Arbitration Roundup: Jaso, Johnson, Salary Exchange Day

The A's have several remaining un-signed arbitration-eligible players.  While it is all but a formality that that they will end up with contracts, how much they will be paid remains to be seen.  Yesterday, the team announced that John Jaso and Jim Johnson agreed to contracts worth $2.3M and $10M, respectively, which is essentially in line with the MLBTR projections that came out in the beginning of the offseason (team actually saved $700K compared to the projections, but that's meaningless.)

With Daric Barton, Jesse Chavez, and Fernando Rodriguez previously signed, that leaves the following players remaining un-signed:

Luke Gregerson

Craig Gentry

Jed Lowrie

Brandon Moss

Josh Reddick

Today, those 5 players and the team will exchange the salary they each think the player should be paid in preparation for an arbitration hearing that could take place in February if nothing is agreed upon before then.  Should that happen, the arbitrator would hear cases from both the team and the player, and decide on one of the submitted figures.  In practice, however, there are very few arbitration hearings overall compared to the number of players eligible for arbitration.  What's more, the A's have an excellent track record in avoiding such hearings, so I suspect there will be a flurry of one-year contract announcements today.  Both sides have motivation to settle somewhere around the midpoint of the previously exchanged numbers, since losing means not getting the midpoint at all.

Since the exchange deadline is noon CST, expect this post to be updated with any contract agreements.

Updates: Joel Sherman is Mr. Salary Exchange Day today.  His feed is pouring out the updates, including on Gregerson, Moss, and Lowrie all agreeing to one-year deals:

#Athletics and Luke Gregerson avoid arbitration. He will get $5.065M. Could be comp for #Yankees and David Robertson

— Joel Sherman (@Joelsherman1) January 17, 2014

#Athletics also agreed with Brandon Moss to avoid arb at $4.1M

— Joel Sherman (@Joelsherman1) January 17, 2014

#athletics avoid arb with Jed Lowrie, agree at $5.25M

— Joel Sherman (@Joelsherman1) January 17, 2014

If you're keeping score at home, the estimates are off by about $165K in total for the A's.

Update 2: Gentry's deal drops.  Reddick is the only remaining unsigned player right now

Avoiding arbitration: Swarzak ($935,000, $25,000 bonus for 10GS) #Twins, Gentry ($1.145M) #Athletics

— Joel Sherman (@Joelsherman1) January 17, 2014