Braves beat Duvall, lose to Swanson in salary arbitration

Salary arbitration results keep trickling in, as a result of the lockout that pushed these hearings to taking place during the season.

As reported by the Associated Press (https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/34059633/atlanta-braves-lose-arbitration-case-ss-dansby-swanson-beat-adam-duvall), Dansby Swanson has bested the Braves this time, and will earn a $10 million salary for the 2022 season. The Braves were not able to convince arbitrators to pick their $9.2 million offer.

Swanson’s case was an interesting one — he lost a hearing last year and had to settle for $6 million instead of his $6.7 million submission, but an increase from $6 million to $10 million represents a big raise for a non-Super Two in their final year of arbitration eligibility. (The rule of thumb is that Arb3 salaries are 50 percent higher than Arb2 salaries for non-Super Two players.) Swanson did post career highs in pretty much every counting stat last year, which may have helped his case.

Meanwhile, Adam Duvall, who has suffered through a dreadful start to 2022, lost his case. Duvall filed for $10.275 million and was countered by the team at $9.275. His case was always going to be somewhat complicated given that he was non-tendered and signed a major league free agent deal that didn’t fully exhaust his arbitration eligibility — he essentially made $5 million last year and receives a pretty giant raise anyway on the back of a 2021 season that had a lot of homers and defense and not much else. Like Swanson, Duvall is in his final year of arbitration eligibility and will become a free agent following the conclusion of the season.

Max Fried remains the Braves’ sole pending arbitration case, and his difference is fairly small ($6.85 million to $6.6 million). Earlier this season, Austin Riley and Luke Jackson both lost their cases, which means the Braves will be about as close to the expected 75 percent “win rate” for teams irrespective of what happens with Fried in the near future.