MLB: WTF is Salary Arbitration?
 

Ok, Eric Gagne, the NL Cy Young winner, just lost his case to get an 8mil pay check, and now settles for 5mil. I'm not real sure, but I think a near-perfect relief pitcher is worth 8mil or more.

What the hell is Salary Arbitration and how the hell could it come up with an outcome like that?

Salary arbitration is weird and confusing...and I'm no expert.

From what I can tell there are just a handful of arbitrators [maybe 3]that handle these cases. Each side makes a case using comparisons to others at the position, persoanl testimony, etc [heard it can get pretty ugly].

Then the arbitrator weighs the facts and renders a binding decision.

I can't say why the number would be that low [Gagne is a stud] but I believe it is a jump from less than $1 million so that may have weighed into it.

It is like a normal arbitration case legally, each side give there reasons why they should be paid the salary they are asking.

Players unfortunately do not do enough research to compare there stats to others making the same money.

Owners on the other hand do tons of research to find out what comparable players are making.

The offer that is usually the closest to other players worth is who "usually win"

Owners win most of the time.

Re: MLB: WTF is Salary Arbitration?
 

Nope. Sorry. Gotta disagree with ya there. I love baseball, but there's not a player out there worth anywhere close to 8mil. In my own little world, at least, it's these big paydays that are killing the game.

Ok, simply put, after four years in the majors when the team sets a player's salary, a player has three arbitration eligible years before he can be a free agent.

In the process, the player decides how much he wants to make the next year, and the owner decides how much they want to give him.

They then go to an arbitrator, where each side presents a case as to why they should get what they are asking for. After this, the arbitrator chooses which of the two numbers will be the salary.

Of course, the team and player can go ahead and agree on their own contracts, whether it's a one year deal to put off arbitration, or a long term deal like Pujols just got.

gotta agree with Mr. Bill O'Rights

Well Gagne is bad ass enough that *I* would give him 8 mil.

He was making 500K last year.

8 million dollars a year is way to much for somebody who pitches 1 inning per game. I know, I live in seattle and we paid sasaki 9 million. No closer anywhere is worth that. Maybe 6 but not 8 or 9. The arbitors were correct in their ruling.

Make Gagne start again and we'll see if he's worth $8 million :D

I think it's worth it to be UNDEFEATED all year when leading in the 8th inning by 3 runs or less

Yup. The game is being ruined by greedy players, owners, and agents.

How about the tens of millions of fans who are willing to give their money to the "greedy" players, owners, and agents?

Re: Re: MLB: WTF is Salary Arbitration?
 

I TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU!

Gagne is a great closer but I don't give a flying fukittyfukfuk who the hell you are in baseball and what you do but NO PLAYER...especially a closer is worth that kind of money..

Hey thats still one hell of a jump from $550,000.00 to $5,000,000.00. Now watch him suck this season:lol: :D :lol:

Send him to detroit. Mike Illitch will give him the dough.

Contracts like A-rod's and Ram-man's are gonna kill the game. They cause some very good players to get greedy and hurt their carreers. Take Pudge-rod's case. He was so desperate to be in the $$ elite that he signed with the Tigers, instead of taking a reasonable amount of money to play for a contender.

The Players Association needs to preach temperance, or watch baseball join the "salary cap age."

From what I gather, Hal, they compared his salary to that of Mariano Rivera's. Gagne had a spectacular year last year by anyone's standards, but they looked at a proven verteran with a handful of World Series rings (much to my team's chagrin, I might add) and made their judgement accordingly. It's probably hard even for him to look at a ten-fold increase in pay as being cheap. I know I'd take it.

I think you are going to see 1 of 2 things in MLB.

1 Being true revenue sharing where ALL money gets divided equally. Which in turn would actually help the game as then it would make the GM more responsible for getting the needed players instead of "the budget" dictating who they can keep and go out and bid for. It works for the NFL and NBA. MLB needs to realize they are a business with 32 subsidiaries. Each subsidiary should be equally financed so as to keep the fanbase in all cities. My belief is if this were to happen we would all see a vast improvement in teams and far more interest. Revenue would increase because fans would see thier teams as having a chance.

Downside to this is King George won't do it. The Players Union will not accept it and some owners would still just pocket the profit and field cheap teams.

2 is the Union will file a collusion case against the owners and come the next bargaining agreement time will either strike or be locked out. Fans will lose total interest and I can see probably 6-8 teams folding.

This is highly possible as collusion is being talked about freely and I think one of the major agents has even told newspapers that they were going to look into it. What this will do is force owners to either put out more money for players orlock them out till they can agree on finances. If this were to happen baseball will die. If for no other reason than prices would be outrageous and true fans will not pay. Plus, people I think are very tired of seeing these men make more in 1 year than they will in 20 lifetimes.

Greed is killing the sport.

The Costas Plan:

All media revenue, national and local, is thrown into a pot for each team to take from equally, and this number becomes a salary floor, which each team must spend. Twice that would be the salary cap, which is the most a team could spend. Each team keeps their ticket revenue at the same splits they use now, plus all their other revenue.

29 owners would do this deal, because it allows them to make their teams competetive while limiting the resources of the biggest markets. Steinbrenner would go along, because he could be forced to sell if he doesn't.

The players would do this because, as it is a number based on the income the sport brings in, there would still be salary increases all the time. They would also not have to worry about the risk a strike poses to their livelyhoods, or the negative impact on the fans.

Everyone would win.