Arbitration Clock Tick Tock

We hear a lot about starting a player’s arbitration clock but what’s the big deal? The big deal is money and for clubs like the Braves managing payroll over time means knowing when and where to spend spend limited resources.

The Super Two Arbitration Blues

The arbitration clock should be called a calendar because it’s based on MLB years not minutes and seconds. No one starts a calendar  and the clock is an easy visualization it a clock it is. Actually it’s not just one clock it can be two clocks and calculator.

.A player is eligible for arbitration if:

1. has been on a major league roster or disabled list for at least three years (clock 1)

The first of these is easy to understand. After a player completes three years on a major league roster he’s arbitration eligible. MLB Years are 180 days long written in a decimal format. For example, Anthony Varvaro will have two years one hundred twenty one days entering the 2015 season, that’s written as 2.121. After 60 days of this season he’ll have completed three major league years and will be eligible for arbitration in 2016. That’s the way it works for all but a handful of players known as Super Twos.

Super Two?

A player is a Super Two if:

1. he has two years of major league service (2.000) but less than three AND
2. was on an active major-league roster for at least 86 days in the previous season. (clock 2)

Most players good enough to earn Super Two status won’t worry about that second qualification but it can keep some fringe players off the list.  Team do manipulate their call ups to hold players off of Super Two status of course, the Rays are well known for managing their pitchers in that manner.

One More Thing

If a player meets those requirements there’s one other hurdle, they rank within the top 22% of all 2-year players in terms of service time. There’s no way for us to calculate the 22% number until the season is over because rosters are so fluid. However MLB does issue an estimate early on each year. Last April MLB projected a cutoff of 2.128 in the end it turned out to be 2.133

Time for a math problem. . .and a solution

George and Harry have zero service time, Julio has 0.055.

On opening day 2015, George breaks camp with the Braves.
George stays up all season and for the next two seasons and has 3.000 service time after 2017 and enters into the first of three arbitration years before becoming a FA in 2021.

Harry gets the call on May1, lasts 45 days and gets sent back down. He returns the next two seasons and finishes 2017 with 2.045. He will not be a Super Two and won’t enter arbitration the end of the 2018 season when he will have 3.045. He will be a FA in 2022.

Julio gets the call July 1,stays all year and the next two years as well, finishing 2017 with 2.155 making him a Super Two. He will be a free agent in 2022 after four arbitration years.

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The Cost

That extra year of arbitration means an earlier start to bigger paydays and Super Twos are generally good enough to see a significant initial raise. The early raise ripples through the remaining three arbitration years causing a player’s salary to escalate more quickly. How much is the extra arbitration year worth? In a 2010 post on MLBTR, Ben Nicholson-Smith summed it up like this.

"Not all Super Twos are superstars, of course, but even ordinary players could make as much as 31% more money over the course of the four last seasons they’re under team control."

Once a player’s salary goes up it doesn’t go down.

In 2011 Ryan Roberts was a Super Two who after earned a $1.6M pay raise as a result. His 2011 slash of .249/.341/.427/.768 turned into .235/.296/.360/.656 after 2012 but the Rays gave him another $938K the next year anyway. Why?

While it’s true that the CBA allows a maximum reduction of up to 20% in pay after a bad year, I’ve never seen it happen (though I’m sure someone will tell me if it has.)  If you’re a GM, taking a player to an arbitration hearing and saying ‘this guys sucks so bad we want to cut his pay 20%’ is the last thing you want to do.  Even if you win you have an angry player in the clubhouse afterwards and that’s not something likely to promote harmony. They’d rather just pay the player and hope he recovers enough to be useful or be traded.

No Super Two For You

I went through this year’s 40 man roster and using the service time shown on Baseball-Reference.com’s player pages and prior year 40 man roster lists, came up with a few players who currently have some major league service but will still be under three years of service time after 2016.

Of this list only Simmons is the only one who has a shot as Super Two and he probably falls at least 10 days short. For reference here are the last five cutoffs courtesy MLBTR..

• 2014: 2.133
• 2013: 2.122
• 2012: 2.139
• 2011: 2.146
• 2010: 2.122

Pitchers like Simmons, Foltynewicz and Tyrell Jenkins tend to go up and down making spot starts or filling in during injures. This makes it harder for them to get the right mix of service time years to make the Super Two cut.

Some pitchers – like Minor – pitch well enough to hold their rotation spot after a couple of call ups and make the cut for team. On the whole, everyday players have a better chance of sticking around. So who is next Super Two for Atlanta? If the Braves manage this as I expect, no one who is currently on the 40 man roster and active.

What The Current Roster Tells Us

This season is for rebuilding . . . err retooling sorry Mr. Hart  . . . and the Braves stocked their bench and their upper minor league system with enough veteran pieces to make it highly unlikely a young player earns an early call up.

There’s likely to be churn in the outfield of course but Cunningham isn’t near any of the markers for Super Two and they’ve invested in Toscano, Zoilo Almonte and Joe Benson to pad out their outfield depth.  Dian Toscano has an outside chance to do it if he manages arrive in Atlanta for good earlier than I expect. .(I changed this when it was pointed out to me in a comment below -Thank you for that –  that Toscano is under contract for 4 years and will be a FA after because of his previous professional experience. )

A lot of fans expect or are hopeful Peraza will make the team, if not out of spring training then at some point this season and like Toscano he would have a shot if that happened. The Braves roster is however, pretty deep with infielders. Philip Gosselin is still on board and they’ve added Alberto Callaspo, Jace Peterson. Kelly Johnson and have been watching Hector Olivera closely. Tyler Pastornicky  was outrighted off the 40 man roster but as of this writing is still in the system as well. So it seems a long shot that we’ll see Peraza early. MLB’s Braves beat writer Mark Bowman agrees.

"Top prospect Jose Peraza will come to Spring Training with a chance to further alter Gonzalez’s plans. Though the assumption is that Peraza needs at least a little more Minor League seasoning, he could possibly alter the plans for the leadoff spot and second base with an outstanding camp."

Here’s a Peraza fix for those like me pining for a fast leadoff man and real baseball.

If

either

Toscano or

Peraza is to have a shot at Super Two the arrive for good and stay date has to be before May 26; I calculate that as 132 days days before the end of the season. If

either

he arrivea on that date and stays through the next two seasons the service time would be 2.132, a day short of the current cutoff.

Cutoffs do move and MLB is getting younger so it’s possible for that to drop but that hasn’t been the case so far.  In any event clubs will usually play it safe and wait 10 days to two weeks past MLB’s projection of the cutoff date in case the cutoff does fluctuate.

That’s A Wrap

There are reasons other than money to hold a player back. Toscano hasn’t faced quality pitching in a game situation for a couple of years and it’s not unreasonable to suggest he needs time to find his swing. Peraza has hit was at AA but the sample size is small and I believe he will hit at the major league level eventually.  There are good reasons to allow  the young man to get a few hundred PA against better pitching than he saw in A ball.

Next year’s CBA negotiation could see the rules for Super Two change or it could vanish completely and be replaced by something else. You can be sure teams will push back against anything that increases costs while the MLBPA will want to make sure young players are protected. Whatever happens the decision about when to promote a player involves a multitude of variables. I’d rather wait a little and see a player arrive when he’s ready than force the issue and risk hurting his development.up

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