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Arbitration Breakdown

Arbitration Breakdown: Max Scherzer

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Over the next few weeks, I will be discussing some of the higher profile upcoming arbitration cases. I will rely partly on my arbitration model developed exclusively for MLB Trade Rumors (read more about it here), but will also break out some interesting comparables and determine where the model might be wrong.

Whatever Max Scherzer gets in arbitration in his second year of eligibility this season, he is likely to be a bargain. My arbitration model has him slated for a $3.75MM raise to $7.5MM in 2013. Scherzer is a highly talented pitcher who has shown that he has the skills that portend improvement — namely, his strikeout rate. Thanks to 11.1 K/9, the Scott Boras client led the entire Major Leagues in SIERA in 2012. Though his sabermetric statistics suggest he was underrated in 2012 (his ERA was only 3.74, worse than his 2.99 SIERA), Scherzer’s best weapon in his arbitration case is his 16 wins, the least important major pitching statistic to sabermetricians.

Very few pitchers have entered their second year of arbitration with at least 15 wins. In fact, the only two pitchers in the last six years to have more wins than Scherzer were Justin Verlander and Felix Hernandez, both of whom signed multiyear extensions in lieu of one-year arbitration deals. Verlander went 19-9 with a 3.45 ERA and 269 strikeouts in 240 innings in 2010. Before reaching arbitration, Verlander asked for a $5.825MM raise and the Tigers countered with a $3.215MM proposed raise. His actual raise is difficult to ascertain due to his multiyear deal but it was about $3.5MM. Hernandez’s raise was approximately $4.4MM in his multiyear deal after going 19-5 with a 2.49 ERA and 217 strikeouts in 238 2/3 innings in 2010. Scherzer falls short of both of their numbers — he went 16-7 with a 3.74 ERA, and had 231 strikeouts in 187 2/3 innings. However, multiyear deals are not usually used in arbitration, and Scherzer is more likely to be compared with pitchers who signed one-year deals, even though they generally had fewer wins.

The other statistic that is particularly important for starting pitchers other than wins is innings pitched, and some of the other top pitchers who reached arbitration for the second time have bested Scherzer in this category. However, Scherzer has struck out hitters at a quicker rate than many of them in addition to having more wins.

One plausible comparable for Scherzer is Jered Weaver in 2011. Weaver got the largest raise (on a one-year deal) of any second-time eligible starting pitcher in recent years. Weaver had far more innings — 224 1/3 of them, but only went 13-12. He did have a comparable number of strikeouts to Scherzer (233 vs. 231) and a better ERA (3.01 vs. 3.74). His $3.105MM raise could be a number that the Tigers use to try to suggest Scherzer’s salary should be lower. Since Weaver’s 2010 was better than Scherzer’s 2012 in areas other than win total, they may suggest that Scherzer should not top $3.105MM.

It’s possible Boras could point to Scherzer’s postseason performance in an attempt to distinguish his platform season from Weaver’s. While Weaver didn’t pitch in the playoffs in 2010, Scherzer started three games in the 2012 postseason, posting a 2.07 ERA in 17 1/3 innings. Scherzer made a strong ALDS start, won the clinching game of the ALCS and turned in a solid World Series start. This experience won’t dramatically alter his case, but it could help him in a hearing.

There were three other pitchers who did win 15 games going into their second year of arbitration eligibility, and who did sign one-year deals: Matt Garza and John Danks in 2011, and Erik Bedard in 2007. Garza went 15-10 with a 3.91 ERA in 204 2/3 innings, and got a $2.6MM raise in arbitration. The mediocre ERA, combined with the favorable win total could make Garza another good comparable for Scherzer. However, his 150 strikeouts pale in comparison with Scherzer’s 231, and his 520 2/3 career innings before the season started are short of Scherzer’s 617. Previous innings do play a role in hearings, though other stats before the platform year generally do not. Danks got a $2.55MM raise in 2011, and had a similar season to Garza — he went 15-11 with a 3.72 ERA in 213 innings, with 162 strikeouts. Bedard got a $2.025MM raise in 2007 with another similar season — 15-11 with a 3.76 ERA and 171 strikeouts in 196 1/3 innings, but his numbers are pretty stale (deals that are six years old are infrequently used) and his 279 2/3 innings prior to his platform season do not make him a good comparison. Scherzer’s similar win totals and ERA combined with his better pre-platform year innings totals and far superior strikeout totals combine to suggest he should safely be able to argue for a superior raise than the largest of this trio, Garza’s $2.6MM.

