The Los Angeles Dodgers entered this offseason with nine players who were eligible for salary arbitration. Before the deadline to do so, they tendered contracts to eight of those players, and can continue to negotiate contracts in effort to avoid arbitration.
The ninth player, relief pitcher Yimi Garcia, was not tendered a contract, because he agreed to a one-year contract. This year was Garcia’s first being eligible for arbitration.
According to the Associated Press, he will earn over $600,000 next season, which is up from a $580,000 salary this year:
Right-hander Yimi Garcia and the Los Angeles Dodgers agreed to a $630,000, one-year contract that avoided salary arbitration.
Garcia missed the majority of 2016 and all of this season after undergoing Tommy John surgery. When he was last healthy, Garcia developed into one of the Dodgers best right-handed relievers in 2015.
He appeared in 59 games and yielded a 3.34 ERA, 3.20 FIP and 0.95 WHIP while striking out 68 compared to just 10 walks in 56.2 innings of work.
Garcia was limited to just nine games and 8.1 innings in 2016, although he did have some success in that short span, pitching to a 3.24 ERA.
The 27-year-old is expected to be healthy by the beginning of Spring Training, and Dodgers general manager Farhan Zaidi said the club anticipates him playing a significant role for the team in 2018 out of the bullpen.
Even if Garcia doesn’t begin the season with the Major League club, he will surely be up at some point throughout the season. Depth is something the Dodgers organization has, and utilizes more often than perhaps any other team in baseball.
