The Cubs signed 5 of their arbitration eligible players today.

The five Cubs who signed are infielder Mike Fontenot [$1 million], infielder Jeff Baker [$975,000]; catcher Koyie Hill [$700,000]; pitcher Tom Gorzelanny [$800,000]; and reliever Angel Guzman [$825,000].

There has been a lot of complaining about Fontenot's contract on twitter for some reason.  Let's take a look at these numbers using the projections for each player that berselius posted last night.

Ramirez 3.7
Soto 3.5
Lee 3.4
Dempster 3.3
Z 2.9
Wells 2.3
Byrd 2.2
Lilly 2.1
Theriot 1.9
Fukudome 1.8
Soriano 1.4
Marmol 1.4
Baker 1.4
Gorz 1.1
Marshall 0.9
Fontenot 0.8

We'll also use the numbers from tangotiger for the average value per win for 1st year, 2nd year and 3rd year arbitration eligible players.

We already covered Theriot.  He should get $2.1 million in 2010.  Marmol is 1st year eligible.  He should get $1.5 million.  Jeff Baker should also have gotten $1.5 million, but the Cubs only paid him $975,000.  Gorzelanny is worth $1.2 million, but was paid only $800,000.  Fontenot is worth $.9 million and was paid $1 million.  If Angel Guzman pitches 50 innings, he would be worth about .4 wins using the CAIRO projections.  That makes him worth only $440,000.  I have Koyie Hill as being worth 0.6 wins in 200 plate appearances.  That makes him worth $700,000 and that's exaclty what he's being paid.

The cubs paid out $4.3 million and are expecting a value of $4.7 million.  It's interesting that fans are going after the Fontenot contract when it's a fair deal.  The one they should be upset about is the one Angel Guzman got.  He got paid nearly twice what he's worth and that's a generous value considering I practically doubled his projected innings pitched.  Is it the $1 million number or something?  Would fans be upset about that deal if it were $999,000?  For some reason I doubt it.

Once again, rather than focusing on all of the contracts signed, Cubs fans have focused on 1 that they think is wrong.  They've ignored the fact that Jim Hendry, yet again, has signed players to below their expected level of value.  This is something Jim Hendry has done repeatedly as GM of the Cubs, but some will focus only on the deals they don't like.  Very strange.