Xavier Nady Due for Raise As Arbitration Filings Start Monday

(Zell's Pinstripe Blog)

The salary arbitration process will begin this Monday and will run until Jan. 15. The three Yankee players headed to arbitration are Xavier Nady, Melky Cabrera, and Brian Bruney. Hopefully the team can negotiate deals with them, so they won’t have to go through with a hearing.

Only eight of the 110 that filed for arbitration last year went to a hearing. Bruney and Cabrera will most likely reach an agreement beforehand, but Nady is in a different situation. He only made $3.35 million last year, and he is worth a lot more than that. Nady is also a Scott Boras client, so that makes things more complicated.

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In salary arbitration, the player presents the higher figure and the club the lower figure. A panel of three arbitrators must choose between the two after arguments are presented by both sides at yet-to-be-scheduled hearings from Feb. 1-21. Those players who elect to possibly go to a hearing must swap figures with their clubs on Jan. 21.

“To place the arbitration process in perspective, there is a reason that so few clubs and players go all the way to hearing,” said Brown, who noted that the owners have beaten the players in arbitration for 12 consecutive years. “The stakes are too high. That and the clubs really lose even when they win. Whether a deal is struck before hearing, or if a club wins at hearing, the player nearly always gets a hefty raise.”

Salary arbitration was established because the owners at the time tried to maintain the reserve clause and ward off free agency, which was awarded by an arbitrator anyway two years later. The first derivation of the current free-agency system was collectively bargained in the Major Leagues, beginning with the 1977 season.

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