génesis Cabrera, Brendan Donovan, Tommy Edman, Junior Fernandez, Ryan Helsley, Ivan Herrera, Andrew Knizner, Lars Nootbaar, Johan Oviedo, Freddy Pacehco, Johan Quezada, Angel Rondón, Ali Sánchez, Edmundo Sosa, Brendon Waddell, Jake Walsh, Kodi Whitley, Jake Woodford, Juan Yepez and T.J. Zeuch.
Outfielder Dylan Carlson had his contract renewed.
The Cardinals also announced that they have optioned or re-assigned six players to their minor league camp, reducing the number of players in Major League camp to 55.
The team optioned pitcher Brandon Waddell to the Memphis (AAA) roster and re-assigned pitcher Trent Baker, first baseman Luken Baker, infielders Delvin Perez and Jordan Walker and catcher Pedro Pages to minor league camp.