Everth Cabrera gets a new contract in his second year of salary arbitration.
Everth Cabrera's 2013 season unfortunately might be best remembered for the 50 game suspension he was forced to serve, which ended his year prematurely. However, it was also a year where he was selected for NL All Star team and proved to be one of the most promising young shortstops in the game. It was also a year where he was supposed to have earned his first million dollar paycheck. Due to the suspension he did not earn his full $1.275 million salary. In 2014, he looks to finally earn that million dollar annual income and the total value is almost double what he could have earned last year.
The Padres and Cabrera settled on a sum of $2,450,000 million for 2014. MLBTradeRumors.com had predicted he would get $2.2 million, so this is in the same ballpark as expectations. Without the suspension, Cabrera would likely have earned more. While there is nothing that says the suspension should impact future salary, the dollar figures are justified by a player's statistics. By missing 50 games in 2013, Cabrera could not pad his stats and justify a higher income.
Despite the suspension, the Padres seem to be relying heavily on another solid season from their shortstop. There is no one on the roster that can realistically compete with Everth for playing time, so he will get the full benefit of the doubt that he is clean and ready to produce as he did before sitting out those final 50 games of 2013.