Yankees president feuds with Dellin Betances after winning arbitration case
The Yankees won their arbitration case against reliever Dellin Betances on Friday, but team president Randy Levine made the curious decision to hold a press conference Saturday to rail against Betances and his representatives.
Betances, a three-time All-Star, requested $5 million in salary arbitration, while the Yankees submitted a $3 million figure. The arbiter ruled in favor of the team, so Betances will earn $3 million this year.
Levine blasted Betances’s request, saying it “had no bearing in reality.”
“It’s like me saying, ‘I’m not the president of the Yankees, I’m an astronaut,’ Levine said, according to the New York Daily News. “I’m not an astronaut and Dellin Betances is not a closer, at least based on the statistics, not whether he could or couldn’t be.”
Levine also accused Betances’s agents of attempting to use their client to set a precedent for other arbitration-eligible relievers.
“What his agent did is make him the victim of a half-baked attempt to change a marketplace in…