Molina bound for big raise
TOWER GROVE — St. Louis native Ryan Howard’s arbitration filing for $10 million will get the ink, but another local player is headed for a massive raise judging by the numbers exchanged today between Yadier Molina and the Cardinals.
Players and teams had until today to exchange numbers for upcoming arbitration hearings. The Cardinals signed Rick Ankiel to a one-year deal shortly before the deadline, and that left Molina and pitcher Todd Wellemeyer as the only arbitration-eligible players not yet signed.
The numbers exchanged for both players:
Molina … Team: $1.85 million … Player: $2.75 million
Wellemeyer … Team: $875,000 … Player: $1.325 million
Wellemeyer made $635,000 last season and he told me earlier today that he’s preparing to come to spring training as a starter. He hopes a deal can be finalized before the need for a hearing in February. Molina’s agent and the Cardinals have discussed a multi-year deal for the catcher who manager Tony La Russa recently said was on the level of a “core player” and has been since “Mike Matheny signed with San Francisco.”
Molina made $525,000 last season. He’ll zoom by a million in any deal.
Teams and players can continue to negotiate until their arbitration hearings.
Check out the list of exchanged figures over at MLB.com in its tidy chart here.
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Derrick Goold said he was going to Mizzou for capital-J journalism, but after growing up in the Time Zone Baseball Forgot he was really drawn to MU sitting between two major-league cities. Goold joined the Post-Dispatch in 2001 after working for The Times-Picayune and Rocky Mountain News, covering sports from LSU to NHL and every level of baseball in between. 
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