José Berríos Losing Arbitration Case Provides Reason for Concern Over Long-Term Future with Twins

To recap how arbitration works, when an MLB player has more than three years of service time he becomes arbitration eligible. Each offseason, arbitration eligible players and their teams will each submit a salary that they feel the player warrants. This offseason, Berríos submitted a salary of $4.4M and the Twins submitted a salary of $4.025M. The two sides were unable to come to a mutual agreement, so they submitted their cases in front of a panel of arbitrators who ruled in favor of the Minnesota Twins.

After hearing about the Twins going to arbitration with Berríos over $375,000, it’s easy to be worried about Minnesota's long-term relationship with their ace. Especially with all of the other factors that have come into play over the past year.

If you’ll remember, last season the Twins traded middle reliever, Mike Morin, to the Philadelphia Phillies. While this was seemingly a very small transaction involving a marginal middle reliever, Berríos was clearly upset, sending a (later deleted) tweet about how the Twins only care about money.

Next, the Minnesota Twins made an agreement with the Los Angeles Dodgers to trade away Brusdar Graterol for Dodgers’ starting pitcher, Kenta Maeda. While Berríos hasn’t spoken publicly or indicated in any way that he was frustrated with the trade, it’s fair to speculate that he may be frustrated with the organization trading away someone he was close with. In a Star Tribune piece by Chris Hine, Berríos relishes being a mentor to Graterol saying, “It’s amazing, meeting people like him, now I have the opportunity to bring him my experience, my day-by-day. He’s in the same clubhouse now and we’re teammates. I’ve always heard about him. He’s got really good stuff, but I never had the chance to see him pitch. It’s amazing the things he’s doing out there.”

While neither of these events seems like a big deal in isolation, when combined with taking Berríos to arbitration over just $375,000 there is valid reason to be concerned. In the arbitration process, teams will tear down the performance of their players in order to convince arbitrators that they should rule in the team’s favor. This can be an awkward process and certainly leave players disenchanted.

While there have certainly been cases of players who went to arbitration and went on to sign long-term deals with teams, in Berríos’s case there are reasons to believe that things could be souring and should be some concern over his long-term future with the Minnesota Twins.

What do you think about Berríos’s long-term future with the Minnesota Twins? Do you think the events over the past year, culminating with his arbitration case, have put his future with the Twins into doubt? Leave a comment below and start the conversation!

MORE FROM TWINS DAILY

— Latest Twins coverage from our writers

— Recent Twins discussion in our forums

— Follow Twins Daily via Twitter, Facebook or email