Jered Weaver Still Wants Long-Term Deal With Angels

When a player loses an arbitration fight, it can often portend bad things about his long-term relationship with his team. Will that be the case for Jered Weaver and the Angels?

Weaver says that it won't be. He spoke with Mike DiGiovanna of the Los Angeles Times about the four-hour hearing last Wednesday. The hearing ended with the panel ruling that he would receive the Angels' offer of $7.365 million instead of Weaver's bid for $8.8 million. That outcome didn't change Weaver's feelings about being with the Angels for the long haul, although a multiyear contract isn't coming any time soon.

"From my understanding, it didn't go anywhere," Weaver said. "I'm open to it. I would love to play with the Angels for a long time, and if we can get something done, we will. But I don't want it hanging over my head through the season."

The good news for the Angels is that Weaver doesn't seem to be too put out by anything that happened in the arbitration hearing. Often those hearings can feature teams focusing on the flaws of a player to get their desired salary, something that doesn't usually sit well with players who are forced to sit and listen to themselves being picked apart by the guys they are supposed to go out and play for during the season.

Weaver said he found it interesting, though, and said he has thick enough skin to brush off something that happens because baseball has become "very business-oriented." Weaver, who led the American League in strikeouts last year, isn't eligible to become a free agent until 2013 so there's plenty of time to work on a long-term deal. Assuming Scott Boras doesn't talk Weaver out of it, of course.

All of that said, history is against these two sides finding a way to stay together for the long haul. Sam Miller of the Orange County Register went through the archives last week and found that only one of the 17 players who has lost an arbitration case since 2005 has gone on to sign with their original team. That player is Wandy Rodriguez, who just re-upped with the Astros, and he's one of the few on the list who are in the same arena as Weaver as a ballplayer. That may mean the list holds little use in projecting the future, but it is a trend worth knowing all the same.