Late Innings

UPDATE: This post is apparently getting some traffic, a good amount of traffic. Any ways the mock arbitration hearing that’s at the end of the post… please don’t take it seriously. I’ve never been in an arbitration hearing, and I don’t really know how heated they get. It would be funny though to personify one of the cases as a scene out of the movie 300 though… Original post:

Ah, salary arbitration season is finally here. Personally it’s my favorite time of the year. Eligible players exchange figures with their teams; if a common ground isn’t met the two parties meet with an independent arbitrator. The whole process isn’t pretty. In this Feburary meeting, teams generally are there, ripping apart their players, explaining to the arbitrator why the player doesn’t deserve his desired salary. For the most part, this is why teams rush to finalize one-year deals with their eligible players, to simply avoid this bad process. Not everyone reaches agreement however, and on the whole about fifteen cases are heard each year.

In that case, the figures exchanged between players and their teams are finally available for us to view. One player’s request stands out in particular:

Smile big guy, you’re getting a raise. (AP Photo)

I have nothing against Ryan Howard. He solidified First Base in Philiadelphia, and made it easy for the team to trade away Jim Thome a few years back. Howard does put up the stats, well the “traditional” stats anyways. A brief snapshot at what he’s done the past three years:

By no means am I saying that his stats are bad. 2006 was a fluke year for him, and everyone expected him to revert back to his projections in 2007, which he clearly did (I remember reading that USA Today projected him to club 46 bombs in 2007, man were they close.) On average, he’s going to hit .280, with 45-50 homers and 120+ runs batted in. That’s what I would expect from Howard going forward.

Going back to the original argument at hand, Howard (10MM) and his team (7MM) are 3MM apart. It’s highly unlikely that they will hit the midpoint before the Feburary hearings, and Howard seemed incredibly adamant that he wanted a pay day last winter. In either case, in my opinion Howard should not get the 10MM. For one, this is his first year of arbitration. In comparing similar players, I look at Miguel Cabrera’s case from last year. The Marlins submitted something along the lines of 6.7MM, Cabrera wanted 7.4MM. The arbitrator ruled in favor of the player (on an aside, you could tell that Cabrera wasn’t happy about the whole case in general, since he was apparently launching homeruns into their corporate offices during spring traning.)

I see the same thing happening with Howard in his case. Yes his numbers are good, but it’s highly unlikely that the arbitrators will award him with 10MM in 2008. There are similar players out there who got paid much less in their first year of arbitration. This is why the system is as it is, and why we had the strike in 1994. Long story short, you earn your money through service time. Howard will get paid 10MM eventually, though it most likely won’t be in 2008. If I was the Phillies however, I’d play out the case like this:

Howard: I deserve 10MM! I obliterate baseballs; I hit home runs! Lots of home runs!
Phillies: Yes Ryan that is true, however you also “obliterated” the strikeout record. You whiff roughly 40% of the time at the plate.
Howard: #&^$!!! (expletive)
…brief pause…
Howard: You’re the ones with all the #*%# money!

It should be an easy case for the Phillies. You’re getting 7MM in 2008 Ryan (unless the middle ground is reached of couse.) After all…

*kicks Howard into Spartan pit*

Looking at some of the other cases out there…

• Garrett Atkins (4.65MM) is actually closer with the team (4.125MM) than I expected. I see middle ground being reached before February. I honestly expected that he’d command more money (that .188 May cost him 2MM.)
• Erik Bedard’s case is also interesting (team 6MM/player 8MM.) Baltimore’s been asking the farm for him in all trades going on this offseason. Bedard can use that in his defense come February. I see Bedard getting the 8MM simply because of all the trade talk that’s been going on.
• Chien-Ming Wang and the Yankees are roughly 600K apart (4MM/4.6MM). They should hit middle ground soon before February. I honestly expected Wang to command a little more money, I thought wins were important. On an aside, Robinson Cano and the Yanks are roughly 1.3MM apart, so middle ground might be tougher to hit.
• The largest case this year belongs to Francisco Rodriguez (team 10MM/player 12.5MM.) That’s a large gap, however I for some reason see a long term extension being reached with the club (Carlos “Big Z” Zambrano had a very similar situation last year, if everyone wants to recall.)