This is the day that Major League Baseball hates, players love, and one that can leave a lasting animosity that may not fade.
It is the MLB salary filing day, where teams and hundreds of salary arbitration-eligible players exchange salary figures for the upcoming 2026 season.
They will submit their figures throughout the day Thursday, and if the two sides can’t reach a compromise, a three-person panel will decide which salary to pick later in January, which can lead to contentious hearings.
MLB is hoping this is the swan song for the entire salary arbitration system with the collective bargaining agreement expiring on Dec. 1, 2026. MLB tried to eradicate salary arbitration during the last collective bargaining negotiations and replace it with a performance model, saying it would help avoid strained relationships.
The idea was steadfastly rejected by the players union, which instead bargained for a higher minimum wage and a $50 million pre-arbitration bonus pool for pre-arbitration eligible players.
Skubal, who earned $10.15 million last season while winning his second consecutive Cy Young award, could double his salary with agent Scott Boras establishing an arbitration benchmark for pitchers. Spotrac projects that Skubal could earn $22.5 million while MLBTradeRumors predicts $17.8 million.
Tim Lincecum of the San Francisco Giants was the last arbitration-eligible pitcher to win consecutive Cy Young awards in 2008-2009, and he signed a two-year, $23 million contract to avoid arbitration.
All-Star outfielder Juan Soto received the largest one-year contract for an arbitration-eligible position player in 2024 with a $31 million deal by the New York Yankees. Shohei Ohtani’s $30 million deal in 2023 from the Los Angeles Angels is the second-largest pre-arbitration deal.
Toronto Blue Jays first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s $28.5 million contract was the largest by an arbitration-eligible player a year ago, which he spun off into a 14-year, $500 million contract extension.
While MLB is expected during the next labor negotiations to again try to replace salary arbitration with a performance-based algorithm, the union surely will oppose it, with one veteran agent calling it the “balance of revenues and compensation.’’
Certainly, no one has benefited more from salary arbitration than Soto earning a major-league record $79.6 million in his four arbitration years before signing a 15-year, $765 million contract after the 2024 season with the New York Mets.
Ten players are projected to earn contracts Thursday of at least $10 million, per MLBTradeRumors, led by Seattle Mariners outfielder Randy Arozarena. That’s a slight increase over the eight players who received at least $10 million at last year’s salary arbitration deadline.
It will be a day filled with intrigue, suspense, negotiations, and we will be left with a whole lot of rich fellas, and yes, angry owners who resent the entire salary arbitration process.
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An earlier version of this story misidentified the highest-paid arbitration-eligible pitcher in MLB history.
