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Come opening day I envision Bill up in his box with a bag over his head. With Mo sitting next to him.
Yes, the FO elected to pass on a midpoint figure, and decided to take the players to arbitration. Is that correct?
Also, while the negotiating window was open, doesn’t Pallante also have the right to refuse settling for a midpoint?
There is no midpoint. Both sides were negotiating and probably both moved towards each other in the process. Then the team submits its final offer and the player takes it or doesn’t take it. There has to be some kind of deadline. Even if it’s bad for morale at times, this is a system that benefits players far more than the past. Teams that don’t do file and trial make the deadline be the hearing which is kind of silly and creates some amount of chaos. Either way there’s a deadline and at some point there’s a final offer that either is either taken or not.
I remember Corbin Burnes being furious with the Brewers over what was said during the arbitration hearing. The relationship soured so bad that the Brewers ended up trading him to the Orioles for his final year before free agency. I’m not saying that the Brewers would have kept him long term anyway but that process sealed the deal.
So, Katie & Bernie aren’t fans of the Cardinals file & trial system – said it adversely affected both O’Neill and Helsley after they went to trial.
Well, Helsley took it out on the opponents, then, didn’t he? 😉 He couldn’t have had a much better year in 2024 than he did after the trauma of his hearing.
And this year, he didn’t go to hearing and settled. So how wounded is he, I wonder?
It probably hurt O’Neill’s feelings when it was pointed out that he couldn’t stay on the field. One could argue he deserves a 100-game prorated salary each year.
The way I see it, it’s pretty simple. If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen. Settle for the team’s offer and avoid the messy hearing.
But, no, the perception of being underpaid would hurt their feelings, too.
Maybe the Players Association should just give up their hard-fought battle to get arbitration and go back to letting the owners set salaries.
They should have had me on the podcast so they could have had another point of view instead of total agreement on the easy side of the argument – spending other people’s money… 😉
“It’s pretty crazy how your employers talk bad about you and then right after they want to be best friends,” Helsley said on Foul Territory — a YouTube show hosted by former players and well-known media pundits.
“I felt like I did some pretty good things last year, and they still find ways to tell you, you stink so that’s kind of tough to hear sometimes,” Helsley said.
My guess is that one of the reasons the Cardinals settled with Helsley this year for an amount way above the MLBTR estimate is that Helsley had such a good 2024 season. His 2023 was not as good, so maybe there was some merit in pointing out last year that he could do better. He did and got paid for it without having to go to hearing.
Looks to me like the system is working. But if the players don’t like the system, they need to go to their Union and work to change it. Complaining to the media won’t change anything. It is in the CBA.
P.S. Helsley apparently had to learn the hard way that baseball is a business. But next year at this time, he will be able to set his own price and choose his own employer. He will probably be fixed financially for life (if he isn’t going to be already after making $8.2 million in 2025).
And good for him. He will have earned the big payday from whatever team will give him $100 million or thereabouts. No one will feel sorry for him then. Nor should they.
The difference between me and some others is that I don’t feel sorry for him now, either.
Baseball players are harder to like than they used to be. Most owners are still pretty easy to dislike.
Players risk a career ending injury, so until they get the 100mil payday, I could understand why the Arb players want all they can get, ASAP.
The difference between me and some others is that I don’t feel sorry for him now, either
Amen
Players risk a career ending injury, so until they get the 100mil payday, I could understand why the Arb players want all they can get, ASAP.
Yes because they aren’t allowed to go out in the world and work like the rest of us to support themselves.
Within their mlb experience, stl arb players have seen the destinations of our past arb players, going before them.
“The rest of us” can work for many different owners too, and we want our max pay each time. All jobs are temp until your next one. Recently, arb eligible w/stl is a temp job, until your next owner.
File and trial is perfect for STL (Bill).
Sorry JJ I just don’t have any empathy for guys making millions to play a kids game. Even less for the business owners. In fact, Im inching closer and closer, after 60 years of following major league bb, to shutting the door on it. There’s other people playing the game besides these guys. I can watch them.
A ‘mere’ $5 million dollar nest egg invested risk free at 3% will yield $150,000 annual income literally forever.
At 4% that goes up to $200,000 per year forever.
If you assume 40% gone to federal and state income taxes and agent fees then spend $500,000 per year to live, a pro athlete through salary, investments, and endorsements would (theoretically) need career earnings of 25 million over a 10 year period to stash a $5M nest egg.
So – average 2.5M for 10 years and dont blow a lot on wine, women, and song.
Sure, in order to boost the SS check you may need to work a career post baseball. Boo effin hoo.
Sure there are many guys who have 2-5 year athletic careers but they still made a lot more than the average Joe for a few years – and yes, they are clearly very special athletes but even league minimums are a dream salary for most people.
