According to McTaggart's updated story, the Astros have reached pre-arbitration agreements with Michael Bourn, Matt Lindstrom and Humberto Quintero.
"I'm thankful and I'm happy," Bourn said via Tags.
Bourn will make 2.4 million plus a bonus, while Lindstrom will make 1.65 mill and Quintero clocks in at 750,000. Hunter Pence, Wandy Rodriguez and Tim Byrdak all filed arbitration numbers earlier today. Our go-to guy has more info on Twitter. Pence filed at 4.1 million, while the Astros filed at 3.1. Wandy filed at 7 million while the Astros filed at 5 million. Byrdak filed at 1.9 million while the Astros offered 1.3.
As AstrosCounty notes, if you split all those figures, Houston's 2010 payroll comes in right at 90 million, which is 15 million less than 2009. The filings also show just how crafty Tal Smith is at his job.
Pence was worth 3.3 WAR in 2009 with Wandy at 4.0. As clack recently debated in the comments of this article, the value of one win is somewhere around 3.5-4.5 million. Maybe more, maybe less, depending on a lot of factors. If you look at Pence and Wandy, they were each worth over 10 million last season, but that's a big jump for a team to make in arbitration. I mean, Tim Lincecum only filed at 13 million, coming off back-to-back Cy Young Awards.
No, the value here is in how the Astros played it. By successfully pegging reasonable figures close to that filed by players, the team can win the decision and not face too much animosity. Plus, there is mutual ground if they want to come to a long-term agreement in the future. Just remember, Pence will be 27 in April and Wandy turned 31 yesterday. Committing long term dollars to either right now is a risk.
I think the Bourn deal is pretty reasonable, especially since he's had just one great year. Quintero's contract will make him fungible if the Astros decide to break camp with another catcher while Lindstrom's deal is actually really reasonable considering he may be the primary setup man. Consider that Doug Brocail earned 2.75 million last season, and Lindstrom is a steal.
Biz of Baseball's Maury Brown noted that there have been 50 contracts reached today alone with arbitration-eligible players. Looks like a trend to me. If the Astros can reach a deal with either Pence or Wandy, they will probably consider themselves lucky.