Houston Astros and Hunter Pence go to arbitration – MLB News
It looks like the Houston Astros and Hunter Pence have been unable to agree on his contract and will be going to arbitration to settle the issue. The Astros will be a looking to settle the issue as soon as possible as Spring Training is scheduled to begin
on February 21, 2011.
It seems Pence was motivated as he saw the result of the deal between the Astros and Wandy Rodriguez which resulted in a difference of $1.75 million. Pence is looking forward to arbitration as he may get what he wants from his contract with the Astros.
Pence is looking for $6.9 million as the Astros are willing to pay $5.15 million. It looks like the difference is too much to negotiate on and thus arbitration will be needed.
"It doesn't say anything about how we feel about the player," general manager Ed Wade had told reporters last month. "It's the mechanism that's in place in our game when two parties can't get together and come to a negotiated settlement. There is no reflection
on how we feel about Hunter, or I'm assuming on how Hunter feels about us."
Although arbitration can be a tricky business, the Astros have a lot of experience dealing and have recently won most of their cases including Wandy Rodriguez, Mark Loretta and Jose Valverde.
Hunter had a tremendous season last year for the Astros as he had 91 RBIs, 18 stolen bases and 93 runs scored. He also managed to hit 25 home-runs.
As Spring Training is starting, the team has begun their work-out sessions as both pitchers and batters got the opportunity to warm-up and get some much needed practice in.
Both Hunter and the Astros will be looking to finalise some sort of deal before the training session starts full swing. The team will want to focus their attention on the field and not in negotiations as the regular season is about to begin and the Astros
are hoping for a decent Spring session. It will be interesting to see what deal Pence finally agrees upon and what impact he will have for the Astros.
Tags: