The Great Arbitration Thread of 2009-2010

[nny]

Yeah, at this point I'm just worried about our rotation. We know we're good 1-2 JJ-Ricky. We know Volstad should be fine middle of the rotation. But other two spots, just doesn't look good right now.

I would assume the best thing would be to drop ~5m on a SP. Pavano, Penny, somebody like that. But that would be either mean trading Cody or upping payroll to 45m so sigh.

God I hope Uggla gets us somebody nice.

[lou]

Major Curveball with Andrew Miller. Courtesy of Cots.

"Miller falls into a fairly rare category because his first pro contract was a Major League deal. You're right that he won't have the service time to qualify for arbitration this off-season, and he's still under club control. However, baseball's labor deal with the union prevents a club from cutting a player's salary by more than 20 percent.

The best recent example is Delmon Young of the Twins. After being drafted, he signed a Major League deal for 2004-08, including a $3.7 million signing bonus and a 2008 salary of $700,000. For purposes of calculating annual earnings, MLB spreads the signing bonus over the life of the deal, so Young's 2008 earnings were the $700,000 salary plus a $740,000 share of his bonus, for a total of $1.44 million. His contract expired after the 2008 season, but he didn't have enough ML service to qualify for arbitration. The Twins controlled his rights and chose to cut his salary the full 20 percent allowed. So he got a one-year deal for 2009 at $1.152 million, or 80 percent of his 2008 earnings.

If Florida does the same with Miller, he stands to get $1.97 million in 2010, which would be 80 percent of his 2009 earnings of $2,462,500 ($1.575 million salary and $887,500 share of his signing bonus)."

Just going to slot him for $2 million. What I expected entering this, and now totally confirmed.
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I think I've fixed every post in this thread to reflect the extra $1.5+ million this difference makes.

[nny]

Well if we offer him 80% that'd mean he'd make 1.25 (1.575 this season).

[lou]

Well if we offer him 80% that'd mean he'd make 1.25 (1.575 this season).

Read the post above.

"For purposes of calculating annual earnings, MLB spreads the signing bonus over the life of the deal"

Miller had a $3.55 bonus over 4 years. Divide that by 4, add $1.575, multiple by 80%, and it's a perfect $1.97 million. I'm taking the liberty of rounding it up to 2 for simplicity.
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Maybe a Mod rename this 2010 salary projections? As it's a bit more than just arbitration now.

[nny]

oh

gayyyy

[Swifty]

Yeah that's why I said what I said in the 2011 thread.

[Fish and Chips]

NJ now IS a type B FA, along with Kiko, wonder if the marlins offer arb.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/18348553/Rankings-080909

[Omar]

Have to think they do offer arby to Kiko (unless it's over 1.5 M to keep him).

[FishFanInPA]

so is there any scenario where we keep Nick Johnson for another season or two?

[nny]

Have to think they do offer arby to Kiko (unless it's over 1.5 M to keep him).

have they ever offered a reliever arbitration?

[Omar]

We certainly haven't for closers, but we're talking a different financial scale there

[lou]

so is there any scenario where we keep Nick Johnson for another season or two?

We could probably handle giving NJ a 2/$8-10 contract (realistically this is what he's getting right? Bobby Fucking Abreau is making $5 million), if Loria tells Beinfest he has a $45 million payroll in 2010.

I mean, that would be so awesome. But I'm not keeping my hopes up.

[BigGameFish]

We could probably handle giving NJ a 2/$8-10 contract (realistically this is what he's getting right? Bobby Fucking Abreau is making $5 million), if Loria tells Beinfest he has a $45 million payroll in 2010.

I mean, that would be so awesome. But I'm not keeping my hopes up.

If we keep NJ we could possibly have Morrison play LF, moving CC to 2nd, and dumping Uggla.

And Abreu has been an absolute bargain this year for the Angels.

[lou]

I updated the figures in main thread, I'd insert these after each player respectively as small update commentary.

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Dan Uggla

Reasonable Expectation Season Line - 158 G, 550 AB, 80 R, 30 HR, 85 RBI, 150 K, .245/.360/.450 (.810)
ACTUAL Season Line - 158 G, 564 AB, 84 R, 31 HR, 90 RBI, 150 K, .243/.354/.459 (.813)

Not a bad projection from the summer at all there. Pretty much nailed it. So the short answer is, Uggla is as Uggla does. Uggla was 9th in offensive production among 2B in 2009. In 2008, he was 3rd. The rise of guys like Ben Zobrist, Aaron Hill, and Albertso Callaspo may help a small amount here by just creating more depth at the position for current production comparisons. Considering this, I still stand by all of the original math and Uggla is due for a big raise. I feel more comfortable slotting Uggla down slightly from the preliminary $8,000,000 estimate though. I think he will be between Utley ($7.5) and $8,000,000. I’m going to say $7.75 million, and it’s going to be give or take $250,000 when all is said and done.

Jorge Cantu

Reasonable Expectation Season Line - 152 G, 600 AB, 70 R, 18 HR, 90 RBI, .280/.340/.460 (.800)
ACTUAL Season Line - 149 G, 585 AB, 67 R, 16 HR, 100 RBI, .289/.345/.443 (..788)

He had a really weird end of the year with a huge jump in RBI, but relatively no slugging jump. I’d say getting to that 100 RBI threshold was beneficial to him. Looking at the comps, I still find this very scary. The Casey Blake one is money, and so is everyone else on the planet being in that $5.5 million range. I am holding firm at the $6,000,000 projection, give or take $250,000.

