Thu Apr 16, 2020 10:16 am
Summary of the Contract Rules
There has been a lot of confusion around signing contract extensions. Much of it is the result of the experimental nature of the rules I created, and the fact that I am not a lawyer.
There are four categories of players to be potentially signed to an extension after the draft: players with 6+ years of service (FA in 2020), players with 5 years of service (arb3 in 2020), players with 3 to 4 years of service (arb 1 or 2 in2020), and players with 1 to 2 years of service (pre-arb). Since every player you drafted is considered to be on a one year contract, you are not obligated to extend anyone. Each category of players is using a different set of contract rules for the purposes of offering a contract extension. Those rules are as follows:
Players with 6+ years of service use the Free Agency rules (Article X) for the purposes of determining contract extensions. Under these rules a player can be signed for any number of years at their current salary or the Contract Minimum, whichever is higher. For example, Paul Long could sign Matt Carpenter to a 1 or 2 year extension at his current salary of $1.3 mil, or a 3 year extension at $2 mil. His price would go up for each additional year of contract length.
Contract Minimums:
1 year = $500,000 per season ($0.50)
2 years = $1 million per season ($1.00)
3 years = $2 million per season ($2.00)
4 years = $3 million per season ($3.00)
5 years = $4 million per season ($4.00)
6 years = $5 million per season ($5.00)
7+ years = $6 million per season ($6.00)
Players with 5 years of service use the Contract Rules (Article IX) for the purposes of resigning (Art. 9 Sect 6) or determining contract extensions (Art. 9 Sect 9b). Under these rules a 5th year, or ARB 3, player can be resigned for one year at their current salary or the league minimum of $4,000,000 (whichever is higher) OR he can be extended for a minimum of five years at his current salary or the average salary of the top 25% of players at his primary position (whichever is higher). If the player is not offered a contract extension, he becomes a free agent at the end of the year.
ARB 3
top 25%
All Hitters $ 7.38
c $ 5.09
1b $ 7.96
2b $ 6.91
3b $ 8.45
ss $ 7.38
lf $ 5.41
cf $ 7.31
rf $ 8.64
sp $ 6.45
rp $ 4.47
Players with 3 to 4 years of service use the same contract rules but can be extended at their current salary or the average salary of the top 50% of players at his primary position, whichever is most favorable to the team owner. This is the only group of players who can receive contract extensions at a lower price than their card price in 2019. Remember, rule 9.6 allows you to resign the player at their current salary or the contract minimum based on their arb year ($2 mil for arb 1 guys and $3 mil for arb 2 guys), whichever is higher. You do not need to offer a contract extension or take them to arbitration if you are happy with their current salary or are willing to pay the contract minimum.
top 50%
All Hitters $ 5.66
c $ 4.01
1b $ 6.69
2b $ 5.18
3b $ 6.68
ss $ 5.44
lf $ 4.88
cf $ 5.38
rf $ 7.16
sp $ 5.11
rp $ 3.92
Players with 1 to 2 years of service can be renewed next season at their current salary or the Major League Minimum Salary (Article IX Sect. 5), whichever is higher.
Section 9.05 MAJOR LEAGUE MINIMUM SALARIES: Players with less than 6 years of service time use the following contract schedule.
(a) Up to 1 year: $500,000
(b) Up to 2 years: $600,000
(c) Up to 3 years: $700,000
(d) Up to 4 years: $2,000,000
(e) Up to 5 years: $3,000,000
(f) Up to 6 years: $4,000,000
Last edited by
sociophil on Thu Apr 16, 2020 9:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.