Bob Nightengale of USA Today reports that the Astros and George Springer have agreed to a two-year, $24 million deal.
The pact buys out this year and next year’s arbitration years for Springer. He’ll have one more year of arbitration eligibility in 2020 before becoming a free agent after that season. Springer was a Super Two, so he was slated to go through arbitration four times. Last year was his first go-around. He ended up settling for $3.9 million before his hearing, so the $12 million average annual salary he’ll make this year and next is a nice raise. For the record, he had requested $10.5 million for this season and the Astros had countered at $8.5 million. Have to figure that, in addition to simply wanting to lock up Springer for the next two seasons, Houston didn’t like its chances in this year’s hearing.
Springer, 28, hit .283/.367/.522 with 34 homers and 85 RBI in 2017. He was also the World Series MVP, putting up a 1.471 OPS with five homers among his 11 hits in the Fall Classic.
