The exchange date for salary arbitration is this Thursday, and we’ve already looked at comparable players to pitcher Brusdar Graterol and outfielder Alex Call. That leaves two other Dodgers eligible for arbitration in
2026, both relievers — left-hander Anthony Banda and right-hander Brock Stewart.
Both have similar service time, with Banda at four years, 135 days and Stewart at four years, 93 days. Both pitchers are in their 30s with long and winding paths to get to this level. Banda pitched for seven major league teams in seven years before joining the Dodgers, for whom he’s had his best two seasons in 2024-25, accounting for almost half of his career innings.
We’ll look at Stewart’s case on Wednesday, but will work from the same group of relievers trying to find comparable pitchers.
First, let’s look at a large group of pitchers over the last three offseasons with four-plus years of service time and reasonably similar career numbers to Banda and/or Stewart, with the help of excellent arbitration tracking from the folks at MLB Trade Rumors.
These pitchers, after Banda and Stewart, are sorted by salary in the arbitration year in question, with the top three on the list all having double-digit career saves to this point. Banda has three saves, with two for Stewart. Hoby Milner didn’t have any saves but had superior career numbers to Banda and Stewart, and was coming off a 1.82 ERA and 2.95 xERA in 73 games in the season heading into this arbitration year. Matt Bush had 14 saves through 2022, separating him from our pair, and Zack Littell began starting once he joined the Rays in 2023 and pitched 90 innings in the season heading into this arb year.
Platform year
The bulk of Banda’s career production has come in the last two seasons, from journeyman to key cog in two championship bullpens, pitching in 17 of 33 postseason games with the Dodgers in 2024-25. In two years in Los Angeles, the left-hander has a 3.14 ERA and 3.47 xERA in 119 games and 114 2/3 innings, with two of his three career saves.
Let’s look at a few pitchers from the list above, with their season directly preceding their four-year arbitration case:
- Anthony Banda (2025): 71 G, 65 IP, 3.18 ERA, 3.64 xERA, 0 saves, 10.1-percent K-BB
- Joe Mantiply (2024): 75 G, 59 2/3 IP, 3.92 ERA, 3.19 xERA, 1 save, 14.4-percent K-BB
- Adrián Morejón (2024): 60 G, 63 2/3 IP, 2.83 ERA, 3.31 xERA, 2 saves, 18.4-percent K-BB
- Lucas Luetge (2022): 50 G, 57 1/3 IP, 2.67 ERA, 3.57 xERA, 2 saves, 17.1-percent K-BB
- Génesis Cabrera (2023): 61 G, 55 2/3 IP, 4.04 ERA, 4.14 xERA, 0 saves, 14.2-percent K-BB
Adrián Morejón made the most of this group during this year of arbitration, earning $2 million in 2025 after basically his only fully healthy season to that point in his career, earning a raise from $850,000 in his first year of arbitration. That makes him the upper limit for Banda, who has similar career numbers but in 95 more innings, 68 percent more than Morejón.
Joe Mantiply and Banda have similar career numbers, with the same strikeout rate and Banda having 27 more innings. Mantiply has a better walk rate and better peripherals, giving him a lower ERA and FIP than Banda. In their platform year, in similar games and innings, Banda had the better ERA and Mantiply had the better xERA. Mantiply made $1.7 million in 2024, an 83.5-percent raise over his $925,000 salary the year before.
MLB Trade Rumors projected a $1.7 million salary in 2026 for Banda, who made $1 million last year in his first time through the arbitration process.
Banda in 2025 had a better platform year than Génesis Cabrera did in 2023, with Cabrera earning $1,512,500 in 2024. Lucas Luetge had better career numbers through 2022 than Banda has now, and a better platform year, and he made $1.55 million in 2023. These are similar to Cot’s Baseball Contract’s prediction of $1.55 million for Banda in 2026.
I think Banda ends up somewhere in the middle of those projections. Luetge’s raise in 2023 was 63.2 percent, while Cabrera’s raise was 59.2 percent in 2024. I’ll guess a similar raise for Banda, putting him at $1.6 million in 2026.
