One of the expected casualties of the upcoming lockout is the certainty of the timing of the salary arbitration process heading into the 2027 season.
Had this been a normal offseason, the exchange date for salary arbitration would have been Friday, January 8 based on the current collective bargaining agreement, or perhaps more likely Thursday, January 7, as the MLB office moved that date up a day in each of the last few years. The exchange date tends to be a soft deadline of sorts, by which deals
get done. The Dodgers reached deals with all four of their arbitration-eligible players by January 8, 2026, for instance. In the first dozen offseasons with Andrew Friedman at the helm of the front office, the Dodgers have signed 83 of 91 arbitration-eligible players (92 percent) by the exchange date.
But with MLB owners set to lock out the players once the CBA expires on 8:59 p.m. PT on December 1, there’s no reason to think any sort of deal will be done by January. That puts arbitration in limbo, but something that will get completed, eventually.
In 2022, the CBA was agreed to on March 10, spring training was truncated, and opening day was pushed back a week. The arbitration exchange date was moved to March 22, during spring training. The Dodgers reached agreements with all three related players — Trea Turner for $21 million, Julio Urías for $8 million, and Caleb Ferguson for $762,500 as he recovered from Tommy John surgery.
But for players who exchanged salaries in March, their arbitration hearings were set for June, during the season. How it worked was a player would be paid at the salary the team filed (the lower number) to start the season, and if a hearing was won by the player they’d get back pay to make up the difference for the first few months.
Aaron Judge, for instance, filed at $21 million that year while the New York Yankees filed at $17 million. They reached agreement on June 24, just ahead of a potential arbitration hearing, for $19 million. Judge also negotiated a $250,000 bonus if he won American League MVP, and cashed that bonus in November.
That’s the lens through which to look at the players eligible for salary arbitration this winter. There are six such Dodgers.
In our initial offseason roster breakdown in October, we used the 2027 arbitration projections from MLB Trade Rumors, developed by Matt Swartz. But let’s widen our perspective just a bit, adding projections from both Jeff Euston of Cot’s Baseball Contracts and Zach Cioffi at Just Baseball.
We’ll dig deeper into each individual player in January, but this is a broad overview for now. A lot can happen between now and then, either through trades or the November 20 tender deadline.
Jake Cousins still has an option year remaining, but hasn’t pitched in the majors since June 2025 Tommy John surgery. Brock Stewart is out of options with a lengthy injury history, having been sidelined for 95 of the 162 regular season games last year on his three different IL stints, but he’s been quite effective in the months he’s been healthy.
“I’ve been hurt a lot so I always try to take things one day at a time,” Stewart told True Blue LA in September.
Andy Pages is eligible for salary arbitration for the first time as a Super Two player, among the top 22 percent in service time among players with at least two but not yet three years of major league service time. He’s coming off an All-Star season and was among the top three finishers for a National League Gold Glove in center field, and is projected to make some real money.
We’ll dig deeper into Pages in January, including a potential contract extension outlook with four arbitration-eligible years coming. But for now, here are a few comparable Super Two players from the last two offseasons at roughly his salary level, thanks to the folks at MLB Trade Rumors and Cot’s Contracts.
