The White Sox announced on Friday that they have re-signed the recently non-tendered Jacob Turner to a one-year contract that will pay the right-hander $1.5MM.
It seems curious, at first glance, that Chicago declined to tender Turner a contract at yesterday’s deadline but then struck a deal with him today. Turner, after all, was projected to earn $1MM in arbitration this year, as it’s standard for players to receive an identical salary to the previous year after sitting out a season due to injury.
However, Turner’s situation was rather unique, as the former top prospect signed a Major League contract out of the draft (an outcome that is no longer possible under the since-revamped collective bargaining agreement). Turner’s big league deal out of the draft — he was selected ninth overall in 2009 — included a $4.7MM signing bonus, and an annualized portion of that sum has to be included when calculating his salary. As such, the White Sox and Turner have most likely split the difference between what he might’ve netted in arbitration and what the team would have filed.
The White Sox claimed Turner off waivers just over a month ago from the cross-town Cubs, who carried him for most of the season on the 60-day DL as Turner dealt with arm issues. Turner is out of minor league options and will have to stick on the club’s 40-man roster this spring or be exposed to outright waivers, but the Sox will hope that he can maintain better health in 2016 and realize some of the potential that once made Turner such a highly touted arm.
Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports first reported the agreement (on Twitter).
Wow. Just wow.
Low risk, high reward deal. I’m into it
I don’t get it. They non-tender him when he’s projected to make only $1M in arb, then sign him for 1.5M. I must be missing something.
That’s what I’m saying. If it’s a MiLB deal, then maaaaaaaaaybe, but nobody’s saying.
I treated it as being a report of a fully guaranteed, MLB deal because I believe any baseball reporter of Passan’s experience would qualify it if he meant anything else. But, we’ll see if anything else comes out.
It is a Major League contract. The confusion here is that while Turner earned a $1M salary in 2015, the tender rules use a different previous salary calculation. Turner played 2015 under the last option year on his Major League contract signed out of the draft. For tender purposes, his 2015 salary counts as his $1M salary plus his $4.7M signing bonus equally distributed over the six years of the contract. This results in a $1.783M previous salary calculation. The White Sox could have tendered him at any value above 80% of that value (approximately $1.427M). I am assuming that the agent would rather sign as a free agent rather than a pre-tender contract which called for a cut from his client’s previous salary calculation.
Needless to say, the MLBTR projection of $1M was not even possible given the rules in CBA.
I absolutely love the way you explained this. Using real math and numbers and not just reaching for rule interpretations.
Well said
That’s why many of us come here. When the source article misses something, the summary writer or a reader usually figures it out and explains it well. IN this case, as they say when someone in the crowd makes a nice catch, “give the fan a contract!”
That was a hate on Tyler flowers and how bad he sucked lol
It’s gotta be nice to get paid $1.5 million to be a crappy pitcher.
to sit in the trainer’s office.
Who’s Jacob Tuner?
Jacob Turner’s alter ego. He’s tuned up and ready to get back to being an ace.
It’s possible the MLBTR arbitration formula may be off for guys who are coming back from injury. The formula missed on Clayton Richard by $1 million.
It is curious that Turner got a half million raise. It could be based on service time for starting pitching even though a year was spent on the DL. Turner has three years. Richard missed being a free agent by a few days.
Or in Richard’s case, the Cubs may have offered him a higher salary in case they need to option him to the minors. Since Richard has service time, he can declare free agency, but he would then forfeit his remaining salary. They may have offered him enough to prevent that. Last year, Richard was DFA’d twice but he came back as a free agent as the Cubs ended up needing him.
It’s possible if the Sox want to outright Turner to the minors (I think he’s out of options) that this salary may prevent him from declaring free agency.
This is probably all about club control.
Interesting explanation — thanks!
Somebody reads AZ Phil. 🙂
Yes, I’ve learned a lot from his articles.
The projections are obviously tweaked all the time and require data to drive improvements, so I’m sure Matt will take a look at all of that.
As he often notes in the posts he does on specific cases — those will start to come out before long, I’d expect — not every projection is equivalent to a real-world expectation.
If anyone is interested in understanding all this, his appearance on the podcast is a must-listen: http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2015/10/podcast-arbitration-talk-with-matt-swartz.html
How can a player who did not even play in 2015 get a 50% increase? No i will not pay you 1 million dollars, absolutely not….how about 1.5….
Beats investing in the Dominican or the last 35 rounds of the draft.
Just because he was PROJECTED by MLBTR means he would get that much, it could vary, and since he was non tendered we may never know his true arb price
exactly. could be he was pushing for more but who knows and no one should really complain about 1.5 on a low risk high reward player imo
Certainly. That’s why I wrote this: “It could be that … the club made the procedural move to ensure it wouldn’t end up being stuck with a higher-than-preferred obligation.”
Interesting thing here, though, is that he simply didn’t pitch in 2015. That’s somewhat different than a scenario where the two sides have a lot of room to argue over arb value for whatever reason. (E.g., lack of recent comps.)
$1.5 million and you might not throw a pitch with the big league club at all. Potential.