LOS ANGELES -- The Dodgers on Friday reached 2017 contract agreements with their four remaining arbitration-eligible players: catcher Yasmani Grandal and pitchers Luis Avilan, Josh Fields and Alex Wood.
Grandal, who slugged 27 home runs last season to lead National League catchers, will receive $5.5 million after earning $2.8 million in 2016. Avilan goes from $1.39 million to $1.5 million, Fields from $900,000 to $1.05 million, and Wood from $530,000 to $2.8 million.
Friday was the deadline for unsigned arbitration-eligible players and their teams to exchange figures that would be used in a February hearing to determine their salary.
Although negotiations could have continued until those hearings, under the Dodgers' current regime, the club has warned players that they will go to a hearing and not negotiate after the exchange of figures. As it did on Friday, the strategy effectively results in settlements, perhaps because current president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman went 5-0 in arbitration hearings while with Tampa Bay.
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During a hearing, a three-member arbitration panel weighs arguments from the player and team and selects one figure or the other.
Since the inception of salary arbitration 42 years ago, the Dodgers are 14-6 in cases decided by a hearing, including 6-1 in their past seven cases dating to 1991. That includes their most recent wins over Joe Beimel in 2007 and Eric Gagne in '04.
The most recent player to win a hearing against the Dodgers was Terry Adams in 2001. The club's first arbitration case was in 1975, when Ron Cey was awarded a salary of $56,000 instead of the club's submission of $47,000.