Jake Arrieta’s long-term future with the Cubs is still a big-picture question, but he will cash in after a Cy Young Award season.
The Cubs and Arrieta have agreed to a one-year, $10.7 million contract, a source close to the negotiations confirmed, avoiding an arbitration hearing that had been scheduled for Tuesday in Arizona.
Arrieta almost tripled the $3.63 million he earned last season, the Associated Press first reported late Friday night, his reward for finally blossoming into a No. 1 starter, going 22-6 with a 1.77 ERA and emerging as a leader for a 97-win team.
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Arrieta also beat the $10.25 million midpoint between where the Cubs ($7.5 million) and super-agent Scott Boras ($13 million) filed. Theo Epstein has never taken an arbitration-eligible player to a hearing, either in his nine years as the Boston Red Sox general manager or through five offseasons running baseball operations for the Cubs.
Arrieta isn’t positioned to become a free agent until after the 2017 season. For now, it’s hard to see the Cubs buying at an absolute high point or a Boras client taking a hometown discount.
But this arrangement has clearly worked out for both sides since the Cubs made a franchise-altering trade with the Baltimore Orioles in the middle of the 2013 season, getting Arrieta as a foundation piece to a World Series contender.