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. 
[...] “core player” and has been since “Mike Matheny signed with San Francisco.” STLtoday.com - Bird Land - Blog Archive - Molina bound for big raise [...]
Derrick Goold is a blogging machine! The Bloginator! It doesn’t matter what the techies do to your page, because it’s all about the content.
Why didn’t you just say that a tag cloud is a form of metadata? OK, I only know what metadata means because my archivist wife has explained it to me about six times, so that I eventually grasped it (FYI: data about data). I have to say that the new Birdland page with links for your multiple blog entries in chronological order is not exactly easy on the eye. It’s exceedingly busy, and there’s a thin horizontal rule above the tag cloud that’s misleading. Perhaps a fatter line between each blog entry on the Birdland page would be an improvement.
The blogroll might be useful eventually, but I haven’t used it yet. Suggestions: when you’re looking at any stltoday.com blog, you don’t have the link along the left for the site’s main Cardinals page. I always click the Sports section in the masthead and choose the Cardinals page again from there. Instead, could your main Cardinals page be included at the top of the blogroll under “Baseball Blogs & Sites”? Maybe your web producers or web editor could consider that. Since the new format on Sunday, I’ve noticed that they’ve restored the ability to click to previous or more recent blog entries without going back to the main Birdland page. That was very helpful. Especially if you keep posting three new items every day…
Ask and you shall receive. Not sure what to do about the laundry list of blog entries on the main page, but I did put the P-D’s Cardinals page right there in the blogroll. Can’t miss it.
metadg
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DG,
What if the Cards and Molina go to arbitration and cash is granted one direction or the other. Then next offseason does Molina become a free agent that any team could sign or do we have exclusive rights.
Molina should get a Gold Glove this year, if he stays healthy. Unfortunately he may fall victim to being overlooked if his offense doesn’t continue to improve. Catchers typically are discriminated against in this arena, more so than any other position.He certainly has merited a sweet multi-year contract.
The Cardinals have exclusive rights until Molina has accumulated six years of service time. After this year, he’ll go through arbitration two more times, and then he’ll become a free agent if he hasn’t signed a longer term deal. Unless the Cardinals decide to not tender him a contract either next offseason or the next, as in the case of Adam Everett this year. However, that’s unlikely to happen.
I don’t normally post on this message board, but I do read the blog and the comments regularly. I would like to applaud Mr. Goold for his outstanding coverage of the Cardinals. This is first-class sports reporting and he deserves our thanks and respect as avid fans. I am a displaced Cardinal fan, so I read a lot about baseball in other media outlets. Mr. Goold does an excellent job relaying the nitty gritty facts to the baseball-hungry fans of the team from St. Louis. Look around to other cities’ newspaper/websites and you will not find a more professional or prolific baseball reporter. From a fan who wants something new to read daily, thank you Mr. Goold for giving us the facts. Keep up the good work - it is appreciated in St. Louis and beyond.
MR
Bird Land is hopping… the serial blogger is relentless… I give 5 stars for the latest effort.
Actually, I give 5 stars to all Bird Land entries. And thanks for putting me on your links list.
The whole gold glove thing is a bit of a joke. I recall a season when Raphael Palmero (Palmeri to some) won it after having been a DH for most of the year. Ridonkulus!
Molina deserved to win in ‘07. It’s time to pay the man and lock him for the next 5 - 7 years.
Is there any thought of just locking up Yadier to a multi year deal? It seems like he’s not going anywhere soon, there aren’t much better in the world defensively…. and he’s very young.
I’m a major fan of Yadier’s, but I think the cards need to wait to sign him long term until he can show two things:
1) He can stay healthy an entire year
2) That his true offensive abilities are at his 2007 level (or around there, anything higher is icing on the cake) not his 2006 regular season level.
If he does that in 2008, then it will be easier to sign him long term.
If Yadi does those two things in 2008, it will be easier to sign him long term, AND more expensive.