Moneyball Baseball League Chat

Great, thanks. I found the links, but they look to be dated in 2013. Are the Salary Rules on the Link still valid? There has been so much chatter on the Chat Thread that it seems some changes have been made. Are the Salary Rules current on that link?

Have we established how the extension of a 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, etc years of service (5 rounded up) extension will work after inaugural draft? His extension rate?

From oldman's post at 11:07 lst night: "All the decisions on contracts for 2020 will be done and we will have no knowledge of how the player's do in real life [u]as it should be.".

I respectfully disagree. And I'm really struggling with how to make sense why, so bear with me. Even if I know in Nov. 2020 how a player performed in 2020, I'm still making contract/arb decisions guessing at future performance. As I'm doing right now using information from 2019 and prior to guess at 2020 and beyond performance. It doesn't really matter that we are playing the 2019 season in 2020, or that we will be playing the 2020 season in 2021.

The difference is in the calendar year and SOMO year. I'm looking at the draft as this is what I have to pay the guy in 2020 (for 2019), but then I've got make a decision if I want to gamble on what I've got to pay him in 2021 (for 2020). Or if I want to lock a salary in. I don't see that the year difference matters, I'm still making future decisions based on prior results.

Thanks for reading.

Al

Gentlemen,

First I would like to say thank you for your patience and your willingness to attempt this experiment with me. Randy and Paul have raised some very good questions about how the rule mechanics work in the first year with the draft. I will attempt to settle those questions in this post.

Second, I hope that you are all healthy and heeding the warnings to practice social distancing for the coming weeks and months. While it may seem like the world has lost its collective mind, I can tell you that what we are currently confronting is a very serious public health threat. I suspect that many of us fall into the higher risk demographic, so be safe.

The rules and the spreadsheet are linked in the initial post on page 1 of this thread. I will be keeping track of all contract information in the spreadsheet. If you look at it you will see a page for your team including the current contract information of the players you have drafted.

The three biggest concerns that have been raised so far are: (1) when do we do contract extensions, arbitration, and cutting players? (2) what about 5th year players? and (3) how do we determine contract prices? Let me acknowledge that the rules are confusing because they did not properly account for the draft. Here is my effort to clarify, and hopefully settle, these issues.

First, the SOM card price at the time of the draft will be the players price for 2019 season. I think Randy is correct and that we need to make a decision about extending, cutting, or filing arbitration for the 2020 season right after the draft. I had originally thought we could choose to extend but wait until next year for arbitration decisions. I thought this because of the timing of the SOM card set release date in January, but it really doesn't matter and, in fact, is more realistic to make those decisions before the 2020 season is played. What this means is that I will have to settle arbitration cases declared this year after the cards are released next year. Let me give some examples:

Rafael Devers has 3 years of service in 2019. His 2019 salary is $7.94 mil. Next year he becomes eligible for arbitration (arb1 in the spreadsheet). Hveed will need to make a choice after the draft--offer Devers a four year contract extension or go to arbitration. If he chooses a four year extension then he would have to pay Devers the average salary of the top 50% of rostered players in his primary position, or ~$6.4 mil per year. If he chooses arbitration then Devers will cost his four year service time salary of $2 mil or his 2020 SOM card price, whichever is higher.

Kris Bryant has 5 years of service in 2019. His 2019 salary is $6.91 mil. Next year is the third year of arbitration for him. Paul will need to make a choice immediately after the draft: extend Bryant, go to arbitration, or cut him. If he chooses to extend Bryant then he will have to offer him at least five years at the average salary of the top 25% of rostered players at his primary position, or about $8.7 mil per year. If this is too rich, then Paul can choose arbitration in which case Bryant will cost $4 mil or his 2020 card price. He will be a free agent in 2021. Paul also has the option to decline a contract, in which case Bryant becomes a free agent in 2020.

Mookie Betts has 6 years of service in 2019. His 2019 salary is $10.12 mil. He is a free agent in 2020, but the draft rules allow us to sign players with 6+ years of service to contract extensions and thus avoid free agency (or we might not draft them, right?). The annual salary that must be offered to any 6+ year player is their current salary or the contract minimums established in Article 10 Sect 8, whichever is higher. In almost every case that will mean their 2019 salary. I will probably offer Betts a 5-7 year extension at $10.12 mil a year.

