Colorado Rockies avoid arbitration with nine players; two players statuses unknown

As of two hours after the 11 AM M.T. arbitration filing deadline, the Colorado Rockies have avoided arbitration with nine of their eleven arbitration-eligible players.

Most of them agreed to terms on Thursday or Friday, including Jon Gray, Ryan McMahon, Carlos Estevez, Mychal Givens, and Kyle Freeland. In summation, here are the arbitration-eligible players for the Rockies and what they signed for.

• Jon Gray, $6 million
• Ryan McMahon, $2.375 million
• Mychael Givens, $4.050 million
• Kyle Freeland, $5.025 million
• Jairo Diaz, $1.1 million
• Daniel Bard, $2.925 million
• Antonio Senzatela, $3 million
• Elias Diaz, $1.2 million
• Carlos Estevez, $1.45 million

Those nine players combined to sign for $27.125 million.

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The only two remaining Rockies that either did not come to terms by the filing deadline or have not been reported as coming to terms are newly-acquired reliever Robert Stephenson and outfielder Raimel Tapia.

For the nine that have come to terms, nearly all of them have signed for a higher amount than some of the projections entering the offseason. MLB Trade Rumors predicted them in October with three different models, including two of which were pandemic-related (one was just based on their 60-game stats and another would extrapolate their 60-game totals into what they were on pace for in a 162-game season).

Even then, two of the Rockies players did better for themselves than the highest projections. Here are those players with what the highest value that was predicted with MLBTR (with they ended up getting in arbitration in parentheses).

• Daniel Bard: $2.2 million ($2.925 million)
• Elias Diaz: $1 million ($1.2 million)

The other seven signed for amounts between the 60-game and 162-game projections.

For Tapia and Stephenson whose statuses are not yet known, Tapia was projected to make between $1.5 million and $2.6 million and Stephenson, who was with the Reds in October, was projected to make $600,000 across all three models.

If you take the middle ground for Tapia ($2.05 million) and the $600,000 for Stephenson along with the other $27.125 million with the other nine arbitration-eligible players and the team’s guaranteed contracts, the Rockies payroll for 2021 would be around $130 million, according to SpoTrac. Before the pandemic and adjusted salaries, the Rockies would have had a payroll of about $165 million.