If we try to look for pitchers with big strikeout totals, both Francisco Liriano and Jonathan Sanchez in 2011 got $2.7MM raises and could be seen as comparables. Liriano went 14-10 with a 3.62 ERA, while racking up 201 strikeouts in 191 2/3 innings, and Sanchez went 13-9 with a 3.07 ERA and 205 strikeouts in 193 1/3 innings. However, these two pitchers only had 358 1/3 and 413 1/3 previous innings, respectively, both less than Scherzer’s 617. This pair makes it clear that Scherzer should be able to top a $2.7MM raise.

It’s hard to see how much higher than this Scherzer could go. Weaver’s $3.105MM raise could be treated as a ceiling, which would mean Scherzer would get no more than $6.85MM rather than the $7.5MM I have projected him for. On the other hand, having three more wins than Weaver, Scherzer has a good chance of arguing for better than $7MM. If Hernandez’s and Verlander’s salaries amidst multiyear deals are used as ceilings, however, it might be harder for Scherzer to argue for much more than that. I would probably take the under on the model’s projection and guess somewhere around right around $7MM.

Arbitration Breakdown: Hunter Pence

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Over the next few weeks, I will be discussing some of the higher profile upcoming arbitration cases. I will rely partly on my arbitration model developed exclusively for MLB Trade Rumors (read more about it here), but will also break out some interesting comparables and determine where the model might be wrong.

Hunter Pence enters his fourth year of arbitration with a good chance of getting a fourth consecutive raise of between $3MM and $4MM. My model projects him to add a $3.4MM raise, giving him a $13.8MM salary for 2013. Pence had a pretty disappointing performance in 2012, but his career-high 104 RBI should be enough to get him a good boost. After hitting .314 in 2011, Pence only hit .253 in 2012. However, he did hit 24 home runs and play in all but two games on his way to 688 plate appearances.

Very few players have entered arbitration four different times without signing multiyear deals or being non-tendered, so players who do so are often compared with each other and with players who are eligibile for only the third time. As it happens, this makes Pence a pretty good comparison for himself last year since he had 24 home runs and 104 RBI after having 22 home runs and 97 RBI. Of course, his batting average this season was worse, and Pence will probably not be compared to himself last year anyway.

Among players who did enter arbitration for the fourth time, Mike Napoli in 2012 could be a good comparable, but his .320 batting average and 30 home runs make him a poor match, even though he only had 476 plate appearances and just 75 RBI. He did get a $3.6MM raise, however. No other fourth-time eligible players who have signed one-year deals in recent years have even hit 20 home runs, so we will need to look beyond that to find good comparables for Pence.

Since Pence’s most compelling case for a large raise comes from breaking the 100 RBI barrier, it is useful to look at the list of players who were eligible for at least their third year of arbitration and who had 100 RBI, and also restrict to players who signed one-year deals. There are only two such players: Mark Teixeira, who hit .306 and had 30 home runs and 105 RBI with 575 plate appearances in 2008 (he got a $2.7MM raise), and Jorge Cantu, who hit .289 with 16 home runs and 100 RBIs in 643 plate appearances, and only got a $2.5MM raise. Since Teixeira’s raise is five years old and Cantu had far fewer home runs, neither of them makes for great cases.

If we try to look for players with players with similar home run totals, say at least 20 but no more than 30, while also restricting ourselves to players with batting averages below .270 and with at least 80 RBI, only two players come up (among those who got one-year deals): B.J. Upton in 2012 and Austin Kearns in 2007. Upton hit .243 with 23 home runs and 81 RBI, though he stole 36 bases. Kearns hit .264 with 24 home runs and 86 RBI, and got just a $1.65MM raise, but since that case is so old, I doubt his name would come up in Pence’s case. Since both Upton and Kearns had less appealing statistics to arbitration panels (RBI matter far more), Pence is likely to easily top them.

There are some other players with 20-29 home runs who either did not get 80 RBI or who hit better than .270. Xavier Nady in 2009 is one such player. He got a $3.2MM raise after hitting .305 with 25 home runs and 97 RBI, though he had only 607 plate appearances. Adam Jones is another similar player. He hit .280 in 2011 with 25 home runs, but just 83 RBI. He got a $2.9MM raise, and Pence should be able to top that despite the lower batting average, since RBI matter so much to panels. One other such player with medium-high home runs is Luke Scott, who got a $2.35MM raise in 2011, after hitting .284 with 27 home runs, but just 72 RBI in 517 plate appearances. Pence should top all three of these guys.

