Rays 2023 arbitration deadline results

ST. PETERSBURG — The Rays agreed to terms Friday on one-year contracts with seven of their arbitration-eligible players, but they are now facing salary arbitration hearings with seven others to determine their salaries for the upcoming season.

Friday was the deadline for clubs to exchange salary figures with their arb-eligible players. The size of Tampa Bay’s 14-player class — down from 19 at the beginning of the offseason — was matched only by Milwaukee. Settling half of those cases still left the Rays with an unusually high number of hearings ahead.

“All parties worked in good faith to find salary agreements before today’s deadline, and that will continue as we enter the next phase in this process,” Rays president of baseball operations Erik Neander said. “We look forward to better understanding our differences and having an appropriate salary determined for each player.”

Keep in mind: Teams cannot lose players during this process, which is strictly about deciding their salaries for the season. But these hearings, which will take place between Jan. 30 and Feb. 17, can often be an uncomfortable distraction for players. Their representatives make a case for the salary they filed for, the team’s side argues for its proposed payment, and a panel of arbitrators selects one figure or the other to be the player’s salary.

The Rays settled with all 13 of their arb-eligible players before the figure-exchange deadline last spring. They last went to a hearing in 2021, when they won their case against Ryan Yarbrough and lost their case against Ji-Man Choi.

Here are the agreements the Rays reached before Friday’s deadline:

Arozarena: $4.15 million
Mejía: $2.155 million
Kittredge: $2.075 million
Beeks: $1.375 million
Bethancourt: $1.35 million
Chirinos: $1.275 million
Armstrong: $1.2 million

It’s a particularly big raise for Arozarena, a “Super Two” player eligible for arbitration before reaching three years of service time, as he made $716,600 last season. He earned it by putting together an impressive finish in 2020, a record-setting postseason, an American League Rookie of the Year campaign in ’21 and another strong season last year. The 27-year-old has totaled 7.8 WAR with the Rays, per Baseball Reference, batting .269 with an .806 OPS, 47 homers, 169 RBIs and 56 steals over 317 regular-season games.

If there’s a common theme among the players who didn’t settle before the deadline, it’s that they present somewhat unique cases in a…