MLB salary arbitration deadline moved from Friday to this afternoon

According to Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports, MLB and the Players Association have moved the deadline for teams to agree on arbitration contracts with players to 10:00am PST today. The deadline was originally set on Friday the 12th.

At some point roughly a month ago, the two sides agreed to adjust the deadline, though it's unclear why they have chosen to do so. Teams and players that wish to come to an agreement on a contract must do so by the 10am deadline. If the two sides can't come to a deal and will likely go to trial, the deadline to exchange those figures is 5:00pm PST this afternoon.

There are still a number of high-profile players awaiting a resolution on their contract status for 2024. The list is headlined by Juan Soto, Vlad Guerrero Jr, and Pete Alonso. As noted in Blum's article, there are 194 players with unresolved contracts heading into tomorrow's deadline.

The Athletics currently have two arbitration eligible players they'll need to come to terms with, in Paul Blackburn and Seth Brown. On Tuesday, we broke the two cases down in-depth and discussed where they might end up contract-wise.

Neither Blackburn nor Brown will command a significant salary in 2024. The two combined should come in under $5 million total.

Juan Soto on the other hand will command a massive number. He's currently projected to earn nearly $30 million in his final year before free agency. It's possible that he beats the record for highest salary in arbitration. Shohei Ohtani set the record at $30 million for the 2023 season and Soto is right in that range.

Alonso, also in his final arbitration-eligible season, is projected to get about $22 million. Guerrero isn't a free agent until after the 2025 season. Spotrac projects that he'll earn north of $19 million next year.