The Orioles signed Manny Machado to a one-year, $519,000 contract renewal on Monday -- standard operating procedure for a pre-arbitration player.
The salary is $19,000 more than the major league minimum and Machado also gets a $100,000 bonus for winning the 2013 Platinum Glove Award in the American League. But he is not celebrating.
According to beat writer Dan Connolly of the Baltimore Sun, the young third baseman called the salary “disappointing” in a chat with reporters on Monday evening in camp. “I’d love to be an Oriole forever,” Machado continued. “I love the organization, I love the fans here. I love everything about this, and putting the uniform on every day. I just want to be treated fairly. That’s it.”
Mike Trout’s agent expressed a similar feeling of frustration last March when his client was renewed for just $510,000 by the Angels. But this is the agreed-upon system and it does reward players eventually.
Trout will be eligible for salary arbitration next winter. Machado becomes eligible heading into 2016.
Macahdo, 21, batted .283/.314/.432 with 51 doubles, 14 home runs, and 71 RBI in 156 games last season for Baltimore. He is hoping to be fully recovered from October knee surgery by Opening Day.