No prob kcb, it’s just I’m not mad at the players at all. I’d do the same given the opportunity, and would view stl as a stepping stone towards that best case contract, knowing the path of recent stl arb players. The recent signings of Edman and O’Neill suggest an endure posture, and stay healthy as possible thru arb, because “on the move” is likely.
FWIW, I like file and trial because it creates a real deadline to push the two sides toward an earlier agreement by the filing date (January 9 this year). By then, the team has to make a realistic offer to the player. Before that, the filing date had no teeth. Before file and trial, talks would sometimes drag on for weeks even to the very moment of the hearing and be a spring training distraction. Sometimes they would decide in the hallway before going in the room. No need for that. I think they are also scheduling the hearings sooner to get it resolved one way or the other.
P.S. There are those in favor of having a deadline for MLB free agents to sign each off-season. The agents and Players Association would be firmly against it, but I can see the benefit, too. These free agent sagas that drag on for months end up affecting other downstream players, too…
I understand the rules are the rules and that baseball is a bottom line business but I also believe building the right kind of culture is important. If owners don’t want to pay an arbitration salary then they can always non-tender the player. Once they do tender a contract they know that a confrontation could be looming.
If there is a large gap between the team and player (however you define that) then it probably makes more sense to stick to your guns. But if the gap is relatively small (however you define that) does it really make sense to degrade your player face to face then expect them to just get over it? I don’t get that.
Sorry JJ I just don’t have any empathy for guys making millions to play a kids game. Even less for the business owners. In fact, Im inching closer and closer, after 60 years of following major league bb, to shutting the door on it. There’s other people playing the game besides these guys. I can watch them.
This line of thinking really irks me. These guys spent their entire lives training, practicing, and learning a skill that makes owners and the league billions of dollars. Why shouldn’t they be fairly compensated for what they produce? I don’t see this argument used against actors and actresses that get big paychecks or musicians.
It’s been a particularly unrewarding stretch of Cardinal fandom, and I’m a little grumpy I suppose. I think it was a particularly poor decision to leave Mo front and center as the spokesman for the Cardinals organization. The nature of millionaires fighting with billionaires over money spent by working class people is always going to be contentious. They won’t be getting any of mine anytime soon. But I can still criticize and complain without being a paying customer. It’s America.
Trial and file does create a deadline but when you’re squabbling over $1.2M combined for 3 players, you come off as poor and petty, especially when the FO is already persona non grata with the fanbase.
MIL doesn’t keep the Burns and Williams type arb salaries, they trade them back for future service years. We have been doing the same for years, as if its our model also, while pretending to contend with bronze busts leading the way.
We have one arb3 player left on the roster, before this “reset” was announced, and Helsley is a deadline chip just like his arb class was.
We have one arb2 player left on the roster, JoJo, with no-one from our PD remaining in this service class. Both relievers, the cheapest avg salary by position.
There is really blame on both sides for the players and management when players go to arbitration. Players have worked very hard and they are constantly traveling and don’t get to spend time with their families, so I do understand them wanting what they deserve as they are world class at what they do. In any industry, world class talents gets paid accordingly. I also understand management not wanting to just accept whatever the player wants as then the players will just ask for whatever and the team does need to try to keep costs down.
Arbitration is a great process for this as it does help get to the middle ground or at least force the players and the team to discuss a fair value and negotiate. Arbitration is much better than the team just assigning whatever they want as players take on a lot of risk personally and deserve to be paid well for the value they bring to an org. If they weren’t bringing in the $$ for the org, then they wouldn’t be getting paid the way they are. With the way arbitration works, the first year is the most important and is why our 3 guys have haven’t reached a settlement. The amount from your first year is used to build your salaries in Arb 2, 3, and 4 in some players cases years. So I can see why both sides don’t want to budge as much in year 1.
I will say I don’t like the file and trial approach. It is good to create a deadline, but I’m not shutting the door on the conversation fully. I know Brian thinks arbitration shouldn’t have any impact on the players, but they are human and I would not be surprised at all if going to arbitration does impact their willingness to stay long term. I do wonder if this will change with Bloom as Mo is very much he has to win a deal type of person, and I could see Bloom at least negotiating past the filing date and hoping to reach an agreement that makes both sides happier than going to an actual arbitration hearing. Arbitration hearings aren’t good for the player nor the team.
Very nice mention of the compounding effect of multiple arb raises ATM. Pallante, as a super2, is in line for three raises.
Feeder clubs must hold em down early and trade them away when you cant afford them before free agency. It’s in their best interest to retain them as long as possible.
The best of the poor teams (TB, MIL, CLE) have no financial choice. That shouldn’t be our goal, but with half the league over 200mil, it appears respectably poor is the plan, successful or not.
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