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Some things to read while grooming your beard.
We are 79 days away from pitchers and catchers reporting to Maryvale Baseball Park, and one of those pitchers will be sitting on a fatter wallet when he gets to his locker. On Tuesday, the Milwaukee Brewers avoided arbitration by signing reliever Brandon Kintzler to a one-year deal that will pay him $1.075 million with the possibility to tack on $25,000 in incentives if he makes 60 appearances (h/t @ChrisCotillo).
Matt Swartz of MLB Trade Rumors projected Kintzler to receive $900,000 via the arbitration process, so the Brewers may have overpaid a bit to retain a middle reliever from a bullpen that has already lost Zach Duke to free agency this winter and could also lose Francisco Rodriguez. Kintzler has pitched in 135 games over the last two seasons for Milwaukee and posted a 2.93 ERA, but he showed a pretty significant increase in his home run rate (from 0.2 to 1.2 per nine innings) and a major drop in strikeouts (from 6.8 to 4.8 per nine) in 2014.
The Brewers entered the day Tuesday with three arbitration-eligible players, and elected to keep all of them. In addition to Kintzler, Gerardo Parra and Martin Maldonado were both tendered a contract offer, starting the process towards a potential hearing to determine their 2015 salaries. If the two sides fail to reach an agreement between now and then, they’ll exchange salary proposals on Jan. 16 and could go before an arbitrator as soon as February 1.
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