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I’d be interested to know the pct. of arb cases that are decided in favor of each side for the past 5 or so years and if there’s been any sort of detectable pattern. Anyone know?
If Helsley is going to want closer money down the road, he is going to have to do better than 19 saves. Late inning types can lose their juju quick. They also find it quick, coming on out of nowhere. Stay tuned. (Assuming you can figure out how to watch.)
Yep, the last two times the Cardinals won the WS, the opening day closer had been long ago shut down. Izzy in ’06 and Franklin in ’11. Salas and Mott provided the relief in ’11 and I’ll always maintain that the Cardinals don’t win without Wainwright in ’06. And Houston fans all saw how quick their Astro’s closer lost his “juju” at Minute Maid Park in ’05…Haha!
bling said:
If Helsley is going to want closer money down the road, he is going to have to do better than 19 saves.
C’mon. 19 saves is fine when one looks to see that he had just 23 opportunities.
This is why teams try to avoid arbitration hearings. Feelings can get hurt.
All-Star and All-MLB closer Ryan Helsley sounds off after losing his arbitration case against the #STLCards, saying: "You think you do some things good and then they find ways to tell you that you’re not good."https://t.co/qQNcnCTEc8
— John Denton (@JohnDenton555) February 17, 2023
Exhibit B.
Corbin Burnes Expresses Disappointment With Brewers Following Arbitration Hearing https://t.co/mVm4pStq1n pic.twitter.com/eCuSrazfMP
— MLB Trade Rumors (@mlbtraderumors) February 16, 2023
Corbin Burnes' arbitration hearing became a matter of national news yesterday. BF's @MATrueblood has written about what this whole mess represents for the #Brewers and their ace going forward.
Chime in here:
👉https://t.co/NgM1QZ6YSs pic.twitter.com/1i8JWusmyB— Brewer Fanatic (@brewer_fanatic) February 17, 2023
Right, 1td.
Crybaby millionaires are annoying. Those arbitrators are trained to ditch their emotions and make their judgements based solely on the facts presented to them. If Helsley didn’t like the outcome, he should blame himself for not choosing the right agent to represent him. That said, I hope this motivates Helsley to have such a great year that the Cardinals are forced to pay him more than the measly $2.15M that they will pay him for 2023.
Ryan Helsley sounds off
Corbin Burnes Expresses Disappointment
“It’s not personal….it’s strictly business.”
I think it’s a little alarming the cardinals fought their top relief pitcher for essentially $850K, I maybe reading a little more into it but that sounds like owners that are having serious cash flow issues.
Well, of course. If I had $850K laying around all my cash flow problems would instantly disappear…Haha!
It’s not how much you make, it’s how much you keep. BDW wants to keep more of it.
1td, check under your sofa cushions.
grey said:
I think it’s a little alarming the cardinals fought their top relief pitcher for essentially $850K, I maybe reading a little more into it but that sounds like owners that are having serious cash flow issues.
Arbitration is the system agreed to by owners and the players union. Nothing new except new players are participating.
If there was any major owner financial belt tightening involved, the number of arbitration cases would be up dramatically this year. I’ve seen no indication of that. (And even if there are more cases, how do we know that the Union did not push more players to be aggressive in their demands?)
Most importantly, if there was a widespread case of owners being cheap, they would lose almost every hearing. Again, no evidence to suggest that is the case.
The good news remains that if the player thinks his value is greater than the team thinks, he can make his case and the arbitrator decides. When players lose, it seems like sour grapes if they complain. Losing gracefully has to be learned. And if they are just realizing now that baseball is a business, then it is long overdue for them to wisen up to the real world.
I think it’s a little alarming the cardinals fought their top relief pitcher for essentially $850K
It could as easily be said that Helsley decided to fight over $850K.
In fact, since most of these cases are settled for something near the midpoint, it seems likely that some settlement offer would have been made, and apparently rejected. It seems likely that Helsley decided to fight over $400-$500K and so did the Cardinals.
Not that such a sum for a year’s work is unworthy of being fought over, but we should be aware when commentary is coming from the point of view of one side or the other. The original comment was coming from a pro-player viewpoint. It seems like all reporting and commentary about everything these days takes one side or the other.
bling said:
It seems like all reporting and commentary about everything these days takes one side or the other.
