Three Twins Arbitration Eligible Ahead of Tuesday's Deadline

Nick Nelson broached this topic months ago in the Offseason Handbook but much has changed since then. At the start of the offseason, the Twins had 12 players who were arbitration and added a thirteenth and fourteenth via a couple of offseason transactions we'll review later in the article. So when it’s all said and done, the Twins are down to just three eligible players who are set to enter arbitration ahead of Tuesday's deadline. As a reminder, the arbitration process gives the ability for players who have reached three years of service time to negotiate their salary. The exception to this, known as “Super Two”, is for the players who are in the top 22-percent of service time but below three years. This came into play for Twins utility, Luis Arraez, who just barely eclipsed the super two threshold. Finally, there are three ways to avoid arbitration:

1. The player and team come to an agreement in terms (these are the offers due on Tuesday)
2. The player and team agree to a contract extension to “buy out” the arbitration years. Most recently, the Byron Buxton contract extension did this.
3. The player is designated for assignment (DFA) or outright released by the team.

Before diving into the three eligible, let’s review the other eleven who are no longer arbitration eligible for the 2022 season.

Byron Buxton signed a seven year, $100MM contract extension at the end of November effectively buying out is final year of arbitration.

Jharel Cotton, Caleb Thielbar, and Tyler Duffey avoided arbitration in 2022 by agreeing to one-year deals. Cotton was claimed off waivers from the Rangers while Thielbar and Duffey were significant contributors to the Twins bullpen in 2022.

Mitch Garver is still arbitration eligible but it’s just not for the Twins after being traded to the Texas Rangers for (former Twins great) shortstop Isaiah Kiner-Falefa and right-handed pitcher Ronny Henriquez.

Jake Cave signed a one year, $800K deal but then was DFA’d and outrighted to AAA-St. Paul a week later.

Danny Coulombe and Juan Minaya were DFA’d and re-signed to a minor league deal with an invite to Spring Training.

Willians Astudillo, Rob Refsnyder, and John Gant were all DFA’d and released by the Twins. Astudillo and Refsnyder ended up getting Minor League pacts from the Miami Marlins and Boston Red Sox, respectively. Gant ended up signing a deal overseas with the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters of the Nippon Professional Baseball League in Japan.

This leaves us with the three Twins remaining who are arbitration eligible, one of which was acquired on the flurry of post lockout moves made by the club.

Luis Arraez
Our Offseason Handbook has him projected to make $1.5MM this year if the two sides cannot come to an agreement by the Tuesday deadline.

Taylor Rogers
The Twins lefty closer is projected to earn $7MM, per our Offseason Handbook. Another nuance of the arbitration process is that a super two player, which Rogers was post-2018, can then be eligible for a fourth year of arbitration. This is the case for Rogers in 2022 and, unless a contract extension buys him out, will be the case for Arraez in 2025.

Gary Sanchez
The newly acquired Sanchez is projected to make $7.9 MM by MLBTR and $7.5MM by Spotrac, and is in his final year of arbitration eligibility. Also worth noting is that Gio Urshela agreed to a $6.55MM pact with the Yankees prior to being traded and still has one year of arbitration remaining in 2023.

Of the three arbitration eligible players, would you like to see any of them extended to buy out their remaining years? Let us know in the comments!

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