In a good move, we signed Mark Teixeira to a two year contract this morning, avoid a REALLY ugly arbitration process. Of all the players we had eligible for arbitration, Tex’s one was the scariest, as these things are never good. If you’re a regular reader here then you likely know why they’re ugly, so I won’t get into that.
Anyway, the two year deal is worth $15.4 Million, which is what some people think he might have gotten for one year had he been on the open market with the kind of season he had in 2005. He gets $6.4 million in 2006, and $9 million in 2007. This doesn’t totally buy him out of arbitration, as he’ll be eligible again for that in 2008 (his final year before he can become an unrestricted free agent).
I don’t think there’s anyone that can rightfully say that this is a bad move. It’s a good move. Would have liked to have seen a 10 year $125 million contract or something like that, but I’ll take not going to arbitration nwo, giving us more time to get something longer done during the contract (although with Boras, that’s not always likely).
This leaves outfielders Brad Wilkerson, Kevin Mench and Gary Matthews Jr. and pitchers Adam Eaton and Vicente Padilla as the remaining arbitration eligible players.