Per a variety of folks on Twitter, Elvis Andrus and the Rangers have reportedly agreed on a three year contract that is believed to be worth between $14 and $15 million, thus avoiding an arbitration hearing that was scheduled for Thursday.
Let's get the bad news out of the way first...a three year deal with Elvis covers just his arbitration years, meaning that he's still eligible for free agency after the 2014 season, when he'll be just 26 years old.
The good news is that Andrus and the Rangers will avoid the potential contentiousness of arbitration hearings this year and the next two years, with Texas locking in both cost certainty and getting Elvis at a little bit of a discount over what you'd think he would likely make in 2013 and 2014.
Elvis had requested $3.6 million in arbitration, and the team was offering $2.65 million. If you figure that the deal would have come in around the midway point, that would have put the 2012 salary at about $3.1 million. If you figure bumps to about $5.3 and $7.5 million the following two years, then the Rangers are saving between one and two million over his likely arbitration figures the following two years, while Andrus gets some security and guaranteed money.
It is a deal that carries little risk for the Rangers, since it is hard to fathom a scenario where Andrus would be non-tendered after either 2012 or 2013. One would also think that there's some groundwork laid for a potential longer-term deal that would buy out some free agency years at some point in the future.
The Rangers now have just two remaining arbitration cases -- Nelson Cruz and Mike Napoli.