PEBA announced it’s salary arbitration rulings on Friday.

The Tempe Knights lost two salary arbitration decisions and won five of them. 3rd basemen Javier Padilla and outfielder Tony Figueroa both won their cases on Friday. Javier Padilla was awarded a one year contract worth 9.35 million dollars. Tony Figueroa was awarded 8.54 million dollars in his claim. Both well deserved. Tempe management hopes to sign both players to long term contract extensions sometime in this upcoming season. Although OF Figueroa and the knights are closer in coming to terms than the Knights are with Padilla. Tempe general manager Rory “BeerCloud”Collins is hopeful to close the large gap between both parties. “We have a lot of work to do on a contract extension agreement, but I’m confident both sides can come together and do what’s best for this organization and Padilla’s bank account. We have a good working relationship with Javier, which will help the process go as smooth as possible.”

Other players involved in arbitration this year are: OF John Mayer who settled for 900,000, 2B Steve Scherer received 800,000, C Richard Wymer will get 900,000, MR Tomas Medina inks 800,000 and 1B Ken Knight will pocket 900,000 for 2020. All contracts are one year deals.

All in all Tempe ended up fairly well . It could have been worst for the cash strapped franchise. GM Rory “BeerCloud” Collins also said in his statement “I’m hopefully this young group will turn the corner and start “the climb of improvement”.  Then we may see public interest and that means more attendance which means more money for all the players and for myself to take all these girlfriends to their exotic locations that they all so deserve”. Yes that right, you just saw this reporter use a quotation inside a quotation. That’s how we roll in Tempe.

Tempe Times sports reporter: Craven Moorehead