David Ortiz, Red Sox agree to $14,575,000 deal

BOSTON - David Ortiz and the Boston Red Sox have avoided salary arbitration by agreeing to a one-year contract worth $14,575,000.

The deal was midway between the $16.5 million the designated hitter asked for last month and the $12.65 million submitted by the Red Sox, which matched his 2011 earnings.

A hearing had been scheduled for Monday afternoon.

Ortiz hit .309 with 29 homers and 96 RBIs last year. The 36-year-old became a free agent after the season, then accepted Boston's offer of arbitration under the last year of the old collective bargaining agreement.

Starting this fall, instead of arbitration teams may give their players qualifying offers equal to the average salary of the top 125 players ranked by salary.

Last October, after Boston's epic collapse that left them out of the playoffs, Ortiz actually hinted that he might change teams.

In an interview with ESPN, Big Papi said there was "too much drama" on the Red Sox after the team's historic September collapse that triggered the exodus of manager Terry Francona and GM Theo Epstein.

Ortiz also expressed some resentment that some in the city had suggested the team should let him go.

"I see a lot of people out there asking the Red Sox to let Papi go, and I don't know why," Ortiz said in October. "As long as I've been here, I'm just doing my thing."