2023 Arbitration Decisions

The nature of the arb process makes it a very tactical one. If I were a party to it, I couldn’t help but do a lot of 2nd guessing afterwards. I’ve known this all along, but this discussion has highlighted some possible real world outcomes.

Take Tucker’s case linked above. Astros offered 5, Tucker wanted 7.5. Say the arbiters thought his real value was 6.1, so they side with the Astros as the “better” of the two submissions. Then Tucker could speculate that if he had been just slightly less aggressive, he might’ve won. If he had requested 7, he would have won under the simple case I stated above, thus costing himself $2 million. Or turn it around and the team could say had we been $500K more generous with our offer, we could’ve come out $2 million better.

The Brewers nickel & dime’d Corbin Burnes. If there was any chance (doubtful) that he was considering signing an extension with Milwaukee, that arbitration fiasco should take care of it, and I wouldn’t blame him.

— Dan Needles (@dneedles12) February 16, 2023

Brewers did some serious damage in Corbin Burnes arbitration hearing https://t.co/kzbe4MCOhp pic.twitter.com/B6HMoJLbka

— New York Post (@nypost) February 17, 2023

There is no reason to think the Brewers FO blundered into this. They know the arb process, they know Burns and they are not stupid.

He might, Steve60. Heck, he may be on the trading block in July and Johnny’ll swoop in there like a hawk and pluck him away from the Brewers at the deadline.

Yeah this kind of opportunity is definitely in Mo’s wheelhouse. That is how we ended up with Arenado but I imagine the Brewers would rather trade him to any team in the league besides the Cardinals. That won’t happen.

Helsley and Winn for Burnes? I would be tempted to do that if I thought we could sign him long term.

My trade idea was not a serious one, just poking fun at the Helsley/Burnes disappointment angle, but you guys are on it. gscott is right it wouldn’t make any sense for just a year and a half of Burnes, which leads us to 1td’s guess that Mo might offer up Dejong and a little spending money.

My guess is this is publicized beyond its merit right now as the media and twitter-verse like stirring the pot, especially with not much else happening yet. Corbin will likely settle into reality very soon and move on. Even so, I wonder how many phone calls among the front offices this type of thing leads to.

Really interesting observation from a Brewers watcher.

“David Stearns (MIL head of baseball ops) was basking in the early pitching success of his first acquisition, waiver claim Junior Guerra, when he said on a 2016 Brewers telecast, ‘Our plan is to develop pitchers in quantities that would allow us to trade them for a haul at their peak value.’ You can bet that’s what Mark Attanasio (Mil owner) signed up for after blowing considerable coin paying for Doug Melvin’s (prior GM) free-agent pitchers Jeff Suppan, Kyle Lohse and Matt Garza. Now that the Brewers’ top pitchers are approaching free agency, we’re seeing those trades start to unfold, beginning with Josh Hader. Burnes will look like more of a bargain to potential suitors with his $10.01 million deal, and I would expect serious trade talk to begin about the time Aaron Ashby recovers from his shoulder ailment.’

I guess indentured servitude can be unpalatable to some even though they are making millions. It sounds like most players are ok with it as long as the millions are there.

The owners situation is they have to have some mechanism in place to save themselves from themselves or they will eventually spend more than the customers can or will cover. They don’t like the arb solution because it is not a solution. The salaries arrived at follow along with the escalation of salaries as a whole, which happens because owners outbid each other for the best talent. They know that the outbidding is not going away, so some means of insulating the pay scale of younger players from the general escalation is their objective, which must be accomplished without endangering their anti-trust exemption.

At least we’ll have some game action before too long, mudville. I’ve been right in there with the rest of the gang commenting on the business aspect of Big League baseball. I’ve always felt that the conversation that revolves around money to be genuinely wearisome. Probably because I don’t have any…Haha! At any rate, it’ll be nice to talk about taters, K’s and the standings in a few weeks.