If we expanded to include players who hit a little more than 30 home runs but still had averages below .270 and at least 80 RBI, we would be able to include Prince Fielder, who got a $4MM raise in 2011. Fielder hit .261 with 32 home runs, but just 83 RBI amidst 714 plate appearances. He could be a useful comparison for Pence due to his large raise.

If we really let the RBI restrictions go, we might include Kelly Johnson in 2011. This would also involve ignoring position, but at this point, without ideal comparables, he might be in play. He hit .284 with 26 home runs in 671 plate appearances, but only got 71 RBI. He still got a $3.5MM raise, though. Just falling short of nearly all of the above criteria was Casey Blake in 2008 — he hit .270 with 18 home runs and 78 RBI, and got a $2.35MM raise.

Clearly almost no one is a good match for Pence this year. The plausible names we have suggested above include Mike Napoli, Mark Teixeira, Jorge Cantu, B.J. Upton, Xavier Nady, Adam Jones, Luke Scott, Prince Fielder, Kelly Johnson, and Casey Blake. None of them are very good comparables. Almost all of them are a little useful. Pence had more plate appearances than nine of the ten and more RBI than nine of the ten as well. He only higher a higher average than one of these ten, though, and only had more home runs than four of the ten. Three of these ten players had more steals than Pence, five had fewer steals, and two had the same number.

These ten hitters got raises ranging between $2.175MM and $4MM. The median raise in the group was $3.05MM. Since these deals tend to be around two to three years old on average and Pence had more plate appearances and RBI (the more important arbitration stats, along with home runs) than most of these guys, my best guess is that Pence should be in the same range but a little higher. That makes the $3.4MM projected raise seem pretty reasonable to me.

Pence is the kind of player for whom the arbitration model I have developed is the most useful. It can struggle to identify salaries of players who are anomalously good or who have had odd career trajectories, but for a player who is far better than his peers in some statistics and far worse than his peers in other areas, the model can split the difference and come up with a reasonable projection. I think Pence is highly likely to be close to the $13.8MM salary the model projects for him.

Arbitration Breakdown: Chase Headley

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Over the next few weeks, I will be discussing some of the higher profile upcoming arbitration cases. I will rely partly on my arbitration model developed exclusively for MLB Trade Rumors (read more about it here), but will also break out some interesting comparables and determine where the model might be wrong.

Chase Headley will go to arbitration for the third time after having a career year. He had never hit more than 12 home runs or knocked in more than 64 runs, but this past season, he hit 31 home runs and led the National League with 115 RBIs. The Excel Sports Management client also tied a career high with 17 stolen bases, and hit .286. He also had 694 plate appearances (a very important factor in arbitration cases). As a result of a largely average history with the bat, Headley only made $3.475MM in 2012, but the model has him projected to earn $8.3MM next year, a $4.825MM raise. However, Headley is a unique case because he has so few comparables. It's not every year that a player bursts onto the scene and leads the league in RBIs as a third time arbitration eligible player. When we look through the comparables, you can see that there is reason to take the under on this projection, though it is certainly in the right neighborhood.

The ideal comparable for Headley would be a third baseman in his third year of arbitration eligibility who had 30 HR and 100 RBI. My database looks at the last six years and sees that no such player exists. In many situations, third basemen can be compared to first basemen and outfielders (and in rarer situations middle infielders). Even that expansion gives us players who had multiyear deals, which are rarely used for comparison in arbitration cases, and those hitters are not very good comparables either. However, if we loosen the home runs and RBI criteria, we do find a few guys who could come up in Headley’s case, though he has a better case than all of them.

If we restrict ourselves only to players who had 20 HR and 80 RBI going into their third year of eligibility, and who did not get multiyear deals, we see seven players in the last six years. All of these players are first basemen or outfielders, but they are better comparisons than any third basemen.

The largest raise of the group went to Prince Fielder, who got a $4MM raise in 2011. He had only 20 more plate appearances than Headley did last year (714 vs. 694) and one more home run (32 vs. 31). However, his .261 average falls short of Headley’s .286, his 83 RBIs are dwarfed by Headley’s 115, and he only stole one base to Headley’s 17. Since pre-platform year performance has little effect on arbitration cases after the first year of eligibility, Headley would seem to have a better case than Fielder.

