Rays Ink Three Before Arbitration Hearings

The Rays signed 3 players who were scheduled to have arbitration hearings in the next few weeks to one year deals today.

Jason Bartlett received a raise from 1.8 million to 4 million.
Matt Garza received a raise from 433,300 to 3.35 million.
JP Howell received a raise from 433,700 to 1.8 million.

The one arbitration eligible player who did not sign today was CF BJ Upton.

"“We’re excited we were able to get three of the guys done,” said Rays executive vice president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman. “We’re obviously disappointed we weren’t able to come to an agreement with B.J. I’m a believer in this process — that when you go to a hearing, both sides lose. And I think both sides are culpable. It doesn’t do any good to point fingers one way, or vice versa.“The process is in place for a reason. When there’s a philosophical difference with the comparable players and how things fall, this is what the system offers. So while it’s suboptimal, I think both sides worked hard to try and figure something out. And at the end of the day, we weren’t able to.”"

The lack of an agreement between the Rays and Upton is only going to further fuel speculation that the Rays are shopping Upton and that he wants out of Tampa.

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This does not have anything to do with the Rays, but my good friend Chris Ray, agreed to a one year deal with his new team the Texas Rangers for one year and 975k.