Everybody Wins

Ah, the Good Old Days when the Mets never went to arbitration with anybody. Could it be that those halcyon days are ours once again?

.

Lefty reliever Pedro Feliciano has agreed to a 2009 contract, leaving a grand total of zero arbitration cases before the Metsies. Everybody wins! The player gets more than the team originally offered, the team pays less than the player asked for, and they don't need to go through the potentially-damaging scenario of actually pleading their cases before the arbitrator.

.

Actual transcript of an arbitration hearing*:

Agent: "My player is great."

Team: "No, he really kind of stinks."

Player: "I don't stink!"

Arbitrator: "Sure you do."

Agent: "Oh, yeah? Well, you stink!"

.

* Note: Not an actual transcript of an arbitration hearing.

.

Feliciano signed for a little more than $1.6 million, including a couple of small incentive bonuses. The last three seasons his ERA has gone from 2.09 to 3.09 to 4.05--a trend that hopefully will not continue. He led the club with 86 appearances in relief last year, setting the Mets' all-time record in the process.