Atlanta Braves split their arbitration cases with Swanson, Soroka
The court battles are done, for good or bad: the Atlanta Braves win one arbitration trial and fall in another.
We heard last week the results of Mike Soroka’s case against the Atlanta Braves. This was significant in that the two sides were remarkably far apart — at least on a percentage basis.
That said, it was a difficult horserace to handicap: how do you measure the worth of an obviously talented pitcher who is (a) first-time arbitration-eligible as a Super-2 player, and (2) missed a majority of the season to injury?
In the end, the arbiter assigned to the task sided with the player: Mike Soroka will get $2.8 million in 2021 as opposed to the $2.1 million position being defended by the club.
The same gap in dollars was up for debate yesterday as Dansby Swanson‘s case was heard.
This was his second year in the arbitration wheel, having made $3.150 million in 2020 (before pro-ration, of course).
Doubling that would put him at $6.3 million for this season. The Braves staked out a position of $6 million even; Swanson and his agent chose to defend a $6.7 million figure.
Swanson had a good — solid, even — year in 2020. His OPS+ was 110 (.809 overall) and he hit .274, which was an improvement of 23 points from the year prior.
His defense stepped up as well. But with that said, it’s hard to confuse him with any of the elite shortstops in the game today.
In fact, if you list all the Qualified SS players over the past 3 seasons, Swanson appears 21st in the list at 5.2 fWAR overall.
That falls behind others like Gleyber Torres, Carlos Correa, Willy Adames, and Nick Ahmed.
Trea Turner, for example, is 6th overall with 11.1 fWAR: over double the “production” that Swanson provides. Oh, and Turner was rewarded with $7.45 million in 2020 for his 2nd arbitration year.
Things like that factor into decisions that end like this:
The difference in numbers this time was just over 10% (as opposed to Soroka’s 33% gap), so don’t feel like you need to shed any tears for Swanson on his loss.
Swanson is still probably one of the most game-aware players in the league, and that certainly helps him maximize his abilities.
However, the idea that he should be paid like one of the elite-tier shortstops… that’s a bit far-fetched.
The hope, though, is that there won’t be any lingering issues as we always hate to see an adversarial relationship between the front office and a player. Not everyone handles the process in the same manner.
Swanson has been good for the Braves… just this time, he’s not “$6.7 million good”.