It looks like the Blue Jays 16 year streak of not taking players to an arbitration hearing will end this year. They didn't come to an agreement with Jason Frasor or Jose Bautista.
Frasor surprises me, I didn't think he and the team would be all that far apart. He made $2.65 million last year, I figured he'd be somewhere in the $4 million range this year.
Bautista on the other hand, he could be looking to get anywhere from $8 to $14 million, so there is a fair bit of room in there for disagreement. Alex Anthopoulos is telling reporters (but not me, yes I'm a little bitter), on a conference call, that they may continue to try to get a long term contract for Jose but they won't negotiate on a 1 year deal for him now.
I'm a big fan of not going to the arbitrator. There is no real win for the team. They have to state, in front of the player, why he isn't good enough to get the amount of money he for which he is asking. It is just a spot to create bad blood.
Sometime today we should hear what figures the team and the players will put in front of the arbitrator.
Here is a quote from the conference call, via John Lott:
AA says he told Bautista agent Bean Stringfellow today that their negs were "one of the cleanest & most professional exhanges that I've had"
Alex says that an 'outside counsel' will present the Jay's case to the arbitrator, not him or another member of the Jays staff.