Moneyball Baseball Contract Thread

I already answered that question above. You can invoke Rule 9.6 for ANY player each of their successive arb years, it applies across the board, not just to Garrett. And as I stated above, it's not the case that I will always be able to re sign Garrett to the minimum salary via 9.6. If his card for 2020 exceeds that minimum salary of $3M I won't be able to get him for $3M in 2021. Don't know how else to explain it.

You haven't "circumvented" anything by applying Rule 9.6 in an advantageous way to lock in low salary guys (below 2 mil) for the $2M minimum salary. You've settled the contract as the rule allows.

I understand that but by doing this you have essentially circumvented the process. and again I ask why not do it again the next year? Garrett will be a 4-year player (under 6 years of service) with an expiring contract so why not just re-sign him to the 9.06 rule again.

In 2020 you could re-sign Garrett next year (arb 1) for $2 mil, take him to arbitration, of offer a contract extension using using rule 9.9a (50%). In 2021 (arb 2) you could re-sign Garrett for $3 mil, take him to arbitration, or sign him to a contract extension using rule 9.9a (50%). In 2022 (arb 3) you could re-sign Garrett for $4 mil but you would lose him to free agency after the season. You could take him to arbitration or you could extend him using rule 9.9b (25%).

I think you are correct about "circumventing" arbitration, although I think the player wins and not the owner. Take, for example, Vlad Guerrero. He will cost $990,000 in 2020, 2021, and 2022. In 2023 (arb1) you can re-sign him for $2 mil or take him to arbitration or extend him for four years at 50%. Why would you ever take him to arbitration? If you win (ie. he (produces a $0.50 card) you still have to pay $2 mil with the league minimum rules. If he wins you will have to pay more than $2, sometimes much more. The only real choice in an arb 1 year is to renew. The arb 2 year is a little trickier. You can re-sign at $3 mil, go to arbitration, or extend for four years using the 50% rule. The problem with resigning in an arb 2 year is that if forces you to extend at the higher price in the player's arb 3 season next year. So, continuing with the Guerrero example, in 2024 he can be resigned for $3 mil or extended for four years at the avg salary of top 50% of players at his primary position. If you do that, you lose him at the end of the contract. This is the reason you may wait until his arb 3 year to offer a contract extension even though it will cost a lot more to lock him up.

I think in order to make arbitration work I need to remove the contract minimum from the rule. In other words, owners would be more likely to take a player to arbitration if they only had to play the players carded price. Take Vlad again. Let's assume he's a bit of a bust the next two years, never producing a card worth much more that $1. In year 4, his arb 1 year, you decided he might not be worth $2 mil, so you take him to arbitration in the hopes of paying less. I think that is the only way the rule can be effective.

Thanks for making me aware of this problem Paul.

no, please don't change the rule.... I'm trying to figure this all out. don't change them up now.

my only concern was that Garrett (for example) could be offered this 1 year deal because he (like everyone right now) is on an expiring contract. but then next year he'd be on an expiring contract again and still be less than 6 years of service so you could do it again. in both cases you'd end up with the minimum salary rather than his SOM price (which would be possible under arbitration). nasty tried to explain why he couldn't do it twice in a row but I don't see why not. He said "it's not the case that I will always be able to re sign Garrett to the minimum salary via 9.6. If his card for 2020 exceeds that minimum salary of $3M I won't be able to get him for $3M in 2021" but I thought once we set the price for 2020 that the SOM price was irrelevant...it's what our salary structure says.

guess I'm just not seeing the point of 9.06. I think it would be easier to do away with it rather than change the arbitration rules.

He said "it's not the case that I will always be able to re sign Garrett to the minimum salary via 9.6. If his card for 2020 exceeds that minimum salary of $3M I won't be able to get him for $3M in 2021" but I thought once we set the price for 2020 that the SOM price was irrelevant...it's what our salary structure says.

You are correct. You can re-sign Garrett again via rule 9.6, but at the higher minimum salary of $3 mil for an arb 2 player. In doing so, you forfeit the right to sign him to a four year extension at the 50% price. You would have to extend him the following year at the 25% price as he would be in his arb 3 year. This is why I chose to extend Berrios in 2020 rather than resign him for one year at a lower price.

Doug is right about the logic of the rule. During a players arbitration years you have a choice of renewing the player at the escalating league minimum price without going to arbitration. Take, for example , the likely contract trajectory of Wander Franco once he is promoted:

Year 1 (pre-arb): sign for $500,000
Year 2 (pre-arb): re-sign for $600,000
Year 3 (pre-arb): re-sign for $700,000
Year 4 (arb 1): re-sign for $2,000,000, go to arb and pay no less than $2 mil, or extend for 4 years at avg of top 50% ss
Year 5 (arb 2): re-sign for $3,000,000, go to arb and pay no less than $3 mil, or extend for 4 years at avg of top 50% ss
Year 6 (arb 3): re-sign for $4,000,000, go to arb and pay no less than $4 mil, or sign contract extension for 20 years (I jest) at avg salary of top 25% of ss. If you don't sign a contract extension then he becomes a free agent.

This scenario makes clear why the arbitration rule doesn't work, and why an owner might wait until the arb 3 year to sign a contract extension even if it costs more. You are paying for control.

Thanks for the explanation but what rule says that you can continuously sign a low salary player like Garrett at the salary minimums during arb years rather than have to recalculate based on next year’s salary?

I fully understand why 9.6 allows me to get Garrett at $2 M for his arb 1 year. That’s because his current card is only 1.44. But why isn’t it the case under rule 9.6 that , going forward, if he puts up a $5 card in 2020 that becomes his new baseline because it’s a salary higher than the arb 2 minimum of $3?

I think I get it now and see Paul’s original point. The expiring salary is his salary cap salary not what his card value is the following year. That’s why I can lock in Garrett at 2, 3, 4, minimums the next 3 years

However, we are back to that is what the rule says, and it creates some strategic now v future choices. Thanks for the discussion guys

Phil I'll look up the posts but I know that at least one time and maybe more I laid out all the possibilities for contracts for each category of player as I understood them. You said at the time that I was correct. The possibility of renewing 1-2 yr players at their current salary was mentioned. The ability to do the same for 3-5 yr guys was not. You never said wait Randy don't forget about renewing the arb eligible players at their current salary. And why during that whole discussion about how bad the 5 year guys were didn't you say well boys you know you can always just renew them at their current salary. Would have made the lower priced 5 years a lot more draftable. I drafted one 5 yr guy and I currently have him as being dropped. I'd love to know if anyone including yourself Phil was aware of this option during the draft. I certainly wasn't. It would be one thing if we hadn't had all the discussions and it was just me not reading the rules well enough. That would be my bad. But with all that's been said about this topic and doing the inaugural draft under those assumptions and now after the draft is over this is brought up is a deal breaker for me I think.

I fully understand why 9.6 allows me to get Garrett at $2 M for his arb 1 year. That’s because his current card is only 1.44. But why isn’t it the case under rule 9.6 that , going forward, if he puts up a $5 card in 2020 that becomes his new baseline because it’s a salary higher than the arb 2 minimum of $3?

That would be the case if you took him to arbitration. After the draft, the only time SOM prices matter are in determining arbitration outcomes.

I have to admit the 9.6 rule is not entirely clear. It was meant to allow owners the opportunity to avoid arbitration by paying the ever escalating league minimum salary to re-sign a player. The problem is that the league minimum salaries make arbitration unnecessary. The only way to make arbitration a viable option is if we ignore the league minimum salaries in arbitration cases. In other words, the owner gets the player at the SOM salary for that year even if it is below the league minimum.