Milwaukee Brewers Arbitration Projections For 2021 Season

The 2021 Arbitration projections are out and the Brewers have a few players lined up for some big raises.

With a shortened season, arbitration projections are going to be super difficult to do. The stats that normally influence arbitration salaries and decisions have been drastically cut down due a season that was only 37% as long as normal. This makes the Brewers decisions on tendering players and knowing how much they might make more difficult.

In case you’re unfamiliar with the arbitration process, it’s the way for players with somewhere between three and six years of MLB service time to negotiate their yearly salary and raise it based on their performance. Teams have to decide to “tender” a contract to these arbitration eligible players by December 2nd this year.

At any point after they’re tendered, the team and player can agree on a salary and “avoid arbitration”. Sometimes the Brewers are able to do this with several players on the tender deadline and get it out of the way. If not, both sides have until January 15th to negotiate freely, then they have to file for the salary they’re asking for on the 15th. If they still aren’t able to agree, hearings will start on February 1st.

The Brewers have only gone to a couple of arbitration hearings since GM David Stearns took over. The first was Chase Anderson in 2017, which they won, and the second was Josh Hader last winter, which the Brewers also won.

After a year with little to no revenue, the Brewers may need to cut payroll somewhere along the line. Non-tendering arbitration eligible players who are in line for more money than they may be worth could be an easy way to gain some payroll flexibility.

These are the arbitration projections from Matt Swartz of MLB Trade Rumors, who provided three different methods to get to his salary projections.

For ease of reading, we’re going to show the three different projections as a range. The first projection Swartz provides is just off 2020 stats as they are, while his second projection has the stats extrapolated to a 162 game season. His third projection is 37% of the raise they would get in a normal 162 game season for non-first time arbitration eligibles.

Orlando Arcia

Projection: $2.7MM – $3.8MM

In 2020, which was Orlando Arcia’s first year of arbitration, he played on a $2.2MM contract and he followed up with the best offensive season of his career. Arcia’s 96 OPS+ and .734 OPS were the top marks for a season in his career.

Arcia was able to solidify his role as the starting shortstop in 2020 and heads into 2021 as the starter. As such, he’s going to earn a nice raise in his second season of arbitration. Just based off his 2020 stats, even in a shortened season, Swartz projects a $500k raise for Arcia.

If his numbers are extrapolated over a whole season, that could put Arcia up to $3.8MM in salary. That’s a solid $1.6MM raise for him coming off a career year and still a relatively inexpensive salary for a starting shortstop.

Daniel Vogelbach

Projection: $1.4MM – $1.9MM

Despite both Spotrac and Roster Resource showing that Daniel Vogelbach had another year to go before reaching arbitration, he is reportedly going to be eligible as a Super-2 this year.

He was an All-Star in 2019 for the Mariners, but then bounced around in 2020, struggling to hit the ball, before being claimed by the Brewers. Things turned around quickly for Vogelbach after joining Milwaukee, as shown by his .328/.418/.569 slash line in 58 ABs with the Brewers.

Could the Brewers bring him back for 2021? At less than $2MM, it’s possible, but it’s also hard to trust that Vogelbach’s performance over such a small sample size will be able to translate over a whole season next year.

At the same time, what else are the Brewers going to do at first base?

Alex Claudio

Projection: $2.0MM – $2.3MM

In the 2020 season, Alex Claudio was signed to a $1.75MM salary after being non-tendered by the Brewers a few weeks prior. Claudio posted an ERA above 4.00 in his first season with the Brewers prior to that non-tender and then after coming back this year, he posted another ERA above 4.00 at 4.26.

Claudio has been serviceable, but hasn’t gotten back to the sub-3.00 ERAs that he posted over several years with the Rangers that the Brewers were hoping they could get him back to.

With tight budgets and another season below expectations, a non-tender is possible, if not likely, for Claudio at this salary level.

Ben Gamel

Projection: $1.7MM – $2.1MM

The interesting thing with Ben Gamel is that he has a club option for 2021 that would give him a $2.55MM salary while still being arbitration eligible. So if the Brewers decline his club option, they would still have contractual control over him and would simply go through arbitration with him.

Given Swartz’s projection here of $1.7MM-$2.1MM, it would appear likely the Brewers would decline Gamel’s option and go through arbitration to save some money. Things are going to be tight and the Brewers will need to save as much money as possible.

Gamel is a solid 4th outfielder option, and he’s likely to return next year, but it may be under arbitration instead of his club option.

Josh Hader

Projection: $4.5MM – $6.8MM

This will be the most important arbitration case the Brewers will deal with this offseason. Josh Hader, one of the top relievers in baseball, led the National League in saves in a shortened season. The counting numbers weren’t high, only 13 saves, but how much will the 60 game season impact whether that means a big raise or small raise?

That explains the wide gap in Hader’s salary projection. He lost his arbitration case last offseason and got a $4.1MM salary for the 2020 season. After another strong season in which his slider was used more often, Hader became a more complete pitcher, and he didn’t give up a hit until several weeks into the season.

Hader will be tendered, but will he be kept? Especially if his salary pushes to near $7MM for next year, that may be more than the Brewers are able to pay him and a trade could end up helping the Brewers in a couple of ways. It could reduce their payroll and add help to the rest of the roster.

But if his salary ends up in the lower half of this range, the Brewers may opt to hold on to Hader for 2021.

Ryon Healy

Projection: $1.0MM – $1.0MM

All three of Swartz’s projections have Ryon Healy at a $1.0MM salary. The Brewers signed Healy to a $1.0MM deal for 2020 and he only made seven at-bats during the regular season.

Healy didn’t play well in his opportunities, and despite the lack of production at the corner infield spots, he still couldn’t crack the 28 man roster.

Maybe the Brewers will give Healy another chance next year at a similar price, but he’s certainly not going to be getting more money than what he signed for in 2020.

Corey Knebel

Projection: $5.125MM – $5.125MM

Corey Knebel has been sitting at a $5.125MM salary for two years now and these projections make it look like it’ll be three years running for Knebel.

In 2019, Knebel agreed to a $5.125MM salary prior to undergoing elbow surgery. He was re-upped for 2020 at the same price, as is normal for players that missed a season due to injury, and things went decent, but not great.

In 15 games this year, Knebel posted a 6.08 ERA, which was inflated by a couple of rough outings in August as he dealt with a hamstring issue that he later went on the IL for. Since returning from the IL, Knebel was back to his fastball velocity he was at pre-surgery and looked like his old self overall.

Being another year away from elbow surgery should help Knebel keep his velocity up at the 97-98 MPH range and that should improve his statistics. It’s possible the Brewers might not want to spend that much money on a reliever without much of a guarantee that he’ll perform at previous levels.

Omar Narvaez

Projection: $2.725MM – $3.1MM

What a tough year for Omar Narvaez. He comes over to the Brewers from Seattle and essentially lost his starting job down the stretch to Jacob Nottingham because he couldn’t hit at the plate. Narvaez’s .176 average was the worst of his career.

Narvaez avoided arbitration with the Brewers last year with a $2.725MM salary and nothing in his 2020 performance would indicate he’s deserving of a big raise.

If there was a 162 game season, Narvaez likely would’ve been able to break out of his slump at some point, but it’s hard to estimate just how good those final numbers would’ve been then. If Narvaez does get a raise, it’s going to be minimal.

Stearns has not committed to Narvaez returning as the starting catcher in 2021 and there’s a chance he could get non-tendered, even if he wants to return at the same salary level.