As Matt Chapman rumors persist, arbitration winner J.D. Davis confident in his

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — J.D. Davis hopes to contribute to several winning streaks for the San Francisco Giants this season. But first, the right-handed hitting third baseman is thrilled that he ended one.

Davis beat the Giants in a salary arbitration hearing on Thursday. A three-person panel listened to arguments before choosing his $6.9 million filing figure instead of the team’s $6.55 million offer. The narrow gap between the two figures amounted to a rounding error for the Giants, who have committed roughly $140 million to player salaries this season. The $350,000 difference isn’t exactly life-changing for Davis, either. His career earnings will approach $18 million when the year is through. If not for the Giants’ relatively recent adoption of a rigid “file and trial” policy, in which all negotiations cease once an arbitration process reaches the filing stage, then the five-hour hearing wouldn’t have been necessary at all. Davis sheepishly admitted he would have taken the Giants’ number if they had offered it before the Jan. 12 filing deadline or had been willing to negotiate anytime thereafter.

But the hearing was instructive. The victory was symbolic. And it was a little bit historic, too. The Giants hadn’t lost an arbitration hearing since 2004, when their impasse with newly acquired catcher A.J. Pierzynski couldn’t be resolved before an arbitration panel decided it.

Davis had heard all about how stressful and destructive the arbitration process can be for players, how it can be demeaning to hear your employer criticize your performance and diminish your value, how it’s a personal affront to be told all the reasons why you aren’t worth what you believe you are worth. Maybe he’s wired a bit differently. But he didn’t take it that way.

In fact, he enjoyed the sport of it.

“I was ready for it,” Davis said, smiling. “I’d just watched five seasons of ‘Suits.’ It played out just like the TV show.”

Everyone was suited up for the proceedings at the Hyatt Regency Resort at Gainey Ranch in Scottsdale, including Davis, who had to make a trip to the dry cleaners and remember how to knot a necktie. For all the ways the hearing resembled a courtroom drama, it also felt like watching a grueling, five-set tennis match — replete with back-and-forth action and swerves in momentum.

“Just the energy of it,” said Davis, whose previous arbitration hearing with the Mets after the 2020 season was held on a Zoom call because of COVID-19 provisions. “Hearing the rebuttals and opening statements, hearing people’s side and dissecting it, and seeing my guys, my agent and lawyer, how they choreographed it and organized everything and how on the spot and deliberate they were, and how they executed it and got the win, it was pretty cool.”

Tim Clarke, partner and general counsel for…