Weeks, Gomez Also Avoid Arby

Rickie Weeks and Carlos Gomez join Jody Gerut as players who have already avoided arbitration, agreeing to one year deals earlier today. The signings mean that only four arbitration-eligible players remain for the Brew Crew — Dave Bush, Todd Coffey, Carlos Villanueva, and Corey Hart. Weeks will make $2.75 million in 2010, a $300,000 raise over last season’s salary. It could be argued that Weeks’ injury saved the Brewers a good chunk of change, because if he continued to play the way he did before his season-ending wrist injury, he’d be in line to make well over $3 million. In my arbitration guesses post, I had Weeks pegged for $3.5 million, so obviously I’m thrilled with this outcome. A healthy Rickie Weeks is a bargain for this price. The contract details for Gomez are still unknown, but since he’s a first-year arby-eligible player as a Super Two and hasn’t put up eye-popping numbers, it’s probably safe to say he won’t be making over $1 million. The deal, like Weeks’, is for one year. In semi-related news, J.J. Hardy agreed to a one year deal with Minnesota for $5 million, so it’s possible that the Gomez-for-Hardy swap saved the Brewers enough money to possible sign another starting pitcher. Tom Haudricourt seems to think that these two signings will be it for the day, but if there are more signings we’ll pass along the news (either here or via Twitter @BrewersBar). Doug Melvin was apparently planning on spending between $17 and $18 million on arbitration cases, and with 3 of the 7 under contract already, it appears they’ve only spent a little more than $5 million of that (depending on how much Gomez will make). Not too bad, even if we’re expecting Bush and Hart to make most of that budgeted money. Update: Tom Haudricourt tweets that Gomez will make $1.1 million. Needless to say, that’s quite a bit more than I was expecting. It also means the Brewers have paid $5.85 million combined to Gerut, Weeks, and Gomez so far out of that $17-$18 million they’re planning to spend. TH also has the figures submitted by the team and remaining four players — Todd Coffey seems to be the furthest from reaching a deal.