Gordon Beckham and Alejandro De Aza avoid arbitration

Instead of letting an arbitrator decide on a salary and potentially dredging up some ill will and bad feelings, the White Sox and Gordon Beckham decided to cut out the middle man and come to an agreement on their own. The young second baseman received quite the raise in his first year of arbitration eligibility, bringing home a cool $2.925 million for the upcoming 2013 season. That ought to cover a wedding nicely.

This gets interesting because we're beginning to reach the years in which Gordon needs to start actually hitting or see his surplus value go completely to crap. If he continues to put up 0.5-1.0 WAR seasons, he's just about being paid what he's worth and with Carlos Sanchez creeping up from behind down in the minors, things are bound to get a little hairy for our finely coiffed friend.

So anytime he wants to live up to his potential would be downright nifty. Or not.

Edit: And shortly after I finished typing this up, the Sox announced that they had also avoided arbitration with center fielder Alejandro De Aza as well. De Aza will be making $2.075 million for the 2013 season.