The Cardinals have won their arbitration hearing against right-hander Ryan Helsley, reports Katie Woo of The Athletic. He’ll earn the $2.15MM salary submitted by the team instead of the $3MM figure he and his camp filed.
Helsley, 28, has been inconsistent in the big leagues thus far but is coming off the best showing of his young career. He debuted in 2019 with a strong showing, posting a 2.95 ERA over 36 2/3 innings in 24 appearances. He then struggled in the shortened 2020 campaign, with his ERA ticking up to 5.25, though that involved just 12 appearances. He improved slightly the following year, dropping his ERA to 4.56 in 51 appearances.
2022, however, was a tremendous step forward. He appeared in 54 games, often in a multi-inning capacity, logging 64 2/3 innings on the year. His ERA was a miniscule 1.25, the second lowest among all pitchers in the league with at least 60 innings pitched, trailing only Evan Phillips. He struck out an incredible 39.3% of batters he faced on the year, well beyond the 21.7% rate of his previous three seasons. He also kept his walk rate down to 8.4% after giving free passes at an 11.4% clip prior to 2022.
All of that coincided with Helsley moving up to higher-leverage work, as he recorded 19 saves and seven holds on the season. He figures to continue in that role going forward, alongside other key St. Louis relievers like Giovanny Gallegos, Andre Pallante and Jordan Hicks. This was Helsley’s first attempt at the arbitration process, having surpassed three years of service time last year. He is slated for two more arb passes before reaching free agency after the 2025 campaign.
These people conducting the hearings aren’t watching the games.
Reports are arbitrators for this case were Cubs fans.
Confirmed, they aren’t watching the games.
I rolled my eyes so hard they almost fell out.
Cubs fans would have players always win so the Cards can spend less on free agents, not the other way around.
I said in the Corbin Burnes defeat thread that it seems they’re much more heavily focused in time of service rather than any performance-related measures.
Helsley repeats he’s due a pay raise
Problem is he hasn’t been healthy
Hip finally was 100% last year
Amazing. Mozeliak will invest in players without a reasonable track record of success, but wants to go to arbitration with the closer over minimal dollars (in baseball terms).
It’s a 40% difference in an early arb year. This win alone may save them $5-15m over the course of his arb seasons, depending on his performance.
It’s not Mozeliak’s decision, it’s ownership’s policy. They have a 100% go to arbitration policy if the numbers on the two sides don’t match, it’s been that way for awhile.
Quite a manly username
DeWitt is the guy you’re looking to blame…
Tomahawk chop!
Should be a coin flip instead of a hearing. There should be no time a club actively argues against their own player.
Don’t like the numbers? Can’t come to a deal? Fine we will flip a coin. That’s more of a incentive to get a deal done anyways
So by my calculations the arbiters have ruled in favor of the owners 99.9999% of the time this off season. I wonder where this seemingly obvious directive to rule against the players is coming from? The league? The owners? Some diabolical combination of the two?
Recalculate, garmin!
Math checks out
Lol
This kids is why you don’t let your elite relievers be closers. Artificially lower arb price. If he had closed all year instead of being the fireman he woulda easily gotten 3mil
>Has phenomenal year
>Requests 3 million in arbitration
>Billion dollar franchise offers 2.15 million
>”You didn’t have an ERA under 1.00 in your 50 appearances you get 2.15 mil”
🙁
That’s a very specific example. Can you show us on the doll where the bad baseball man hurt you?
I think saves are more relevant to arb. It’s 20th century thinking, but it is what it is.
I hear you fam
Do arbitrators look at a single year or all years of the career? This one doesn’t surprise me because Helsley has had two good years and two bad years. He will get paid next year if he repeats what he did last year.
3 healthy seasons 2019 2020 and 2022. 2 bad outings in the covid season. Mostly reliable.
Ouch. That arb panel is a tough tough crowd.