With one hour left until they were scheduled to enter the hallowed halls of the arbitration court room, the Houston Astros and pitcher Tim Redding settled on a one year contract for 2005. Originally asking for 1.4 million and getting a 500K offer in return, both sides agreed on a 700K salary for 2005 plus make good incentives that could pay the young pitcher more money.
One remaining arbitration cases is left to be settled for 2005, as Pete Munro decided later in the same evening to take a similar deal as Redding. So that leaves Roy Oswalt as the only unsigned arbitration eligible player this offseason. Munro was in a similar situation as Redding and Brandon Duckworth before him. While wanting a salary of over a million dollars, Munro decided to settle for the 700K that Redding recieved. Oswalt's case is a little more tenuous although it's hard to believe that the Houston Astros would actually take Roy to a court case seeing as how these things can get very personal, and right now they need all the good vibes going for the team as they possibly can get. Oswalt is asking for 7.8 million, the Astros offered 6 million, so expect a deal of around 7.2 to be hammered out sometime this week.
