According to the contract of the Major League Baseball Players’ Association, as explained by the Sabre Project, players are eligible for salary arbitration if they cannot reach agreement with their team if “they have at least three full seasons of service time, and less than six. Players with six or more years of service time become free agents after their contracts have expired, while players with less than six seasons are under team-control. Up until players have acquired three seasons of service time, their salary is determined solely by their team. For years three through six, players can take their salary demands to an arbitration panel if they can’t reach an agreement with their team.”

Prior to the 2018 season, Boston’s Mookie Betts was eligible for contract arbitration and could not reach agreement with the team on his salary. In arbitration, the Red Sox offered $7.5 million dollars and Betts asked for $10.5 million. Neither side wavered from their request and the Arbitration Panel is required to pick the figure offered by one side or the other. The Red Sox and Betts had the option of reaching agreement before a determination by the panel, but that did not happen and Mookie was awarded the $10.5 million in January of last year.
In 2017, Mookie had hit .264, had 24 homers, 102 runs batted in, scored 101 runs, had an on base percentage of .344 and a slugging percentage of .459. He finished in sixth place in the voting for MVP and won a Gold Glove.
This year, going into the 2019 season, he is in his second year of arbitration and is not a free agent until 2021. The Sox have control of him until that point, but must pay the amount the Arbitration Panel agrees upon every year until then.
In the 2018 season, he won the American League batting title with an average of .346, 82 points higher than 2017, hit 32 homers, eight more than 2017, scored 129 runs, despite bating lead off almost all year, still drove in 80 runs, raised his on base percentage 94 points to .438 and led the league in slugging percentage at .640, 181 points higher than 2017. Oh, and, by the way, he won the Most Valuable Player award and added a Silver Slugger to another Gold Glove.
The Red Sox already have eight current players under contract who are going to cost them over $120 million dollars between them this year including David Price at $31 million, J.D. Martinez at $23.7, Rick Porcello at $21.1, Dustin Pedroia at $15.1 and Chris Sale at $15.
After the season that he just had, Mookie can probably ask for double what he made and get the arbitration award. He is one of, if not the best, position player in baseball today. He, Mike Trout, Bryce Harper and Jose Altuve may be the four best.
The Angels signed Trout, 28 years old, to a contract that runs from 2018 through 2020 and pays him $34 million a year until he becomes a free agent in 2021.
The Astros signed Altuve, a 29 year old, to a contract that locked him in until 2024 at $29 million a year from 2020 until then.
The Nationals did not sign Harper, only 26 years old, to a long-term contract and he is now a free agent and will most likely not be playing in Washington next year. They paid him $21.5 million last year and he will probably make considerably more than that on the free agent market.
Over the past four years, from 2015 through 2018, Mookie has hit .304, Trout .308, Harper .283 and Altuve .328. Mookie has drive in 372 runs and scored 444, while Trout has driven in 341 and scored 420, Harper 372 RBIs and 400 runs scored, and Altuve 304 RBIs and 390 runs scored. Mookie has won three Gold Gloves, Altuve one and the other two none. Mookie has won two Silver Sluggers and one MVP; Trout four Silver Sluggers and one MVP; Altuve four Silver Sluggers and one MVP; and Harper one Silver Slugger and one MVP.
Those are the numbers an Arbitration Panel will look at in determining what Mookie should be paid in 2019. In arbitration, Mookie can be expected to ask for and receive somewhere between $15 and $20 million dollars or perhaps more. If he has another year comparable to last year in 2019, the sky will be the limit and that is the last year of his arbitration before he becomes a free agent and who knows what happens then.
The Red Sox need to bite the bullet and make Mookie a long-term offer he can’t refuse. If they don’t lock him in now, he will be playing for someone else in 2021. The bottom line is this: an arbitration panel is going to award him what some would call an obscene amount of money this year and next year, why not avoid that process, pay him a little more than the arbitration panel would award for the next two years and lock him in to a long term contract now.
Mookie will be 27 in 2019, with probably his most productive years coming in the next five years. He has become the face of the franchise and the Sox cannot afford to let him get away. The Sox are going to pay him a lot of money for the next two years, whatever they do.
It would be good business to put that money into a long-term contract rather than pay it as a requirement of an Arbitration Panel’s decision and lose him to free agency in 2021.