Today is the deadline for the Baltimore Orioles to come to a contract with Trey Mancini, Hanser Alberto, and Mychal Givens. If the sides are unable to agree, arbitration hearings will be scheduled for sometime between February 3-21st. The sides of course could still read an agreement before then (in which case the hearing would be canceled), but that’s where the sides are now.
I think that arbitration is one of the dumbest processes in MLB. Perhaps in sports. The team’s literally arguing that their own player’s not worth the money he claims he is. Now there are plenty of situations in which players are unreasonable about their salary requests. But in essence that’s the procedure – the player’s arguing his virtues, and the team’s arguing his faults.
What’s not in question is that any of the three aforementioned players are on the roster on Opening Day (pending any trades that could be made). They will be. It’s just a matter of how much they’ll be making.
Birdland Crush 