The Cleveland Guardians have tendered contracts to all seven of their arbitration eligible players. None of the players have been signed yet. The deadline for offering contracts was pushed up to Tuesday at 8:00 p.m. with the impending lockout looming. The current basic agreement expires 11:59 p.m. Wednesday evening. Once a potential lockout begins Thursday, there will be no more player signings or even negotiations allowed regarding player contracts until a new CBA is agreed to.
Austin Hedges is entering his third and final year of salary arbitration while Amed Rosario is entering his second. The final five players in Shane Bieber, Franmil Reyes, Bradley Zimmer, Josh Naylor & Cal Quantrill are all first-time arbitration eligible cases. Naylor and Quantrill both qualified for super two status meaning they were in the upper 22% of the players with more than two, but fewer than three years of collected service time.
Numbers below represent the projected amount they could earn in salary arbitration, according to mlbtraderumors for the 2022 season.
- Austin Hedges - $3.8MM
- Amed Rosario - $5.0MM
- Shane Bieber - $4.8MM
- Franmil Reyes - $4.4MM
- Bradley Zimmer - $1.5MM
- Josh Naylor - $1.2MM
- Cal Quantrill - $2.8MM
The next step in the salary arbitration process is an exchange of salary figures between the organization, the players and their agents. Again, with an impending lockout looming possible on Thursday there can be no contact between all parties involved until the lockout comes to an end and a new CBA is agreed upon. Last season the salary exchange date was January 14th at 1 p.m.
Cleveland has a very good track record of coming to an agreement and signing all their eligible players. If no agreement on a contract can be reached, both parties would plead their case to an independent arbitrary panel, who would then set the salary amount for the upcoming season. Trevor Bauer was the last player in the organization to take his case to a panel back in 2019.
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