Houston Astros: The magnitude of Ken Giles arbitration pay raise

The Houston Astros have reached the brunt of end of free agency as well as contract negotiations but they lost their battle with their star closer in Ken Giles. He won his arbitration battle but other than validity of this news coming out, it will have little impact on the team itself.

The Houston Astros and Ken Giles went to court last Thursday to duke out over the amount that the latter should be paid for the upcoming season. Arbitration negotiations can be tricky but the last few seasons have resulted in few guys actually having to escalate the process.

In the Jeff Luhnow era, only three Houston Astros players have had to do so. Those are: Jason Castro, Collin McHugh and now Giles. George Springer is the latest edition to that list and McHugh is right back into arbitration for 2018 as well.

But as for Ken, his deal is done and Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports had the scoop:

giles won his arb case vs astros
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) February 3, 2018

He also discussed what he will receive versus what the Houston Astros offered him:

ken giles will be paid $4.6M, not the $4.2M proposed by the astros
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) February 3, 2018

The two sides were $400K apart and because of Giles’ value, it’s clearly obvious why he was able to win his case. I know we’re all disappointed with his performance in the postseason as he was put in high-pressure situations and folded like a cheap tent.

It was disheartening to witness to say the least but I understood because he hasn’t been in that type of situation before. Of course, Giles was banished from the mound for the rest of the World Series after a disastrous performance in Game 4 but with as loaded as we are this season, he’ll get an opportunity to redeem himself in 2018.

A.J. Hinch still thinks highly of Giles and trusted him mightily in those said situations and has not

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back down from his stance. So just how bad he was in the postseason? He netted a 11.74 ERA coupled with allowing five walks and three home runs through 7.2 innings pitched.

So how much of raise did he get year-over-year? Considering Giles just made $550,100 in 2017, this is a $4.1 million pay increase for the 27-year-old. That’s an increase of 736.2 percent!

But it’s tough understate his overall worth to the Houston Astros as he had an extremely solid 2017 on the bump. It’s not easy to turn 65 saves in one season and that should be noted first and foremost.

According to MLB Trade Rumors, among qualifying pitchers, Giles is ranked 7th in xFIP (3.09), 10th in K/9 (11.9) and 13th in ERA (2.30), demonstrating that through the course of a season, he’s still as best as they come considering the investment that has been made.

With all of this extra money he has in his stable, it now comes with additional expectations to have a stronger performance when it comes to postseason time. I honestly think that he will considering this has been on his mind every day of his life since that ill-fated moment in the World Series. We’ll have to see because that’s what the magnitude of his pay raise is all about.

Next: Three reasons why the Astros window won't be closing soon

Springer’s and McHugh’s arbitration dates are to be this sometime this month so we’ll find out how those go as well. There’s no question Springer will win his case as he’s asking for $10.5 million while the Astros offered $8.5 million. McHugh may be a bit more of a wrangle, with he requesting $5 million while the club offered $4.55 million.

Let’s keep an eye out — go Astros.

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