Your 2017 Giants: Arbitration Finalized (As Usual)

The Giants once again, under Sabean, was able to avoid the sting of arbitration.  Over his long tenure, only one player has ever taken the Giants to arbitration (he who must not be named, AJP), and mainly because the idiot in charge of arbitration then (and rumored instigator of the trade), Sheriff Ned, low-balled offered (even The Sporting News knew beforehand what the range should be, and he went under it) and AJP smartly was just on the edge of reasonableness, and so the Giants under Sabean lost their one and only time ever in arbitration (though it should be noted that Lincecum and Belt came close to going into arbitration, Lincecum famously sitting outside the meeting place before his agent pulled him away at the last second to secure a deal with Sabean; I believe that Belt traveled to the city but wasn't sitting waiting to go in when he signed).

Per the various news reports (here is Haft and MLB.com), here are the contracts signed to avoid arbitration:

• Conor Gillaspie:  $1.4M (estimated $900K by Matt Swartz)
• George Kontos:  $1.75M (estimated $1.7M)
• Eduardo Nunez:  $4.2M  (estimated $4.4M)
• Will Smith:  $2.5M (estimated $2.3M)

ogc thoughts

This closes things out for the Giants, they have their 40 man roster signed up for the 2017 season (well, except for pre-arb guys who will get near-minimum pay; I've assumed similar salaries as last season plus a bump up).  The total payroll is $171.6M, and the total payroll for the CBA is $200.8M, passing the threshold by roughly $5.8M.  Since it is for the third time in three years, a 50% tax on the overage is exacted on the $5.8M, which will cost the Giants $2.9M in tax penalties.

I had already calculated the Giants payroll using Swartz's estimated arbitration eligible salaries, and the Giants ended up paying roughly $500,000 more than estimated.  That's basically the extra that they paid Gillaspie.  Swartz was way off here.

I was surprised that he got that much more from the Giants than estimated, as Swartz has usually been in the ballpark with his estimates.  They must have really appreciated his performance last season.  Not that he wasn't good, but he got a 56% raise.  And thus they, as they have done during the Sabean era, paid Gillaspie more than might have been expected, based on market trends, which Swartz uses in his analysis.

I was originally thinking that this signing does not mean that he will make the roster, much like how Ishikawa getting $1M contract did not mean that he would make our roster either, but given the magnitude of the raise that they gave him, they appear to expect him to perform well again next season.

Perhaps even battle for the starting 3B position, especially since that would work out better for the Giants bench, as Nunez could play more positions (or at least has experience at more, as I've noted before, he hasn't shown OK defense at any position other than LF until he did well at 3B for the Giants in 2016) and be a truer superutility player for the Giants on the bench than Gillaspie could.  However, Nunez probably is our best leadoff hitter based on what he did (and Span didn't do) in 2016.  So it will be interesting what happens here.