According to the team's twitter account, the Mets and outfielder Angel Pagan have avoided arbitration, with a one-year, $3.5M deal. Pagan originally requested $4.2M from the Mets and the Mets had offered $3M. The Mets have successfully avoided arbitration will all three of the candidates, Mike Pelfrey, R.A. Dickey, and now Pagan. 

The Mets haven't been to an arbitration hearing in court since 2008, when Oliver Perez won his hearing and the Mets had to pay him $6.5M. Before that, the last player was David Cone in 1992, and before that it was Ron Darling and Tim Teufel in 1986.

Pagan finally has found a spot on a team and had a season in which he stayed healthy. Now, he expected to be the team's starting right fielder and will most likely bat second in the order behind Jose Reyes. Pagan was arguable the Mets best player in 2010, and only earned $1.45M, so this raise was much deserved.

The Mets will go through this process again next winter with Pagan, and unless he signs an extension with the Mets, will become a free agent in 2013.

Mike Pelfrey, R.A. Dickey, and Angel Pagan have all filed for arbitration. They will exchange the contracts that they think are fair for them in the 2011 season on Tuesday, January 18th.

The Mets than either have the choice of agreeing with the amount the player has requested or coming back with a lower offer. The matter would then go to court where it would be decided by arbitrator how much money the player will get.

The Mets haven't gone to court with a player since Oliver Perez back in February 2008.

Pelfrey's salary last season was $500,000 but was around $2.2M in 2009.

Dickey's salary was about $750,000 with incentives.

Pagan's salary was $1.45M, which was the salary that was agreed upon last year at arbitration.

All of these players salaries are expected to go up for the 2011 season.

Ken Davidoff reports that Pedro Feliciano has declined the Mets offer for arbitration. This means if he chooses to sign with another team, they would have to give the Mets a compensatory draft pick. 

Feliciano is looking for a multi-year deal and will test the market to see if he can get it. The Mets still can re-sign Feliciano, but he is now allowed to talk to other teams as well. 

If he accepted arbitration he probably would have received around $4M. I wonder if the Mets have the money to sign Pedro. If I were the Mets I’d offer him two years $9M with a option for a third year. I don’t think he’ll get much more than that out on the market considering he is 35 with a lot of work on that left arm. 

This morning, Ken Davidoff of Newsday tweeted that Pedro Feliciano's agent Melvin Roman says his client is "seriously considering" accepting the Mets' arbitration offer. 

Feliciano, who turns 35 soon, earned $2.9M in 2010 and could make around $3.5M in 2011 if he accepts the Mets' arbitration offer and then goes through the arbitration process. 

MLBTR also believes the Yankees have high interest in the left-handed specialist, and suspect that other teams have strong interest in Feliciano as a lefty-specialist due to his durability over the last three seasons and as a great Plan B given the high asking prices of Scott Downs and Brian Fuentes. 

There is some skepticism of Feliciano's age and league-leading relief appearances over the last 2 seasons, as a cause for concern for how much longer his arm can hold up given the mileage on it. 

MLBTR also recently did a "Free Agent Stock Watch" for Feliciano and broke down the pro's and con's of pursuing the Lefty this winter.