Players with at least two years and 139 days of service time will be eligible for the potentially lucrative arbitration process this offseason, according to the Associated Press (via FOXNews.com). The top 22% of players with between two and three years of MLB service qualify for arbitration under baseball’s new collective bargaining agreement.
Nationals reliever Drew Storen, Padres shortstop Everth Cabrera, Mets catcher Josh Thole, Rays outfielder Sam Fuld, Rockies outfielder Tyler Colvin and Diamondbacks third baseman Chris Johnson are all eligible.
Mariners outfielder Michael Saunders missed the cutoff by one day. Others, including Justin Smoak, Danny Valencia, Michael Brantley, Jordan Schafer, Giancarlo Stanton, Stephen Strasburg, Daniel Hudson, Dan Runzler, Andrew Cashner, Alex Burnett, Esmil Rogers and Alexi Ogando, came close to super two status without reaching the threshold.
Jonathan Lucroy, whose contract includes escalators related to super two status, will fall three days short of arbitration eligibility. The difference will cost him $2MM, as I explained last month.
Super two status entitles certain players to four years of arbitration eligibility, rather than the usual three. As a result, players who earn the super two designation generally earn more than their peers. The cutoff would have been two years and 144 days under baseball’s previous collective bargaining agreement, according to the AP. In previous years the top 17% of players with between two and three years of MLB service qualified. The players and owners agreed to a new system last fall.
It’s a flawed system if Fuld gets in but Stanton doesn’t.
you have to consider though, Stanton is going to get paid… a lot more than Fuld will
It is not about quality, but about service time. Stanton will still make more through his arb years (because he is a beast).
How exactly would it have worked for Strasburg? Doesn’t he have a MLB contract? Why would he have to go through arbitration?
The contract he signed as a college player expires in 2012. He will need to sign a new contract for 2013. Because he isn’t eligible for arbitration, the Nationals are now allowed to pay him a percentage of his 2012 salary (which is less than what he would get through arbitration).
Is it a 10 percent raise from the league minimum? if it’s renewed?
The Nationals must pay him at least 80% of his 2012 salary (base salary plus pro-rated signing bonus). Don’t feel too bad for him – it will still amount to a few million dollars.
The Nationals can reduce his pay to 80% of 2012, but won’t do that. They will most likely offer him a raise of at least 20% on a one year deal, then start to work on a contract to buy out arbitration and FA years. Most likely they will work on this over the next year as part of the process, and to make sure Year 2 back still shows him healthy.
Signing a ML contract when you are drafted is a way for players to guarantee that the player gets brought up earlier. Because they spend time on the 40 man roster they are only allowed to be in the minors for so long, but his contract is up after 2012, but since he only has missed super 2 the team sets his contract. He already made $15M and will get paid through arbitration soon enough.
do post-season and september call ups count towards the service time?
September does, I’m not so sure about post-season though. I would say that that doesn’t count.
Am I correct that DL time counts towards accrued time of all kinds? Strasburg’s year on the major league DL atfer TJ surgery counted toward his Super Two eligibility (and arbitration and free agency eligibility in general)? Time on a minor league DL would count toward the time at which a minor league player must be put on the 40-man roster and a team must use options or a six-year minor league player’s free agency eligibility?
If Justin Smoak had been performing at the major-league level, he would have made the cutoff. But he was so bad that this almost seems like poetic justice.
As for a player like Giancarlo Stanton, I wonder if it’s time to talk extension that would take him through all of his arbitration-eligible years even though he fell short of Super 2; he’s part of the future while former promising player and ROY Chris Coghlan is all but out of the picture.
I would imagine that the Mets hoped that Josh Thole didn’t make it to Super 2.