Washington Nationals Have Sharper View of Upcoming Salary Arbitration Bill
Much of the focus for the Washington Nationals has been on free agency as they enter an offseason in which they hope to bolster their roster with some veteran leadership and hitting to go along with one of the best young rosters in baseball.
But on Friday, Washington had to make decisions about whether or not to tender its remaining 40-man roster players a contract for the 2025 season.
Typically, this deadline is about which arbitration eligible players each team wants to keep.
Well, the Nationals made a splash by determining they didn't want to tender contracts to a pair of long-tenured relievers in Tanner Rainey and Kyle Finnegan.
Those were significant decisions for the Nationals, decisions that could have been driven by cost as both were entering their final year of team control.
The Nats also agreed to a deal with pitcher Mason Thompson, who missed all of last season due to injury.
That leaves Washington with five players that are arbitration-eligible in 2025 — reliever Derek Law, starting pitchers Josiah Gray and MacKenzie Gore, and batters Luis Garcia Jr. and Riley Adams.
The next step is for the Nationals and these players to try and work out a contract before the arbitration deadline on Jan. 9. At that point, Baltimore and any remaining arbitration-eligible players without a deal would exchange salary figures and go to an arbitration hearing in February.
Teams and players tend to do everything possible to avoid an arbitration hearing, as the process tends to damage the relationship and can could impede the team's ability to keep the player long-term.
Based on projections provided by MLB Trade Rumors, none of the remaining players on the arbitration list are projected to make more than $5 million. But Garcia and Gore represent an interesting test case for the Nationals as they try to balance their future with a better present.
Both are in their first year of arbitration eligibility and have proven that they are part of the future of the franchise. In situations like these, many teams try to work out a multi-year deal as a way to control the player’s through their arbitration years, which tends to last for three seasons as players with six years of service time can become free agents.
Teams do this to avoid high costs. For instance, Finnegan was projected to receive 8.6 million in 2025. By non-tendering him the Nats basically said they were uncomfortable with the cost for their long-time reliever. They would prefer to avoid a similar situation with Garcia and Gore.
