Rays Pitcher Comments On The Arbitration Process
Though it’s been almost a year since the MLB lockout came to an end, tensions are still high between owners and players.
That has become ever prevalent in recent arbitration hearings, where teams have been able to win their cases against players and cite certain reasons as to why their players don’t deserve the money they desire.
Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Ryan Thompson is in an awkward position right now.
He recently lost his arbitration case against the Rays.
However, he revealed on Twitter that the Rays were making some odd claims during his hearing, targeting him for blown saves, lack of usage against left-handed hitters, and a metric that FanGraphs refers to as “meltdowns.”
The Rays did an excellent job discrediting holds and leverage while targeting me on blown saves, lack of LHH usage, and a fangraphs metric called “meltdowns”.
— Ryan Thompson (@R_Thompson15) February 23, 2023
Clearly, the Rays went out of their way to discredit Thompson.
The 31-year-old put together a solid campaign for the team in 2022, posting a 3.80 ERA in 47 appearances and 42.2 innings of work.
He also had 39 holds.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough to sway the Rays from discrediting him for other things.
Thompson continued in another tweet by explaining blown saves, which is something the Rays were using as leverage against him.
The right-hander correctly pointed out that blown saves is not a stat that is indicative of poor pitching performances and that they can happen when unearned runs are scored.
Unearned runs are usually a result of errors.
But it’s shocking that the Rays would go out of their way to discredit Thompson based on a few statistics.
If this is any indication, tensions may be high for the next couple of years between the owners and players.