Pitcher Eric Lauer loses arbitration case with Blue Jays

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Major League Baseball’s salary arbitration process is one of the more distasteful parts of pro sports, and Blue Jays swingman Eric Lauer is just the latest to experience the short end of it.

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Lauer, who had a 9-2 record with a 3.18 ERA in 2025 while pitching from both the starting rotation and its bullpen, depending on the team’s needs, was rewarded with an arbitration loss. He will receive a 2026 salary of the team’s offer of $4.4 million, rather than the $5.75 million for which he filed.

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In short, the entire process, for players with three to six years of MLB service time (and still under team control, meaning free agency isn’t an option) who can’t come to an agreement on a contract is flawed.

It’s a loss from the outset as the team makes an offer, the player counters, and an independent panel of arbitrators is brought in to decide which number better represents the player’s worth.

But it’s the arbitration hearing — where the player’s employer, or at least a representative of the team, takes a turn providing as negative as possible of a spin on the employee’s performance from the previous season in order to get the panel to side with the team — where the damage is done.

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The player’s representatives make their own glowing case on the player’s behalf, and the panel picks one number or the other.

The public doesn’t hear the case or the details, but the player usually is right there, hearing it all, as his employer drags his accomplishments through the mud.

In Lauer’s case, it wasn’t even a day after learning the results of his case that Lauer had to report for duty. Try doing that with a smile on your face with all the negatives cleverly packaged and delivered in front of you by your employer still fresh in your brain.

The irony of the timing of this particular arbitration case is it comes just a day after the need for Lauer’s services peaked with the Jays learning that their starting pitching depth had been depleted with the season-ending surgery for Bowden Francis, plus the fact that Shane Bieber was unlikely to be able to start the season on time because of arm fatigue.

The revelation about Bieber, who just returned to the major leagues in August following Tommy John surgery, raises more questions.

Lauer, the only left-handed option the Jays have at the Major League level with starting abilities, could very well wind up pitching every fifth day for the team that just got finished doing its best to downplay his worth.

mganter@postmedia.com

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