Of the four Dodgers eligible for salary arbitration this offseason, relief pitcher Brusdar Graterol was the one with the easiest salary to predict. So perhaps it’s not a surprise that his one-year deal to avoid arbitration was the first one reported.
Graterol will earn $2.8 million in 2026, per Robert Murray of FanSided and confirmed by Fabian Ardaya at The Athletic. That matches Graterol’s salary from 2025, a season in which he did not pitch while recovering from surgery to repair a torn labrum in his
right shoulder.
Evan Phillips, who had Tommy John surgery in June and was expected to miss at least half of 2026, was also eligible for arbitration this offseason but was non-tendered in November as he and the team couldn’t yet work out a deal to return. Same for Tony Gonsolin, who would have been eligible for arbitration but was also coming off Tommy John surgery in August and was expected to miss a large chunk of 2026 before he was designated for assignment in November.
By contrast, Graterol by contrast is expected to be ready to pitch once spring training begins.
Graterol in 2024 missed time with shoulder trouble and a hamstring strain, and was limited to only 10 games that season. But he’s been one of the Dodgers’ most-trusted relievers this decade when healthy, utilizing soft contact and a high 61.9-percent groundball rate to produce a 2.69 ERA and 3.03 xERA in 178 games and 181 innings from 2020-24.
With five years, 167 days of major league service time, Graterol will be a free agent after this season. He was a Super Two player in 2023, among the top 22 percent in service time of players with at least two but not yet three years of service time. He made $1.225 million that season, and earned $2.7 million in 2024.
Graterol’s $2.8 million salary in 2026 matches what he made in 2025, which has been the norm for arbitration-eligible players coming off missed seasons due to injury. Recent Dodgers examples of this include Gonsolin and Dustin May last January, as well as Walker Buehler in 2024. That made for some easy predicting of Graterol’s salary this season, as I guessed $2.8 million for Graterol, matching projections at both MLB Trade Rumors and Cot’s Baseball Contracts.
Other Dodgers still eligible for salary arbitration are right-hander Brock Stewart, left-hander Anthony Banda, and outfielder Alex Call. Thursday is the date for players and teams to exchange salaries, which would be potentially used as arguing points in a potential arbitration hearing. That makes Thursday a soft deadline of sorts, so expect more one-year deals to be reached.
