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Rockies Win Over Fuentes

By Rick Karcher, Michael McCann, Geoffrey Rapp, Greg Skidmore, and Howard Wasserman

The Colorado Rockies were successful in their arguments before arbitrators Robert Bailey, Dan Brent, and Elliot Shriftman and defeated pitcher Brian Fuentes in salary arbitration providing teams with a 2-0 record in hearings this year. Fuentes will be paid $5.05 million instead of the $6.5 million that he requested. Fuentes received $328,000 for the 2005 season, $2,000,000 for 2006, and $3,500,000 last year.

The Rockies reliever won three games last year with 20 saves and a 3.08 ERA. However, he gave up three runs in one inning in Game 3 of the World Series on back-to-back doubles and a home run in the eighth inning of Game 4 in 2/3 of an inning. He was also roughed up by the Diamondbacks in game 4 of the LCS. He is a three time All-Star selection although he only pitched in the 2006 game. Last season, Fuentes went on the DL retroactive to July 4 and was replaced on the All-Star Game roster. Fuentes was seeking a jump of $3.5 million for 2008. The gap between his number and the Rockies figure was nearly $1.5 million.

Robert Bailey?s panel decisions in prior years was 1-1. Dan Brent?s 2000-2007 record on panels is 10 wins for teams and 4 wins for players. With Shriftman?s decision for the Nationals yesterday against Lopez, his panel record is 10-5 in favor of the team. This was the third hearing for the Rockies since they entered the National League as a franchise. They now own a 2-1 record against the players. They beat Sunny Kim in 2006 before Stephen Goldberg, John Sands, and Gil Vernon. They lost to Dennys Reyes in 2002. The panel was Jack Clarke, Matthew Finkin, and I. B. Helburn.

I am posting this after the decision was announced, but if you check my comment under my February 13 post I did predict a victory for the Rockies at 11:07 on Thursday evening.

Full post as published by Sports Law Blog on February 15, 2008 (boomark / email).