Philadelphia pitcher Kevin Millwood asked for US$12.5 million, while Albert Pujols and St. Louis had the biggest difference among 27 players who swapped proposed salaries with their teams in arbitration.
Millwood, who became a free agent and accepted the Phillies' offer to arbitrate, was offered US$10 million Tuesday.
Pujols, the 2001 NL Rookie of the Year, asked for US$10.5 million while the Cardinals offered US$7 million.
The reigning Cy Young Award winners also submitted big-money requests. Toronto's Roy Halladay asked for US$9 million and was offered US$6.5 million, and the Dodgers' Eric Gagne requested US$8 million and was offered US$5 million.
Sixteen more players settled Tuesday among the 65 who had filed for arbitration last week.
Boston's Kim Byung-hyun got the only multiyear contract, a US$10 million, two-year deal.
Kansas City outfielder Carlos Beltran, eligible for free agency after next season, agreed to a US$9 million, one-year deal, and New York Yankees second baseman Alfonso Soriano settled on a US$5.4 million, one-year contract.
Tampa Bay second baseman Damian Rolls submitted the lowest request in arbitration, US$900,000, and the Devil Rays offered US$700,000.
The US$200,000 spread was the smallest among the players who exchanged figures with their clubs.
The number of players who swapped was the fewest since at least 1990, according to records of the commissioner's office, and may be the lowest total since arbitration began in 1974. The sides have made in effort in recent years to settle potential cases earlier in the offseason, with teams threatening not to offer contracts to nonstarters by the Dec. 20 deadline.
For players and teams who don't settle, hearings before three-arbitrator panels will be scheduled for the first three weeks of February.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier