Lucas Duda Gets $1.6375 Million
The Mets have reportedly avoided arbitration with Lucas Duda, agreeing to overpay him for the 2014 season with a $1.6375 million contract.
Joel Sherman of the New York Post tweeted the news Wednesday afternoon.
Lucas Duda was the last of the Mets arbitration holdouts. He had the nerve to ask for $1.9 million after his miserable 2013 while the Mets were offering a more reasonable $1.35 million.
With Ike Davis still around, Duda will be nothing more than a bench player in 2014. He still has a minor league option, so perhaps Lucas Duda will spend more time in Las Vegas than Flushing in 2014.
Imagine a job where you can be incompetent yet still merit a 100% raise in pay!
Mark,
How exactly does the arbitration process work? Why are all these major league teams handing out raises to stinky players like candy? I don’t get it?
I’ll try to be as brief as possible, JJ!
After three years of major league service (or two-plus years for some players), if a team and a player cannot agree on a deal, the player can go to arbitration. Both sides submit a figure and a arbitrator picks one number. In most cases, they end up settling somewhere near the midpoint before it gets to the arbitration hearing.
A player is a free agent after six seasons, so arbitration does not apply to veterans.
The way the system works, a player is almost always guaranteed to get a raise regardless of his performance (hence Duda, Davis and Tejada getting their money). It really is a terrible system. I once read that the greatest indictment of arbitration is that if it is so good, why has no other sport adopted it?
Amazing. Thanks Mark.