Breaking Down 2024 Salaries for Texas Rangers Eligible for Arbitration
The Texas Rangers are in the midst of pursuing their first World Series title in the 2023 postseason. But the organization will have a host of things on their to-do list once the run ends.
One of those will be dealing with salary arbitration.
Recently, MLB Trade Rumors published its annual projections of what each Rangers player that is eligible for arbitration could receive. The projections are based on an algorithm to project arbitration salaries that looks at the player’s playing time, position, role, and performance statistics while accounting for inflation.
Players who have three or more years of Major League service but less than six years of Major League service are eligible.
Arbitration doesn’t begin until Jan. 12, the deadline for arbitration figures to be exchanged. In most cases, teams will come to an agreement on a one-year salary, or an extension, before the deadline.
Here are the Rangers that are eligible for arbitration, along with MLB Trade Rumors’ projected figures:
- Matt Bush: $2.1MM
- Brett Martin: $1.28MM
- Nathaniel Lowe: $8.8MM
- Jonathan Hernandez: $1.3MM
- Jonah Heim: $3.6MM
- Adolis Garcia: $6.6MM
- Dane Dunning: $3.4MM
- Brock Burke: $1.1MM
- Josh Sborz: $900K
- Leody Taveras: $2.4MM
Lowe was eligible for arbitration for the first time last offseason and agreed to a $4.050 million, one-year deal with the Rangers to avoid arbitration. He isn’t a free agent until after the 2026 season, so he has three years of arbitration left. Lowe slashed .262/.360/.414/.774 with 17 home runs and a career-high 82 RBI in 2023. He also improved defensively at first base.
Bush, Martin and Hernandez are also coming back to arbitration, but avoided going through the process last offseason.
Heim, Garcia, Dunning, Burke, Sborz and Taveras will be eligible for the first time. Garcia is coming off a career season at the plate in which he slashed .245/.328/.508/.836 with 39 home runs and 107 RBI, the latter two of which being career highs. Heim also had a career season, as he slashed .258/.317/.438/.755 with 18 home runs and 95 RBI.
Dunning started the season in the bullpen but moved back into the rotation after the injury to Jacob deGrom and went 12-7 with a 3.70 ERA in the regular season. He threw two innings of solid relief in Game 1 of the American League Division Series on Saturday.
The Rangers have avoided an arbitration hearing for more than 20 years. Their last was with Lee Stevens in 2000. They nearly went to arbitration with catcher Mitch Garver in January before the two teams reached a last-minute agreement. Garver is a free agent after the postseason.
You can find Matthew Postins on Twitter @PostinsPostcard.
Catch up with Inside the Rangers on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Instagram.