I get the polarization of news reporting observation, but I don’t think it fits here.
As a reporter myself, I can assure you that I (and likely most others) would write about both sides, but the reality is that teams almost never comment one way or the other about hearing details. On the other hand, younger players, especially first timers, sometimes speak to the press about their disappointment when losing. It is part of their maturing process, I feel.
This isn’t the first time, nor the last that a player has spoken out. Yet in every CBA, their union continues to support the arbitration process, because overall, it works as intended, to get more players more money than they would have received otherwise.
bling said:
In fact, since most of these cases are settled for something near the midpoint, it seems likely that some settlement offer would have been made, and apparently rejected. It seems likely that Helsley decided to fight over $400-$500K and so did the Cardinals.
That could be accurate, but we don’t know where they ended in negotiations. There is more to it than that.
The Cardinals (and some other teams) have a policy called “file and trial”. That means that until the date the two figures are formally exchanged (this year on January 13), all negotiations are open. But once the two figures are exchanged, the team stops negotiating. That means the hearing will be held. So one amount of the other will be the end result with no longer the possibility of splitting the difference.
By January 13, eight of the 10 eligible Cardinals came to terms. Two, Helsley and Cabrera, did not.
This “file and trial” approach is the team’s way of trying to force an agreement before the hearing. Agree or disagree, this is how they do it. And everyone knows it up front. No surprises.
None of this is new.
Here is some food for thought. Gallegos is signed through 2024, so he is a contract guy and that is sunk cost. Helsley will be second arb year eligible after this season. A guy with 35 saves would command a lot more than a guy with 19, or 12 or 6 or whatever, and that is true whether you are negotiating for just the next year or for more than that. So does the distribution of save opportunities this coming year favor Gallegos? Will Helsley mostly be the 8th inning guy, with the contract guy getting the 9th? A drastic difference in performance could settle things, and so could health, but there is some potential here for Helsley to end up even madder than he is already.
I’ve never seem any evidence of a team changing a player’s role to try to save money via arbitration – on this team or any other. That would be the ultimate in penny-wise, pound-foolish behavior.
Further, if the best case a player can make is total number of saves without any consideration of current job role, success rate, recent trends, etc., then it should be a pretty easy case to beat. I would imagine a winning arb case would include a lot more than back of the baseball card stats.
Specifically, Helsley is the closer and will be until he struggles on the mound badly enough to lose the job, is traded or reaches free agency. Complaining about an arbitration loss or supposed front office worry about his future salary are not factors. Regarding Gallegos, he would still have the job but he couldn’t hold it. I wouldn’t forget about Jordan Hicks, either. If he is past the starting desire and really focuses on relief (and stays healthy), he would be the other guy to watch, IMO.
Since Cabrera backslid last season and finished in Memphis, this shouldn’t be a big surprise.
The Cardinals have won their arbitration case against Genesis Cabrera, per source. Cabrera will earn $950,000, rather than the $1.15 million he filed for.
— Mark Feinsand (@Feinsand) February 18, 2023
If the Cardinals agitate Helsley hopefully he will use it as motivation. If not, well relivers are replaceable. However, the Brewers potentially alienating Burnes over a relatively small sum seems incredibly dumb to me. They need him at his very best to have any chance of being a playoff team. It is true that he can’t force a trade but if you don’t think having a disgruntled star player is a problem then I will give you the name of Arenado, Nolan to see how that panned out.
But disgruntled for different reasons. Arenado already had a huge contract. He wanted to play on a winner. To his credit, he still gave 100% on the field. On the other hand, Burnes is still two years away from free agency. Whether he would stay in Milwaukee after that is questionable, anyway. In the meantime, he can pitch for that mega contract down the road.
Helsley is the closer and will be until he struggles on the mound enough to lose the job
Having a $5M guy setting up for a $2M guy would be hugely un-Cardinal-like, but I accept that anything is possible. I’m not etching it in stone as far as what we open the season with.
We should also remember that the Cardinals decided to pay Stratton $2.8M to do something this year. I’m not sure what, though. I could potentially see Helsley and Gallagos sharing the closer role, with Stratton, Hicks ($1.8M) and Verhagen ($3M) sharing the 7th-8th inning set up role. That would separate the money guys from the herd of guys scuffling for middle relief and pen lefty roles.
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