The Nationals just announced they avoided arbitration with Chad Cordero and signed the closer to a one year $6.2 million deal. This is great news for both the Chief and Nats fans. Chad has said on numerous occasions that he wants to stay in DC and loves playing for the Nationals. As the Nationals are trying to mold a group of young men into a championship team, it makes total sense to keep the talented young closer in Washington. While he keeps our hearts pounding in the 9th inning, Chief usually gets the job done. Congratulations Chad!

From the Press Release:

The 25 year-old Cordero, who has successfully converted over 80 percent of his save opportunities each of his complete three seasons as a closer, ranks second on the franchise’s all-time saves list with 128 (Jeff Reardon, 152). Last season—on June 12 vs. Baltimore at the age of 25 years, 86 days—Cordero became the second-youngest closer in big league history to reach the 100-save plateau (Francisco Rodriguez, 24 years, 246 days). Cordero is 20-14 with 128 saves and a 2.79 ERA in 299 career appearances spanning four-plus seasons with Washington and Montreal.

The Nationals now have three players left who remain arbitration eligible: Felipe Lopez, Jon Rauch, and Tim Redding. It will be interesting to see what happens for them in the next few weeks.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 11th, 2008 at 2:30 pm and is filed under Contracts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.