baseball salary arbitration?

[puffff]

could someone explain this to me? i dont get it. i just read on the news that clemens is asking for $22M in arbitration. the article makes it sounds like if a player thinks he's worth more than he's being paid he can ask a third party to decide if he gets a raise? whatever happened to the market deciding how much you're worth?

 

[Wanescotting]

When you go to arbitration, the arbitrator sets the "price".

 

[BlueWeasel]

I've never really understood this myself. Is it a binding decision?

 

[aplefka]

I don't understand a lot of things in the business world of baseball. Mainly because I don't get to look at the contracts and when the sports anchors make a big deal about something they assume you've gotten to see all the information they have.

 

[puffff]

Originally posted by: Wanescotting
When you go to arbitration, the arbitrator sets the "price".

and then the team HAS to pay it? can the team say 'we think its too expensive, go to some other place'?

 

[BlueWeasel]

I heard on the radio on the way home that Clemens is asking for 22 million, while the Astros are offering around 13.5 million. If this is binding arbitration, I don't know if I'd be willing to do it if I were Houston.

 

[Argo]

Certain players are eligible for arbitration. Example:

Player that isn't eligible for free agency yet, but his contract has expired.
Free agent, that has been offered arbitration by his current team and chose to accept it.

In that case, a third party (arbitrator) decides how much he should earn based on how much money players playing similar position and having similar stats made. He also takes into account how much that player made the previous year. With Clemens he most likely will consider his age and his success previous year. The closest player to him in terms of various stats is Randy Johnson so he'll probably end up making around the same sum ($16 million).

 

[pkypkypky]

here's a good site explaining some of it.... arbitration

key points
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Arbitrator must accept one number or the other. He can only compare both amounts to previous abitration cases. Arbitration usually will favor the player if he wants a raise. Also, it's usually easier to prove that someone like Clemens is worth $22 million than $13.5. Teams don't like to go to arbitration because it can get ugly. The main reasons they do it is to avoid a multi-year contract or to try to get a draft pick from another team. They wouldn't do it is because they don't want to pay that player a big 1yr deal in case he doesn't accept arbitration. A player like Nomar Garciaparra did it because he knew he could get good money and wanted to get a 1yr contract to prove himself again for his next contract. The cubs offered probably because they didn't want to offer him a long contract.

In the end, if you understand it, you'll see that it's one big game.

 

[Toasthead]

One of the keys to arbitration is WHEN people go to arbitration. For rookies I think they are eligble for arbitration after I believe three years of service ( they are not eligible for free agency until 5 or 6 years of service). This is why you see young players who are very good sign deals for much less than some of the older free agents ( the A's do this quite alot and did this with Zito, Mulder and Hudson) and these contracts carry them through their 'arbitration eligible years' until free agency.

When a Major leaguer become a free agent, the team he plyed for the previous season has the option of offering them arbitration, and as was previously said the team and the player submit salaries they desire and then argue in front of an arbitrator as to why their salary should be what they offered. The player can decide NOT to accpet arbitration and then becomes an unristricted free agent. They can negotiate with their team for about 30 days exclusively after declining arbitration, but if they fail to reach an agreement, they cant sign with that team until May 1st. After the negotiating period, they are free to sign with any other team, BUT the team who offered the player arbitration gets a draft pick from the signing team.

I think that about covers it.