Beltre Signs With Dodgers

December 21, 1999 / 5:24 PM EST / CBS/AP

Adrian Beltre can finally concentrate strictly on baseball.

Beltre has agreed to a $5.05 million, three-year contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers, ending a three-month dispute and assuring he'll remain as the team's third baseman.

The agreement, reached late Wednesday and announced Thursday at spring training in Vero Beach, Fla., calls for the players' association to dismiss the grievance filed against baseball seeking free agency for Beltre.

Commissioner Bud Selig ruled in December that the Dodgers signed Beltre before his 16th birthday in 1994, and fraudulently altered documents to make the signing appear legal under baseball rules.

But Selig declined Beltre's request that he be made a free agent.

"It was my first choice to be here, and I appreciate that I'm going to stay here," Beltre said. "I wanted it to be over with. I wasn't really focused on the money, I was focused more on being here the next three years, or as long as they want me."

That figures to be many years perhaps his entire career.

"I feel as if a major cloud has been lifted," Dodgers chairman Bob Daly said. "This move allows us to finalize our roster for the 2000 season. The downside would not have been good for the Dodgers."

"It wasn't exactly the way I would have liked to have started my career on one level. I got something out of this, and I'm very happy Adrian's going to be a Dodger for a long time."

Daly bought a 10 percent stake of the Dodgers from the News Corp.'s Fox Group last November, taking control of the team's management.

Beltre, who turns 21 on April 7, earned $220,000 last season while hitting .275 with 15 homers, 67 RBIs and 18 stolen bases. He made his debut with the Dodgers in 1998, playing in 77 games and hitting .215 with seven homers and 22 RBIs.

Beltre receives a $1.5 million signing bonus and will earn $500,000 this season, $750,000 next season and at least $2.3 million in 2002.

If Beltre has 400 plate appearances next season, or 800 combined plate appearances this season and next season, he can file for salary arbitration in 2002.

"The compromise was we would still allow him that right based on that skill," said Beltre's agent, Scott Boras. "He's a very special player."

The Dodgers had renewed Beltre's contract at $330,000 for this year on March 11, the deadline for renewing contracts of unsigned players, but the new deal makes that move moot.

Boras said he met with Daly 18 times over the last three months.

"It was difficult for both of us," Boras said. "But in the end, there was a willingness to resolve it."

"The focus on this was how do we bring some sort of fairness knoing that neither side is going to get what they originally wanted coming into this. So it was a very unusual negotiation."

Later in the day, the Dodgers designated third baseman Kevin Orie and right-hander Dan Naulty for assignment.