However, Fielder’s season was actually bested by Mark Teixeira, who only got a $3.5MM raise in 2008. Since his case is five years old now, it is not a great comparison, but with a .306 average, 30 home runs, and 105 RBI, Teixeira nearly matched Headley in power numbers, while having a better average. However, Teixeira only got 575 plate appearances and stole no bases. The Padres could try to argue that Headley should be comparable to Teixeira, but the fact that the contract is “stale” and Teixeira's relatively low plate appearance total probably suggests Headley can do better.

Hunter Pence got a $3.5MM raise last year after hitting .314 with 22 home runs and 97 RBIs, while swiping eight bases. Pence also had 668 plate appearances, which makes him a good comparable for Headley. Although Headley’s power numbers were better, his batting average was worse, so the Padres could argue that Pence’s raise might be applicable.

Xavier Nady in 2009 was similar to Headley in that he suddenly had the best year of his career as a third-year arbitration eligible hitter. He was only making $3.35MM in 2008 (similar to Headley’s $3.475MM in 2012), and then hit .305 with 25 home runs and 97 RBIs. He only got 607 plate appearances and stole only two bases, so overall his numbers are a little worse than Headley’s, but his $3.2MM raise could be seen as a floor for Headley if Fielder’s case is not seen as comparable, since the Padres could try to argue that Headley’s career trajectory best matches Nady’s.

An alternative might be B.J. Upton, who had a .243 average with 23 home runs and 81 RBIs, but stole 36 bases while racking up 640 plate appearances going into last year’s cases. He only got a $2.175MM raise. However, his clearly inferior numbers other than stolen bases and the fact that he is a center fielder make him a weak comparable.

The other two players to meet the criteria specified above were Adam LaRoche in 2009, who was coming off a .270/25/85 season, and Austin Kearns in 2007, who was coming off a .264/24/86 season. Since both are clearly inferior cases to Headley’s and older, their $2.15MM and $1.65MM raises probably won’t be seen as useful in Headley’s case.

If we instead decide to consider multiyear deals as comparable, it is notable that Matt Kemp’s deal gave him a $5.05MM raise last year after hitting .324 with 39 home runs, 126 RBIs, and 40 stolen bases. The fact that he got a multiyear deal with a substantially higher average annual value than his 2012 salary makes this difficult to use, but it does give us some sense that a $5MM raise would be pushing it.

The best comparable among these for Headley is probably Fielder, though you could make a compelling case for Teixeira. If Fielder’s $4MM raise is seen as a floor, and Headley gets a few extra bucks for his average, RBIs, and steals, then Headley could be given something like a $4.25-4.5MM raise, which would put him at $7.725-$7.975. This is below the model’s $8.3MM projection, but it might be more reflective of a good estimate in this unique case.

Arbitration Breakdown: Buster Posey

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Over the next few weeks, I will be discussing some of the higher profile upcoming arbitration cases. I will rely partly on my arbitration model developed exclusively for MLB Trade Rumors (read more about it here), but will also break out some interesting comparables and determine where the model might be wrong.

Buster Posey is eligible for arbitration for the first time in 2013, conveniently right after a successful MVP campaign. Posey also won the batting title in 2012, along with a Rookie of the Year Award in 2010. Despite the MVP, Posey is not the typical slugger who gets handsomely rewarded compared to other players in arbitration. He "only" had 24 home runs and 103 RBI in 2012, though he did hit .336 in 610 plate appearances. Due to an injury in 2011 and the fact that Posey reaches arbitration as a super two, he only had 645 plate appearances going into his platform season along with a .294 average, 22 home runs, and 88 runs batted in. What makes Posey’s situation unique is that he has a healthier trophy case than anyone else to reach arbitration in recent years, but fewer plate appearances going into his platform year than most others to get larger salaries. Even though the only other player in the last six years to have an MVP and a ROY before his first year of arbitration (Ryan Howard) earned $10MM, there was no player with as few career plate appearances as Posey to ever earn more than $3.75MM. My model has the CAA client well between these two extremes, projected to earn $5.9MM.

Posey figures to earn far less than Ryan Howard’s $10MM for several reasons. Not only did Howard have 1094 previous plate appearances, but he was also a power hitter coming off a 47 home run season. Power numbers matter to panels a lot more than other skills, so Posey will not be able to argue for more than Howard’s $10MM. There are two other players in the last six years to have MVP awards before reaching arbitration, Joey Votto (who got $8MM in 2011) and Justin Morneau ($4.5MM in 2007). Votto was coming off a .324 average, 37 home runs, and 113 runs batted in 648 plate appearances and also had 1222 PA before his platform season, in which he accumulated 53 HR, 185 RBIs, and hit .310. Votto also had 16 stolen bases in his platform year and 12 in previous seasons, while Posey is not a base stealer. This all combines to suggest Posey will fall short of Votto’s $8MM. Morneau’s $4.5MM seems low. Firstly, the fact that it is now a comparable that is over six years old makes it unlikely to be a fair comparison, but Morneau also only had a .248 average going into his platform year, making his .321/34/130 performance that year seem more anomalous. Posey, on the other hand, had won Rookie of the Year during his pre-platform tenure.

