Arbitration prediction: Jake Arrieta vs. Chicago Cubs

The Chicago Cubs aren't the only team heading to an arbitration hearing shortly with one of their best players - the Toronto Blue Jays will do the same with reigning MVP Josh Donaldson - but the $5.5-million gap in salary expectations between the club and their ace, Jake Arrieta, is quite striking.

The Cubs - a team that dolled out $276.76 million to free agents this winter -want to pay him $7.5 million. Arrieta, who may be the best right-handed pitcher on the planet, wants $13 million. Assuming the two sides don't settle prior to next week's hearing, a three-person arbitration panel will determine which salary is more appropriate. And from the looks of it, Arrieta will be leaving the hearing with a smile on his face.

Price is right

The arbitration process is unfailingly bound to precedent, but as Arrieta himself insinuated earlier this offseason, his case is pretty much unprecedented. Currently, David Price holds the record for highest salary ever given to a second-year, arbitration-eligible pitcher at $10.1125 million, and though Arrieta is asking for almost 30 percent more than what Price received from the Tampa Bay Rays, he was that much better in 2015 than the left-hander was in his platform season.

Arrieta is coming off his first Cy Young Award, just as Price was heading into the 2013 campaign, but the similarities pretty much end there: in terms of WAR, ERA, WHIP, and strikeout-to-walk ratio, Arrieta was, on average, 34.9 percent better than Price in their respective platform years. Arrieta was more durable, too, making two more regular-season starts last summer than Price did in 2012 before also navigating an impressive postseason, as well.

Though the Cubs may be tempted to dismiss Arrieta's performance last summer as an anomaly, for several reasons, the former fifth-round pick hinted at his potential with a superb 2014 campaign, and has now navigated a two-year stretch that puts him in elite company. Since 1920, only 15 pitchers have compiled more WAR than Arrieta from ages 28-29, and just two of them authored a lower ERA over that span after adjusting for park effects and their league's run-scoring environment (ERA-). Of the dozen non-active players from that group, all but four have a plaque in Cooperstown.

Age 28-29

It is salient to note, too, that even with a $9.37-million raise over his 2015 salary, Arrieta won't earn a fair-market wage this year. With continued inflation in the free-agent market, numerous starters significantly less valuable than Arrieta commanded lucrative, long-term deals this winter, throughout which they'll earn more per season, on average, than Arrieta will in 2016. Regardless of who wins in arbitration, Arrieta will pitch at a discount this summer - were he eligible for free agency, he'd conceivably command a contract with an annual average value close to $30 million - but a $13-million salary is far less egregious than the figure submitted by the Cubs, which would pay him less than Jason Hammel, his team's fourth starter.