Moneyball Baseball Contract Thread

And below is the wording of the entire rule. Phil's clarification of the language "exceeds this (salary) structure" is a fair interpretation, particularly since it happened before the draft, but also because the phrase occurs after subsections (a) and (b). It can be said to apply generally to these types of pre-free agent, non arbitration extensions, in other words.

"Section 9.09    CONTRACT EXTENSIONS Teams wishing to extend the contract of a player can do so in two ways.
(a)     Extending Young Players: Players between 3-4 years of service time can be given a 4 year contract at the league average price for their primary position. The league average price is defined as the average price of the top 50% of players by salary at the same primary position on league 40 man rosters at the time of the contract offer, rounded down to the nearest whole number of players. This will eliminate their eligibility for the fifth and sixth year exceptions. Once a player has over 4 years of service time, they are no longer eligible for this extension.
(b)     Extending Players 2: Players with one year before free agency are eligible for an extension. Extensions must be at least five years long but can be longer. Salary scale is determined as the league average price of the top 25% of players by salary at the same primary position on league 40 man rosters at the time of the contract offer, rounded down to the nearest whole number of players.

Any player who has a salary that exceeds this structure, can have their contract extended (for at least 5 years), at the current salary they make (ie. Mookie Betts makes $10.19 million, he could be extended for 5 more seasons at this rate).

Both extensions must be offered prior to the November 30 deadline. Teams who are over the salary cap are not permitted to extend contracts, or increase payroll, until they are under the salary cap."

Yeah, so I now agree with Phil.

ok then. I think that is fine. I don't have many of those. But I did draft my two 4-year RP's with the other way in mind. That they would be resigned at top50%. Pretty sure we had some big talks about that after the draft had started and it was definitely determined that they would be at top50% and not ...or salary whichever is higher. I'll let Randy jump on that as I'm sure he'll find where it was discussed. somewhere in rounds 4 and 5.

I agree that one thing was said before the draft but it all came out again in early rounds. again, I expect Randy will jump on about it as he was all over it.

ok. I found it. Page 11 on the chat thread...the last 2 posts from phil and randy.

here is phil's post on page 11


Players between 3-4 years of service time can be given a 4 year contract at the league average price for their primary position. The league average price is defined as the average price of the top 50% of players by salary at the same primary position on league 40 man rosters at the time of the contract offer, rounded down to the nearest whole number of players.


This rule:

Any player who has a salary that exceeds this structure, can have their contract extended (for at least 5 years), at the current salary they make (ie. Mookie Betts makes $10.19 million, he could be extended for 5 more seasons at this rate)...


is meant to apply only to players in their 5th year only.


and Randy's response:

C) For players with 3-4 years of service time you can extend the player with a 4 year contract at the league average salary for their primary position or at their current SOM salary, whichever is higher. The league average salary is defined as the average salary of the top 50% of players by at the same primary position on league 40 man rosters at the time of the draft. If you do not extend the player, they are still under your control next season and you can resign them using the arbitration rules.

"Phil this is what you wrote in your post back on page 4 regarding players with 3-4 years of service. Are you now saying this was an error and the part about "or at their current SOM salary, whichever is higher" only applies to 5th year players? Need to know for sure before making my next pick.


followed by Phil confirming it:

Yes, this is what I am saying. The reason I included this rule for 5th year players is because I didn't want an owner to be able to extend a player for the rest of their career at a price that was lower than the price of their last card. For example, imagine that Bregman was in his fifth year rather than his fourth. His card price is $10.93 mil, but the average salary of the top 25% (I used the top 7) is $8.7 mil. He should not be signed for less than his current price if his carded price is higher than the avg of the top 25%. This rule causes owners to think about the choice of extending a 3-4 year player versus waiting for year 5. It may be cheaper to extend a player for four years at the cost of losing him to free agency than it is to wait a year and offer a year 5 extension.

Take Bregman again as an example. Let's imagine that we started the league last year a you drafted Bregman with 4 years of service time (I know he really would have had only 3 years) at a salary of $9.86 million. Let's assume that the average salary for the top 50% of 3rd basemen that year was $7mil. You could sign him to a 4 year extension at $7 mil a year, but at the end of the contract he would become a free agent. Let's say you decided to go to arbitration instead, knowing that he had a great 2019 season. You think his price will be close to the 2018 salary but want to keep the door open to a possible 5th year extension in the hopes of locking him up for more years. It turns out his arb price for 2019 is $10.93 mil! Ooops, you lose. Now you have to offer him a 5+ year contract at $10.93 mil if you want to keep him, or he will become a free agent at the end of the 2019 season.

those were all taken from pages 11 and 12 of the league chat posts.

Yes this was discussed before and I asked Phil the specific question and Phil confirmed that the "or higher clause" applied only to the 5 year players. Give me a second and I'll provide the pages that this was discussed in the chat thread. Also on Posey, this is not offering a free agent a contract offer. This is extending a contract to a player I control. Nowhere does it say that the minimum salaries that must be offered to a free agent based on the number of years of the contract offer apply in this situation. Ok never mind I see Paul has found it.

I hope we can all agree that we can't change this rule again. Got that confirmation from Phil with a lot of the draft left and I and I'm sure the rest of you made picks with that in mind.

agree with oldman on this one......

I hope we can all agree that we can't change this rule again. Got that confirmation from Phil with a lot of the draft left and I and I'm sure the rest of you made picks with that in mind.

agreed

Okay, I'm going through a rough patch here and I'd just like to sort this out without any more litigating. To be clear, you are saying that Ketel Marte should be extended at $5,180,000 for four years rather than his current salary as per the thread? If that is what you are saying, I will apply it across the board for all 3-4 year players and then we can move on. Are we good?

Phil