Elephant Rumblings: A’s tender contracts to all arbitration-eligible players

Good morning afternoon, Athletics Nation!

Wednesday brought the deadline for teams to tender contracts to their arbitration-eligible players. Doing so keeps the players under team control for the 2021 season, with a salary to be determined later, whereas non-tendering them makes them a free agent.

The Oakland A’s had 10 players eligible, and they tendered all 10 of them. Four already agreed to contracts with salary terms.

• 1B Matt Olson — $5 million
• UT Chad Pinder — $2.275 million
• UT Tony Kemp — $1.05 million
• RHP Burch Smith — $0.705 million

Most arbitration contracts aren’t guaranteed until nearly Opening Day, but Pinder’s is reported to be fully guaranteed.

That leaves six other players who received commitments but whose payouts are not yet settled. They’ll either come to an agreement with the team, or a court will decide for them (but it rarely goes to court).

Here’s the list, including a vague estimate of what they might end up earning, based on the MLB Trade Rumors projections combined with the precedents set by the first four signings:

• OF Mark Canha — ~$7 million
• LHP Sean Manaea — ~$5 million
• RHP Chris Bassitt — ~$4 million
• 3B Matt Chapman — ~$4 million
• RHP Frankie Montas — ~$2 million
• RHP Lou Trivino — ~$1 million

While the A’s kept all of their players in the fold, many other teams cut some names loose. In all, 56 players were non-tendered and joined the free agent market. Being non-tendered doesn’t necessarily mean that a player isn’t good, just that their team didn’t think they were worth the increased salary that the system entitled them to, which means there are gems to be found in this crowd every winter. Some will even be re-signed by their old teams at a lower rate, like Mike Fiers did with the A’s two years ago.

Check the MLB News section below for a full list of this year’s non-tenders.

A’s Coverage

• Nico: The Non-Tendered Player A’s Should Go After
• AN: A’s sign Matt Olson, avoid arbitration
• AN: A’s announce 2021 coaching staff, with new role for Mark Kotsay

MLB News & Interest

• Dierkes: Complete List Of Non-Tendered Players (sorted by position)
• MLB: 56 more players are now free agents (ranked by WAR)
• Today in Baseball History

Best of Twitter

Straily was a sleeper A’s target around the AN community after finding success in Korea, but he’s now off the board

A’s minor leaguer Ryan Gridley made the most of a tough summer

Piscotty also helping out with youth sports

Technically this is a compliment, but maybe not one you brag about too much

One of many interesting names that’s now available on the non-tender market

There are a couple more players on this list that would make sense as A’s targets

Legend