Major League Baseball teams received a memo Thursday outlining the parameters for this year’s newly created pre-arbitration bonus pool, breaking down payouts based both on Awards voting and based on a new, MLB/MLBPA jointly created version of wins above replacement. Both ESPN’s Jeff Passan and The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal offer specifics on how the pool will be divided.
The most straightforward path to earning a portion of the pool comes via voting in Rookie of the Year, Cy Young and MVP Awards, as well as the “All-MLB Team” honors created by the league back in 2019. If a player qualifies for two (or more) Awards-based bonuses, he’ll receive the higher of the two bonuses, but not both. The bonuses are as follows:
- Rookie of the Year: $750K for first place, $500K for second place
- MVP and Cy Young: $2.5MM for first place, $1.75MM for second place, $1.5MM for third place, $1MM for fourth or fifth place
- All-MLB: $1MM for being named “First Team,” $500K for being named “Second Team”
Whatever remains of the $50MM pool will be divided, on a percentage basis, among the top 100 players based on the joint MLB/MLBPA-created version of WAR. Put another way: should the total WAR of that 100-player group equal 250, a 2.5-WAR player (accounting for 1% of the group’s total WAR) would receive 1% of the pool’s remainder. Passan and Rosenthal both note that as of Sept. 1, Oakland catcher Sean Murphy was leading pre-arbitration players in the MLB/MLBPA version of WAR. An annual report on the bonus pool and its payouts will be issued in early December, according to Rosenthal, who adds that Yordan Alvarez still qualifies to receive a bonus despite signing a sic-year extension in June that covers the 2023-28 seasons.
That’s not because the extension doesn’t kick in until next season; rather, MLBTR has confirmed with a source that all players who sign extensions will remain eligible for bonuses from the pool during what would have otherwise been their pre-arbitration seasons. For instance, Julio Rodriguez and Michael Harris, who both inked long-term deals earlier this summer, can still receive payouts from the bonus pool not only in 2022 but also in 2023 and 2024. Alvarez would have reached arbitration this offseason were it not for his extension, so this will be the lone season in which he qualifies for the bonus pool.
I hope Rookie of the Year bonuses go beyond second place.
They do not.
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The pirates will never see that money.
as they shouldnt since this is for the players and not the teams 🙂
The rich get richer & the people who pay to see them don’t. Keep it comin’ MLB
Pirates desperately need some Dave Winfield mojo…
Julio is getting some extra cash.
I’m curious to see the difference in how this ‘Joint WAR’ is calculated, especially if it is saying Sean Murphy is the top pre-arb player in the game.
from the espn link, it’s top 100 per arb guys only.
so looks like they’ll add up their WAR, then divide it up among them.
if it had been in play last season, $37.5 million would have been in the pool for them.
this is what the espn article says they figure for WAR:
Hitters earn value in four categories: batting (based on their weighted on-base average), baserunning (stolen bases and advancing on batted balls), fielding (for position players, judged by Outs Above Average and for outfielders, throwing arms; among catchers, for framing pitches, throwing out runners and blocking balls in the dirt) and positional adjustment.
Pitcher WAR is a combination of the two most prominent calculations: runs allowed per nine innings, used by Baseball-Reference, and Fielding Independent Pitching, preferred by FanGraphs. Relievers are given extra credit for pitching in higher-leverage situations.
so it looks like murphy’s catching ability is what’s getting him that WAR
Thanks to incorporating FIP, strikeouts are now officially paid more than double plays. Any young pitcher who tries to learn to pitch to contact feels it in the wallet.
How many arb players are there? 100 is what % of that total?
So this is a very imperfect answer to your question C Yards, but based off opening day 40 man rosters (and players on 60 day Injured Lists), league wide…over the past decade…about 270 players in a given season have accrued enough service time to be arb eligible (I.E. 2.129 to 5.171 years of service). I’m using 2.129 as the average time needed to qualify for Super 2 status over the past decade.
There are 2 and 1/2 times that many pre-arb players on 40 man rosters come opening day (I.E. 0.000 to 2.128 years of service). About 675 per season, more than half of them will never reach arbitration.
Only about 1 in 4 or 1 in 5 players who debut in the bigs will ever accrue the 6 years of service needed to reach free agency.
Not sure I like that pre arb players who get big extensions also get the pool money. I thought it was to be for young players who haven’t gotten a big payday yet. It also allows teams to maybe use during negotiation that these players also get basically bonus opportunities even after signing an extension as an added benefit.
It’s only for players who have extensions that didn’t start yet. Some of them are making peanuts this year and their extension starts next year. If somebody signed an extension last year that bought out all of their arb years including this season, they would not be eligible.
So basically only a handful of guys that may have signed an extension this year that begins next year will be included. Which is fair if they are performing well this year and are still making rookie money.
I agree, guys that get extensions shouldn’t qualify.
Excluding players with extensions would just discourage players from signing extensions. That’s not a good result for teams, players or fans.
Please sir, can I have some more?