Brusdar Graterol did not pitch in 2025 after shoulder surgery. Expect him to earn the same salary in 2026 as last year
Salary arbitration season is upon us, with the exchange date coming next Thursday, January 8. Among the four Dodgers eligible for arbitration this offseason, Brusdar Graterol has the easiest salary to predict.
Brusdar Graterol did not pitch at all during 2025 as he recovered from surgery to repair a torn labrum in his right shoulder. There are plenty of precedents in recent years for players eligible for arbitration who either did not pitch the previous season or pitched sparingly, earning either the very same salary or quite close to it.
Last offseason, Tony Gonsolin ($5.4 million) and Dustin May ($2.135 million) each avoided arbitration with one-year deals for 2025 that matched their 2024 salaries after not pitching the previous year while recovering from elbow surgeries. Ditto for Walker Buehler, who missed the 2023 season while recovering from his second Tommy John surgery and re-signed in 2024 for $8.025 million, matching his previous salary.
Graterol was in a similar situation last offseason, sidelined for over four months in 2024 with a shoulder strain then missing another month with a hamstring strain. He earned $2.7 million that season and pitched in only seven games during the regular season and three more in the postseason (remember his barehanded stab of a grounder back to the box in the World Series?). Graterol for 2025 avoided arbitration in January with a one-year deal for $2.8 million, a slight raise over his previous salary.
With five years, 167 days of major league service time, Graterol is eligible for arbitration for the fourth and final time before free agency. MLB Trade Rumors projected a $2.8 million salary for Graterol, and Cot’s Baseball Contract predicted the same. There’s no reason for me to vary from this, so let’s mark down Graterol for $2.8 million, in ink.
Category: General Sports
