With the passing of the arbitration figure deadline, we get to see roughly how much players are expected to get paid next season. Most of the time, players and teams settle on contracts ahead of time and the arbitration ends up being an afterthought. However, sometimes the two sides have to go to an arbitration hearing. As the Atlanta Braves are about to find out again, these sorts of arbitration battles can be over what appear to be very small differences in money (relatively speaking).
Since 2021, Dylan Lee has been an important part of the Braves' bullpen. While most of the high leverage innings have gone elsewhere, Lee presence as a reliable lefty reliever has bailed out Atlanta time and time again. As a Super Two player in his second year of arbitration, Lee brought a career 2.82 ERA across almost 200 appearances to negotiations ahead of 2026.
Unfortunately, the Braves and Lee failed to reach a settlement ahead of Thursday's deadline and they will now head to a hearing. At first glance, it looks like the Braves and Lee are fighting over relative pennies, but there is a bit more to it than that.
Arbitration exchange update: Dylan Lee filed at $2.2 million; the Braves filed at $2 million.
— Mark Feinsand (@Feinsand) January 9, 2026
Braves and Dylan Lee are headed to an arbitration hearing over $200K, but the full truth is more complicated
This isn't the first time that the Braves have gone to a hearing over what appeared to be a really small difference in salary. Back in 2018, Atlanta and Mike Foltynewicz went to war over $100K which ended up with the Braves winning. However, as is likely to be the case with Lee, the actual disagreement was probably bigger than the numbers indicated.
Teams and players file arbitration figures that they think they can actually win with, not necessarily what they were arguing for before the deadline. In Folty's case, it was rumored at the time that he was arguing for significantly more than he ended up filing for and still ended up losing. In Lee's case, the difference was "probably" more than $200K during actual talks, but it is also possible that the two sides realized that continuing talks were only going to unnecessarily create animosity.
As a "file and trial" team, the Braves have taken the stance that if they fail to reach a settlement ahead of the deadline, talks stop and they go to an arbitration hearing. This may seem cold-blooded, but what it actually signals is that Atlanta wants a third party to decide the salary and is fine with either outcome. If there was a real chance that Lee was going to make way more than the Braves think he is worth, they would have just non-tendered him.
Beyond that little wrinkle with Lee, arbitration is pretty boring for the Braves this year as most of their younger guys are under long-term contracts already. They did claim Ken Waldichuk off of waivers, but the "drama" with Lee was otherwise the only thing of note to happen. With that paperwork out of the way, Atlanta can get back to trying to close out what has been a really strong offseason thus far.