Nine Mets players eligible for arbitration ahead of Friday’s deadline

The Mets have nine players that are eligible for arbitration this year.

: Sandy Alderson and the Mets are taking a different stance on arbitration negotiations this offseason. According to ESPN’s Adam Rubin, the Mets are negotiating with eligible players until the 1pm ET deadline on Friday, and no more after that. If a deal doesn’t get done, the player will have to wait for an arbiter to decide in February.

This change in philosophy differs from how the Mets have handled similar cases in the past. Usually the team is willing to negotiate past the deadline before the arbiter comes into play. It’ll be interesting to see how this affects personnel decisions going forward.

After the Mets and Zack Wheeler agreed to terms this week, there are now eight players remaining on this list.

One of the final parts of the Major League Baseball offseason is the arbitration deadline. This year, arbitration eligible players and teams have until this Friday, January 13, 2017 to come an agreement on a contract for the 2017 season. If no terms are reached, the club and player will each submit a salary figure. The process then gets sent to an arbiter, who will determine how much said player will get in compensation the following year. That part of the litigation usually happens in February, right before Spring Training begins.

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This offseason, the Mets have nine players that fit this category. Lucas Duda, who has served a little over five years in the Majors leads the team followed by Addison Reed, Matt Harvey, Jeurys Familia, Zack Wheeler, Josh Edgin, Travis d’Arnaud, Wilmer Flores, and Jacob deGrom.

The bullpen is projected to feature the two most expensive players of the bunch with Reed and Familia likely cashing in pretty good deal.

• Addison Reed (proj. 10.6 million)
• Jeurys Familia (proj. $8.7 million)
• Lucas Duda (proj. $6.7 million)
• Matt Harvey (proj. $5.2 million)
• Jacob deGrom (proj. $4.5 million)
• Wilmer Flores (proj. $1.9 million)
• Travis d’Arnaud (proj. $1.7 million)
• Zack Wheeler (proj. $1 million)
• Josh Edgin (proj. $800,000)

Many baseball insiders agree that this year we may see a higher number of players settling with their teams before it gets thrown to the arbiter. One of the reasons for this is the World Baseball Classic.

Since the World Baseball Classic kicks off every other part of Spring Training a bit earlier, it’s logical that a lot of these players will look to get into camp as quickly as possible. In order to be able to do that, a contract has to be worked out, obviously. Waiting for an arbiter to get to your case, may not be ideal for players in this situation if the matter can just as easily be resolved between the two parties.

Next: Mets Season in Review: Alejandro De Aza

That’s why I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Mets start announcing they’ve settled with most of these guys this week. It’s been a pretty cold stove for the Mets, so maybe once these deals get done they can announce newer and more exciting moves.