Giancarlo Stanton has 10 years of service. His 2019 salary is $2.17 mil. He is a free agent in 2020. I draft him and offer him a 4 year extension. Since the contract minimums requires that four year contracts have a minimum salary offer of $3 mil per season I would have to offer Stanton $12 mil over four years. Now if I offer him three years, the minimum is $2 mil a year so I would have to offer him 3 years at his 2019 salary since it is higher than the required minimum offer.

Vlad Guerrero has 1 year of service. His 2019 salary is $950,000. Next year he is ineligible for arbitration so he can be resigned for $600,000 or his 2019 card price, whichever is higher. In 2020 and 2021 Guerrero costs teamnasty $950,000.

Same scenario for Eloy Jiminez except he will cost mykbr1 $1.54 mil in 2020 and 2021.

If you think the price of a 1 or 2 year player is too rich, you can cut them after the draft. You will get them for 2019 but they will be free agents in 2020. Yordan Alvarez comes to mind here.

I hope these examples clarify the issues here. To summarize, we will be able to choose arbitration for eligible players (ie 5 year players). All contract and arbitration decisions will be made after the draft, although the arbitration cases won't be settled until the release of the 2020 season cards. If you take a player to arbitration in 2020 and they do not receive a card you will have to carry them on your roster at the minimum price (You won arbitration!). Going forward I think we will have to make all cuts, extensions, and arbitration decisions by Nov. 30th for the following MLB season.

Questions or comments?

Okay, this makes sense. One question though, we would be waiting to determine the arbitration outcome until the 2020 card set is released, right?

Also, would we be making the same choices for the 2021 season by the Nov. 30, 2020 deadline?

Phil

1) Yes the final arbitration cost won't be known till the cards come out. This raises a small but manageable problem. Because of the salary cap teams should be aware that they may need a small amount of salary space for their players that have been arbitrated as they are bidding on free agents. I don't see this as a major problem because you are going to know approx. how much you are paying because you will know how that player did that year.
2) Here's what will be in place on Nov 30. Your 1 and 2 yr players that you've renewed will be in place. Your players who you've extended will have their contracts done for the upcoming year and beyond. The players you've arbitrated are in place and we're just waiting for the cards to come out to determine their contract cost for the upcoming year. That leaves the unsigned carded player free agents who you've got a process for bidding on laid out. That would be the thing that starts on Nov.30. Now here's the problem. What are we going to do about new players that may or may not be carded that are not anybody's prospects? Do we a have a second round of free agency when their cardage is confirmed or maybe have them available for the supplementary draft? And finally I assume we would have the opportunity to promote prospects once we know they are carded. After that is taken care of then we would be making the same decisions on all our players whose contracts will be up at the end of the 2020 season -- renewal for 1 and 2 year guys, extension or arbitration for those eligible, that will be apply to the 2021 season.

[quote="madal"]From oldman's post at 11:07 lst night: "All the decisions on contracts for 2020 will be done and we will have no knowledge of how the player's do in real life [u]as it should be.".

I respectfully disagree. And I'm really struggling with how to make sense why, so bear with me. Even if I know in Nov. 2020 how a player performed in 2020, I'm still making contract/arb decisions guessing at future performance. As I'm doing right now using information from 2019 and prior to guess at 2020 and beyond performance. It doesn't really matter that we are playing the 2019 season in 2020, or that we will be playing the 2020 season in 2021.

The difference is in the calendar year and SOMO year. I'm looking at the draft as this is what I have to pay the guy in 2020 (for 2019), but then I've got make a decision if I want to gamble on what I've got to pay him in 2021 (for 2020). Or if I want to lock a salary in. I don't see that the year difference matters, I'm still making future decisions based on prior results.

