The baseball calendar continues to chug toward the new season. Its mid-January now. Prince Fielder is still out there, but for the most part the shelves of the free-agent market have been thinned. Spring training begins in just over a month.
The next big item on the baseball calendar is salary arbitration.
The process heats up this week when teams and arbitration-eligible players exchange potential salary figures on Tuesday.
The Phillies went into the off-season with five arbitration-eligible players. One of them (outfielder Ben Francisco) was traded to Toronto and another (pitcher Kyle Kendrick) agreed on a one-year, 3.585 million contract on Friday. That leaves pitcher Cole Hamels, outfielder Hunter Pence and utility man Wilson Valdez as the Phils remaining arbitration-eligible players. All three players are eligible to have their 2012 salaries decided by an independent panel during a hearing in the first two weeks of February.
Phillies officials always try hard to avoid hearings and the hunch here is they will reach agreements with all three players without a trip to the arbitrators table, but a truer read on the situation will come Tuesday when the two sides exchange figures and we get to see how far apart everyone is. In a hearing, a panel of arbitrators would pick one figure or the other.
Valdez made 560,000 in 2011. His salary figures to be in the neighborhood of 900,000 in 2012 and should be settled without much trouble.
Hamels made 9.5 million in 2011. It will be interesting to see what he files for after posting a career-best 2.79 ERA in 2011. Best guess: He could get about 14 million in 2012.
MLB
Pence made 6.9 million in 2011. He figures to be in the 11 million range after hitting .314 with 97 RBIs last season.
Phillies officials have tried to lock up Hamels with a long-term deal, but talks have so far been unsuccessful. Even if Hamels gets a one-year deal in the coming weeks, he and the club could still agree on a long-term deal in the months ahead. He is due to become a free-agent after the 2012 season.
Cespedes? Uh, no
It seems as if nearly every day brings a report connecting the Phillies to Cuban outfielder Yeonis Cespedes. Yeah, the Phils checked out the 26-year-old, power-hitting outfielder. They check out every available player. But every indication is they are not in the hunt to sign him. Cespedes price tag could soar above 30 million and the Phils have never paid that much for a player unproven in the majors. Furthermore, the Phils have never come close to spending that much for a Latin prospect. Last summer it was big news when they signed Venezuelan outfielder Carlos Tocci for 759,000. That was the second-highest bonus that the team has ever given to a Latin prospect.
Cespedes makes for interesting reading, but he wont be a Phillie.
The other big-name Cuban talent drawing interest around the majors is 19-year-old outfielder Jorge Soler. The Phils like himmore than Cespedes, in fact -- but his price tag will probably be above 15 million.
Again, its just not the Phillies style to spend on players like this.
Odds and Ends
In case you missed it, assistant general manager Scott Proefrock, as expected, basically ruled out Ryan Howards being ready by opening day. Proefrock said the team was hopeful that Howard, recovering from surgery to repair a torn left Achilles tendon, would return to the lineup sometime in May.
Well be happy if we get five months out of him, quite frankly, Proefrock said. Anything in front of the first of May would be a bonus. All indications are hes feeling great and is in great shape. Everything is geared toward sometime in May. From our perspective, anything before that would be great. We dont want a situation where he re-injures himself or stresses it so well err on the cautious side.
The Phillies are likely done making big moves before spring training, but they are still looking for inexpensive relief depth.
Kendricks signing pushed the Phils 2012 payroll commitments to about 139 million for 17 players.
E-mail Jim Salisbury at jsalisbury@comcastsportsnet.com