It's Gonna Be A Player's Arbitration Year

There's not a whole lot a real good number crunching GM can say. Hey, don't you know there's a recession going on? We can't possibly give Francisco Liriano $5m!

That ship has sailed, that plane has flown, that Elvis has left not only the building, but he's residing now in Reno after retirement from that Las Vegas gig.

When a cadre of GMs stepped to the plate during the first two weeks of January as they prepared their arbitration numbers and broke the proverbial bank for their players who had achieved that status and awarded contracts way beyond the norm, or prudent, in order to keep them from the arb table, there's no use almost anyone getting into that argument. The argument is lost. Prince Fielder, who's at least a very good to great player, was awarded the highest amount in history with a $15.5m one year deal. A player like Kyle Kendrick, ... Kyle Kendrick for sake, was awarded $2,450,000. He'd have been ecstatic with $1,609,000, which is where the SPRO salary projection system pegged him. This is a man with an above MLB average ERA, and although we actually like Kyle, most teams have a half dozen guys toiling in their minors who could step in right now and perform to that ERA and get the major league minimum, $414,000.

Matt Capps got $7.15 million after one good year; geez, didn't he used to be someone the Pittsburgh Pirates and Washington Nationals didn't really want a little more than that one year ago after he posted an ERA of 5.80 in 2009?

Okay, we'll stop now. You get the picture. Salaries are rising in professional sports, and particularly baseball and their arbitration eligibles this year. Somehow, someone should have reminded somebody that the public who pays their salaries don't have jobs.