The Orioles likely will be heading to salary arbitration hearings with two of their most prominent players.
Although Baltimore avoided arbitration with left-handed reliever Tanner Scott, the club did not announce agreements with left-hander John Means and first baseman/outfielder Trey Mancini on Tuesday, the deadline to exchange salary figures. If no agreement is reached, the team and the players’ representatives will each suggest a value for the players’ 2022 salary, and a panel of arbitrators will select one of those two values in a hearing that, given timing, will take place during the season. Negotiations can continue until then, but under executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias, the Orioles have used the “file-and-trial” approach.
Arbitration is a system in which players with at least three years of major league service time but fewer than the six years required to be a free agent can have their salary increased, with the value typically determined based on the salaries of similar players in the past. The players with the most service time in the two-to-three-year range also qualify.
Means, the Orioles’ likely Opening Day starter, is in his first year of arbitration-eligibility, while Mancini is in his last before reaching free agency. Mancini filed at $8 million, with the Orioles suggesting a figure of $7.375 million, according to multiple reports; either would make him the highest-paid member of the roster. Means reportedly filed at $3.1 million, compared with the club’s offer of $2.7 million. It’s not immediately clear how beginning the season with an undetermined salary would affect how they’re paid.
Hearings typically take place during spring training, but Major League Baseball’s 99-day lockout disrupted the sport’s 2022 calendar. Days before the league’s owners implemented the lockout in early December, the Orioles agreed to deals with three of their arbitration-eligible players in left-hander Paul Fry, right-hander Jorge López and outfielder Anthony Santander; the Orioles and Santander went to a hearing in 2021, with the arbitrators siding with the club. Baltimore also tendered contracts to Means, Mancini and Scott, meaning they would remain under club control as they continued negotiating with the team. Scott and the club reportedly settled at $1.05 million for 2022 after he made $580,000 — slightly above what was then the league’s minimum salary — last season.
The arbitration moves were only a part of the Orioles’ roster management Tuesday. A day after reassigning catcher Cody Roberts to minor league camp as the first cut of spring, they did the same with pitchers Ryan Hartman, Blaine Knight, Ofelky Peralta and Denyi Reyes, reducing their camp roster to 61.
They also agreed to contracts with 30 of their players not yet eligible for arbitration and renewed the contract of right-hander Tyler Wells, setting all of those players’ salaries for the 2022 season.