The St. Louis Cardinals avoided arbitration today with all of their remaining players. This means that Marcell Ozuna, Michael Wacha, Randal Grichuk, and Tyler Lyons all avoided arbitration and received one-year contracts. The amounts of these were $9M, $5.3M, $2.6M, and $1.2M respectively.
Simultaneously, the Tampa Rays avoided arbitration with their closer, Alex Colome. Colome, supposedly on the trade block and certainly of interest to many teams, received a $5.3M contract. Does that number ring any bells?
Before I dive into conspiracy theories, let just admit right out of the gate that $5.