San Francisco Giants: Betances Case Proves Avoiding Arbitration is for the Best
The strange case between Dellin Betances and the Yankees proves that the San Francisco Giants’ method of avoiding arbitration is for the best, both for the team and for the player.
The San Francisco Giants have a pretty good reputation for treating their players the right way. It’s part of the reason why so many players are willing to return to the team, and why Mike Morse made his comeback attempt with the Giants, and the Giants alone. And part of treating players the right way is doing the right thing in arbitration, which means avoiding it altogether.
The Giants entered this offseason with six players eligible for arbitration, and for the 14th consecutive season, they avoided going in front of the arbitration panel. Ehire Adrianza, Cory Gearrin, Conor Gillaspie, Eduardo Nunez, George Kontos, and Will Smith all had their contract situation settled before a hearing was needed.
Avoiding a hearing in front of that panel can be an extremely simple way of doing right by your players. The hearing process can get very messy, and you need not look any further than what is transpiring between the New York Yankees and their relief pitcher, Dellin Betances.
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Betances and the Yankees had an arbitration hearing this past week, and the Yankees won the case. The panel decided that Betances is worth the $3 million that the Yankees offered, instead of the $5 million that he put on the table. That’s just the beginning in this strange, brutal case .
After the hearing, Yankees’ president Randy Levine held a news conference and basically called out Betances and his representation. Betances was displeased with the way the hearing went, and had no qualms about voicing his opinion, but Levine took it to the next level with the news conference. Levine even went so far as to blame Betances, in part, for their declining ticket sales in 2016.
The hearing can be awkward enough as is. In just about every arbitration case, the team will offer a lower dollar amount than what the player will ask for. When it gets to the hearing, the team makes a case to prove that the player isn’t worth the money he’s asking for, while the player is sitting right there in the same room. Awkward, right? Now imagine how much harder the situation is with all of this extracurricular nonsense going on.
And even worse, Betances is under Yankees’ team control for two more seasons past 2017, meaning unless they get an extension done (which seems incredibly unlikely now) or trade him away, Betances will be arbitration eligible twice more.
That’s why the Giants work so hard to make sure this doesn’t happen. They haven’t had an arbitration hearing since 2004, when catcher A.J. Pierzynski, who was acquired via trade about two months earlier, won his case against the team to earn $3.5 million for the 2005 season.
At that point, Pierzynski had yet to even play a game for the Giants. One of his earliest impressions of the team was listening to their representation present a case for why Pierzynski wasn’t worth that much money. He was said to be a tough guy to get along with during the 2004 campaign, and the Giants declined to offer him a contract the following offseason. Maybe the hearing left a bad taste in some parties’ mouths.
Since Pierzynski, San Francisco’s record of avoiding arbitration has been spotless, but it has been tested more than once. In 2010, they were in the lobby of the arbitration office when they struck a deal with pitcher Tim Lincecum. The two sides had already gone into the hearing room that day, but stepped out to negotiate further, which resulted in a two-year, $23-million deal. In 2014, they were in a similar situation with first baseman Brandon Belt. The player had already flown down to Florida for his hearing, but the two sides agreed to a $2.6-million contract for the year and avoided going before the panel.
The Giants have done so well to avoid rubbing these arbitration-eligible players the wrong way, and they will put their 14-year streak on the line next year with potentially six players arbitration-eligible again. That number will almost certainly change, however, as rosters shift throughout the year. Four players (Gillaspie, Kontos, Smith, and Gearrin) will be up for, at least, their second year of arbitration with the team, while Joe Panik and Hunter Strickland will be first-timers.
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Avoiding the hearing is the simplest way to keep a good working relationship with their players. Next year will put them to the test again, but with a 14-year streak at stake, don’t expect the Giants to change their ways. After watching how things are going between Betances and the Yankees, that’s certainly for the best.