In more common cases, Posey would be more likely to be compared to other catchers. However, he has a clearly superior case than any of the catchers with whom he would be compared. The largest first-time arbitration award given to a catcher went to Russell Martin in 2009 at $3.9MM. Martin was only coming off a .280/13/69 platform season (though with 18 SB) in 650 plate appearances , although he did have 1088 PA prior to his platform season. The lack of an MVP award suggests that Martin’s salary is a very obvious floor for Posey. Joe Mauer’s 2007 case might be the most similar to Posey, although he did not have an MVP award. However, Mauer did have a batting title in 2006, hitting .347 in 608 plate appearances , and also has a pre-platform season injury in common with Posey. Mauer had just 676 plate appearances before his platform season, similar to Posey’s 645. Mauer ended up signing a multi-year deal in which he earned $3.75MM in 2007, but before that, Mauer and the Twins had exchanged figures of $3.3 and $4.5MM, so $3.75MM seems like they settled effectively in the middle and then added a few years on. Of course, this case is probably “stale” and isn’t a great comparison for Posey, but it also suggests that Posey should successfully finish with well over $4MM. No catchers other than Martin and Mauer have gotten more than $2.15MM in the last six years, so those two would be the only plausible comparisons.

Expanding beyond catchers and MVPs, I looked through the last six years to find anyone who had 20 HR, 80 RBI, and a .300 average, regardless of whether they had won any awards or what position they played. Only one player had more than $4.84MM: Miguel Cabrera at $7.4MM in 2007. Obviously, that case is now stale but it does provide a useful comparison to Posey. Cabrera had just hit .339/26/114 in 676 plate appearances , while he had a .300 average entering his platform season in 1067 PA, along with 78 HR and 290 RBI. The platform season looks very similar season to Posey’s, while the previous seasons look much better. On top of that, Cabrera already had 3 years and 101 days of service time by his first year of arbitration, compared with Posey’s 2 years and 161 days. Further, even though Cabrera didn’t have an MVP award yet, he did have three all-star appearances already and had back-to-back fifth place finishes in MVP races. Posey will probably earn less than Cabrera’s $7.4MM. The other guys on the list of .300/20/80 first-time eligibles included Chase Utley who got $4.84MM in 2007 as part of a multi-year deal and Garrett Atkins who got $4.46MM in 2008. More recently, Shin-Soo Choo got $3.975MM in 2011. All three players seem to have inferior cases to Posey’s, which provides further reason to expect Posey to obtain at least $5MM.

Other elite players to get large deals in recent years include Prince Fielder’s $7.5MM, Hanley Ramirez’s $5.55MM in 2009 (both as part of multi-year deals), and Dan Uggla’s $5.35MM in 2009. Uggla had 1411 plate appearances prior to his platform season, but his .260/32/92 platform season suggests Posey should be able to top him. Getting even further from plausible comparables, we can at least look at pitchers who got big awards—the only pitchers to get over $5MM were Lincecum and Kershaw ($9 and $7.75MM as part of multi-year deals), and relievers Jonathan Papelbon and Bobby Jenks ($6.25 and $5.6MM as one-year deals in 2009). These pitchers won't come up as comps in Posey's case.

Posey’s case is clearly unique. It seems like anything between $4.5 and $7.4MM is possible, and my model coincidentally ends up splitting the difference almost exactly at $5.9MM. I think Uggla’s $5.35MM is too low, but not by much, so something in the $6MM range makes sense for Posey.

Arbitration Breakdown: David Price

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Over the next few weeks, I will be discussing some of the higher profile upcoming arbitration cases. I will rely partly on my arbitration model developed exclusively for MLB Trade Rumors (read more about it here), but will also break out some interesting comparables and determine where the model might be wrong.  To see projected salaries for all arbitration eligible players, click here.  To follow all the deals in advance of the January 18th exchange of figures, bookmark our arbitration tracker.  

