Upton Loses in Arbitration

The Rays front office entered the arbitration with a perfect record and still has that perfect record after the arbitrators ruled in favor of the Rays meaning Upton now gets just a $2.6m raise rather than the $2.9m he and his agent wanted.  For those not familiar with the process, arbitration is not very pleasant. The agent team presents their case to the arbitrator court (group of 3) and then the team then explains everything the player has done to not deserve what they are asking for.  Once the arbitrators make the decision, that is the non-guaranteed contract the player receives which is the second drawback for the player. Not only do they have to hear about all of their faults but the contract can be voided if the player goes through a serious injury.

I am not one to celebrate these kinds of things because I think both parties are in the right. Upton has every right to demand as much as he thinks he can while the club has every reason to be as responsible with their spending as possible. That said, I think it there can be more long-term damage done to players with fragile psyches than short term gain from saving $300,000.  The early comments from Upton are encouraging:

“I thought we put on a good case, but they ruled the way they did. Congratulations to the Rays. Now it’s time to put all this behind me, hit spring training and get ready to play baseball.”

Upton remains the most polarizing players on the Rays team with both fan base and baseball fans in general. Some of the comments on the Intertubes today once this news was announced:

“Friedman saves beer money…Upton gets $3mil for what past performance?….This year will tell…how can you pay $3mil for a CF that can’t hit….Now or never Upton!”

“Upton Loses at arbitration http://bit.ly/aoUAOC HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA SUCKER”

“BJ Upton looses abritration hearing,which he should of”

“BJ is nothing more than a poor Andrew Jones, show some passion boy!”

Finally, a moment of sanity from @BtB_Sky aka Sky Kalkman

It’d probably more accurate to say that BJ Upton is the mainstream media’s Reggie Bush. BJ’s better, as is, than many think.

I am in full agreement with Kalkman and then some. A lot gets made about the handful of times that Upton puts it into cruise control on a routine grounder and that is always what comes up when people discuss Upton. They do not discuss his amazing defense or the fact he rushed his way back from shoulder surgery nor the fact he played through that shoulder injury for a good portion of the 2008 season. To take Kalkman’s comment one further, it won’t be until B.J. Upton is out of a Rays uniform that fans realize just how good he has been in a Rays uniform.

Tags: arbitration, B.J. Upton