Thanks for reading.
Madal I think I understand now why you're struggling. When you say "I'm looking at the draft as this is what I have to pay the guy in 2020 (for 2019), but then I've got make a decision if I want to gamble on what I've got to pay him in 2021 (for 2020)." The players we are drafting now have their contract costs for 2019 set at their SOM price. That's over and done with. Matt Olsen your guy just played his 3rd season. He got paid $5.19 for 2019. We will be replaying that season but that's just for fun it's what we do. Olsen will not have 4 seasons now because we did the replay. His contract for 2019 will not have changed in anyway. But now we are preparing for the 2020 season. Olsen's and all players contracts are at their end and we the new GMs are about to come to terms with our players for the 2020 season or beyond if we give a player a multi year extension. We do this before the actual season is played because that's how it's done. A player does not go into a season without a contract and then meet with the team afterwards and get money based on how he did. Think of it this way. If we were using the Daily game for this league would you wait til the end of the season to do contacts? No of course not. You would have your contracts in place and would play out the season. We however are using the regular game which presents the extra problem of having to wait 5 or 6 months to get the cards to do our replay. But we still can and should resolve our contracts prior to knowing exactly how the players perform. I hope this helps explain the sort of environment of the league and helps in some way.

you didn't answer my question about 5th year players. I understand that their only real option is arbitration as going the top25% route is way too costly. So after arbitration, Bryant (or Baez or Correa or any 5th year guy) either gets $4 mil or his next years SOM salary for the next year we play. Then what? If there is no way to extend them at that price (like we extend 6th year guys now) then you're saying that all 5th year guys can basically only be kept for 2 years and they will all become free agents. If this is the case I don't want Bryant or Baez and would like to start this whole thing over after we all decide on the rules completely.

We already have seen that the 3-4 year guys have had different interpretations (top 50% is what is now being said) but in a previous post it was top 50% or current salary. I'd have drafted much differently if it was just top50%

So after arbitration, Bryant (or Baez or Correa or any 5th year guy) either gets $4 mil or his next years SOM salary for the next year we play. Then what? If there is no way to extend them at that price (like we extend 6th year guys now) then you're saying that all 5th year guys can basically only be kept for 2 years and they will all become free agents. If this is the case I don't want Bryant or Baez and would like to start this whole thing over after we all decide on the rules completely.

Yes, this is the case. I also have a fifth year player. This is not a rule change or a new interpretation. You are getting a two year rental if you don't want to extend.

I think we ought to make a way for the 5 year guys to get extended this first year since the initial year is what is messing it up. After that it is obvious that you need to extend a guy before he gets to 5 years but in this case it's not possible because of the fact that it is where we are starting.

so, here's what I think we need to do for those 5th year guys...

a.) let all 5-year players in the initial draft be extended after 1-year (for example play year 1 at SOM price, go to arbitration for year 2, be able to extend based on this arbitration price)

or

b.) treat all 5-year players as 6 year players for this initial draft (not give them an extra year of service time, but allow them to be extended at their current price)

This only applies because of how we initially start the league... once we are in future years, the 5th year problem should never come up as no one will be dumb enough to let a guy worth keeping get to his 5th year...you'd lock them up in the earlier years. Any good player would go to arbitration after his 3rd year, then be locked up for 4 more years based on that arbitration price. and thus NEVER get to the 5th year.

Guys I've been giving this a lot of thought and think there might be a compromise we could do. I realize that for players not given extensions there is a difficult choice to make if you have to decide their fate now. Do I go to arbitration and have them for the next year or drop them after this season and they become free agents without knowing which will be the right choice ultimately. A difficult choice. On the other hand if we put off the decision to Nov.30 we will know exactly how they did and there will be almost no decision to make. You will drop the ones that did poorly and arbitrate the ones that did well. How about if we put the deadline at roughly 1/3 of the way into the real life season, say June 15 as a compromise between the two. Phil had earlier suggested in between our 2 seasons around August but I feel that would be too late but that's just my opinion. Don't get me wrong I'm ok with the tougher decision but I'm also ok with a compromise. It would cut down on the people that are going to be pissed when one of their scrubs that they had decided to let go has a monster season and now they're going to have to bid on them as a FA. It won't eliminate this, the compromise wouldn't be perfect but it may be what the majority would prefer.