I’ll start by looking at the reigning American League Cy Young, David Price.  This post was written before Price's agreement was announced today, so we decided to publish before his salary is announced. My model predicts that Price will earn $9.5MM in arbitration in 2013, a $5.15MM raise over his 2012 salary. Price earned $4.35MM last season while compiling a 20-5 record, thanks to a 2.56 ERA in 211 innings. Price and the Rays presumably were looking for comparable players in the pitcher’s service class—second-time arbitration eligible starting pitchers. There are very few players like Price, so they needed to stretch the criteria to find eligible players. Cy Young Awards are very important in arbitration cases, but pitchers who win them rarely reach a hearing or even settle for one-year deals. Even among players with the approximate three to six year service time window for arbitration, many elite pitchers who win Cy Youngs had already been signed to multi-year deals before winning (e.g. Zack Greinke, Felix Hernandez). The last time a reigning Cy Young Award winner became eligible for his second year of arbitration was eight years ago, when Johan Santana got a $3.9MM raise as part of a multi-year deal. Cases that old are rarely considered in hearings, especially if they were part of multi-year deals.

The only pitchers in recent years who have been eligible for arbitration after getting a Cy Young have been Tim Lincecum and Clayton Kershaw, both of whom were only eligible for their first year of arbitration and both of whom signed multi-year deals in lieu of reaching an agreement. Neither is a good comparison for Price. However, it is worth noting that Lincecum’s and Kershaw’s first-year salaries of $9MM and $7.75MM are between $3.4 and $4.65 million more than the next two non-Cy Young winners in recent years (Cole Hamels in 2009 and Price himself in 2012). Since Lincecum’s larger raise was partly due to having two Cy Youngs already, this suggests that the extra value in winning a Cy Young is probably about a couple million dollars. Remember that Lincecum’s and Kershaw’s numbers were also much better than Hamels’ and Price’s, so not all of the salary gap can be explained by the Cys.

There have been no second-time arbitration eligible starting pitchers in the last several years to earn a raise like the $5.15MM that I have projected for Price, which makes sense because there have been no comparable pitchers. The largest single-season raise in the last six years for a second time arbitration eligible starter went to Jered Weaver in 2011, who got a $3.105MM raise. However, he only had a 13-12 record and a 3.01 ERA in 2010, making him clearly a poor match.  Weaver was not the only pitcher who got a pretty big raise in his second year of arbitration on a one-year deal—slightly smaller raises went to Shaun Marcum ($3.1 million), Francisco Liriano ($2.7 million), and Jonathan Sanchez ($2.7 million).

Felix Hernandez might have been a better comparable in 2010, when he and the Mariners exchanged arbitration figures to follow up on his $3.85 million salary. Hernandez had just finished second in Cy Young voting, with a 19-5 record and a 2.49 ERA in 238.2 innings. The Mariners proposed a $3.4MM raise to $7.2MM, while he instead asked for a $7.7MM raise to $11.5MM. He ended up signing a five-year deal, which paid him just $6.5MM in 2010, but splitting his signing bonus between his two remaining arbitration eligible years, this can best be treated as an $8.25MM salary, a $4.4MM raise. Obviously, multi-year deals are different than one-year deals, so they are not ideal comparisons, but in the case of Price, this could be useful. The Mariners proposal of $3.4MM could be cited as a floor as well, since he did not have a Cy Young and Price does. Technically, if my assumption about how to distribute Hernadez’s signing bonus is correct, I could see an argument for a $4.4MM floor for a potential raise for Price.

Justin Verlander could also be a clue as to the floor for Price’s raise. He finished third in Cy Young voting in 2009, while receiving a $3.675MM salary in his first arbitration year. Verlander signed a multi-year deal in lieu of a one-year agreement, but beforehand he had proposed a $5.825MM raise and the Tigers had suggested a $3.215MM raise, which was pretty close to what he received in his multi-year deal.

It’s also worth noting that the largest salary raise for any arbitration eligible starting pitcher (other than first-time players) went to Cole Hamels in 2012, who got a $5.5MM raise. However, he was eligible for the fourth year, so he is definitely not a comparison. Raises grow over time. While hitters are not comparable either, it’s worth noting that the largest raise for a second-time eligible hitter was $5.65MM for Jacoby Ellsbury in 2012.

All of this points to a number that is considerably larger than a $3.5MM raise for Price, while the floor is much less clear. The Cy Young Awards of Lincecum and Kershaw in their first year of eligibility seemed to add close to a couple million to their salaries, so it seems like Price could probably get something like a $5MM raise, but really anything in the $4.5-6MM range would not surprise me for a case as unique as his.

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