Josh Johnson

Reasonable Expectation Season Line - 220 IP, 15-4, 3.25 era, 185k, 1.15 whip
ACTUAL Season Line - 209 IP, 15-5, 3.23 era, 191 K, 1.16 whip

Pretty much nailed this one too. I have nothing to change on Johnson. And I do not expect the Marlins to take him to arbitration. I forecast a 4-5 year contract, averaging $11 millionish per season.

Ricky Nolasco

Reasonable Expectation Season Line - 185 IP, 12-10, 4.50 era, 1.25 whip, 180 K
ACTUAL Season Line - 185 IP, 13-9, 5.06 era, 1.25 whip, 195 K

What a weird year. I mean that whip and strikeout rate is insane, but that era is phenomenally unlucky. This is a full run drop if he pumps this peripherals again next year. Anyways, this case is 100% going to arbitration as the Marlins are going to try and lowball that ERA, which they should, and Nolasco is going to say, but I’m awesome everywhere else. Each have strong arguments. Looking at the comparables, and really looking at that Bush one with the fantastic whip, but not good era, Ricky does slot above this with the win/loss, and the unbelievable amount of strikeouts. I think that era will prevent a huge gain, so I am going to move this down slightly just based on the 5+ era and say this goes to about $4,250,000 on the year. This is the hardest one to predict of the lot.

Cody

Reasonable Expectation Season Line - 155 G, 560 AB, 80 R, 27 HR, 85 RBI, .260/.320/.475 (.795)
Actual Season Line - 151 G, 559 AB, 73 R, 24 HR, 90 RBI, .270/.321/.469 (.790)

Pretty much as expected. This one is easy. I think he breaks $4, just like Nolasco, but really has no case besides this. Cody is a solid starting player. And that’s it. I think a $2 million raise is likely.


Hermida


Reasonable Season Line Expectation - 145 G, 525 AB, 55 R, 16 HR, 60 RBI, .260/.340/.400 (.740)
Actual Season Line - 129 G, 429 AB, 48 R, 13 HR, 47 RBI, .259/.348/.392 (.740)

Not playing the last month really hurts the final season totals not getting those extra 20 games. But whatever. I’m systematically lowering this just because of the lack of playing time. Let's move him to $3 million, but I do suspect he'll get to $3.05, or $3.1, or something but I'm just doing this projections as a roundball and not trying to get an exact here.

Nunez/Lindstrom/Pinto

Some changes because of the allocation of saves, and Nunez really got a lot of them.

Nunez
Reasonable Projection Season Line - 75 G, 70 IP, 4-5, 15 S, 18 H, 3.50 era, 1.20 whip, 70 K
Actual Season Line - 75 G, 68.2 IP, 4-6, 26 S, 14 H, 4.06 era, 1.25 whip, 60 K

Lindstrom
50 G, 45 IP, 3-2, 20 S, 5 H, still really high era/whip
Actual Season Line - 54 G, 47.1 IP, 2-1, 15 S, 8 H, 5.89 era, 1.65 whip

Alright, so yikes. Let’s start with Nunez. CJ Wilson is the good comp here, because he had a 6+ era and then the 24 saves. Prior career, CJ and Leo are very close to each other in amount of time played, so these things will add up. Give a little for inflation. I’m moving Leo Nunez to $2,000,000 next year. Leo got a lot more saves than I anticipated doing this over the summer.

As for Lindstrom, the initial low projection of him getting no more saves is probably what we’re looking at. I’d say he is in the $1.5-1.75 range, and I’ll slot it down for $1.6 to just split the difference. His lack of getting into 20 more games/innings will hurt him a little, but he still had a really great years 1 and 2, and did rack up some saves in year 3.

No changes to Pinto.

Anibal

ACTUAL Season line - 16 G, 86 IP, 3.87 era, 4-8, 71 K, 1.51 whip

Anibal pitched A LOT more this year than I imagined. And wasn’t totally horrible which is a bonus. Anibal’s career line now stands at 50 games, 282 IP, 18-17, 3.86 era, 1.45 whip, and 207 K. Looking at the other injured starters comps, and a pretty good era year in 2009, I think the playing time and the performance is going to help him a little bit here. Johnson in 2008, came back and threw 87.1 innings at a 3.61 era. I mean Anibal’s whip is crazy, and JJ was 7-1 compared to Anibal’s 4-8, but hey. You can at least make a good faith argument Anibal was effective even if the bases were always loaded. I’m going to move Anibal to Mitre’s level of $1.2 million. Nothing that really effects the bottom line, but he showed something this year and will probably be rewarded for it.

[SFiercex4]

Great stuff here Lou. I'd say given these estimates, and they're very spot on in terms of what arbiters will consider, the Marlins best shot at maintaining a semblance of the 2009 payroll is to trade Cantu, Uggla, Hermida, likely Lindstrom, and the previously mentioned expendable players like Amezaga and Paulino. I doubt the team will toss Ross out, and I absolutely fear they'll keep Cantu of the three position players expected to make the most. As nny mentioned, there are a lot of decent corner infield/outfield types who can be signed for cheap and produce, Eric Hinske being a prime example. There's no reason to pay $6M for one when you can get one for $2M.