[alnorth]

Arbitration numbers have been released. If they do not reach an agreement on a long-term deal, then the Royals will argue for $4.15MM for 2012, and Gordon will argue for $5.45MM.

Most teams avoid arbitration a few days before the hearing by (assuming no long-term deal) eventually agreeing in the middle for the 1-year deal. However, a few teams see the figure-exchange deadline as a real deadline, as in: "if we don't reach a 1-year deal by that date and if we also don't work out a long-term deal by the hearing, we're going to the hearing". Dayton Moore (just like the Braves) is one of the few GM's who has that policy, which is why we reached an agreement with everyone else yesterday.

In the next few weeks, we are either going to sign Gordon to a long-term deal, or we are going to arbitration. This also happened with Butler, we exchanged figures with him, but then agreed to a long-term deal before arbitration.