Player Contracts...

by sonant1 on Aug 27, 2008 11:33 PM EDT

... or, "I've Got a Golden Ticket, But What I Really Wanted was Platinum"

So I'm reading about Scott Bo-.. er, uh #2 overall pick Pedro Alvarez's sudden dispute with the Pirates over his contract, which includes a $6,000,000 signing bonus, and thinking there has to be more to the story.

I understand that the CBA is a complicated subject, one that many people probably get paid lots of money to thoroughly grasp. I've read knowledgeable discussions and debates on this site. In the spirit of the amazingly articulate and educational SABRmetrics series, where those who are better educated share with those of us less educated, does anyone want to "step up to the plate" on the topic of player contracts?

Some of the concepts I've picked up here and there, yet don't fully understand:

1. Players often include teams with which they can refuse to be traded; is this (a) personal (b) financial (c) moral (? I'd sooner have my fingernails plucked with vice grips than be a Yankee (no offense BubbaFan (let's try for one more parentheses)))

2. I've read somewhere (maybe here) that if a team plays its cards right, it can own a player for his first 7 years of professional baseball.

3. If #2 is true, many of those years will not be in The Show. When a player reaches the big leagues, a time card is punched that counts down his time until arbitration. This underlines the importance of mid-summer call ups (in the case of our own future NY Yankee/ChiCub/LADodger, Jay Bruce).

4. Is #3 related to the minimum number of ABs required to consider a season the "rookie" season? What is that number?

5. The words "minor league contract" and "major league contract" come up as if they differ. Can a Minor League player protest if his contract was for the Majors and he isn't cutting it?

6. If a player is drafted and refuses to sign (ie Jeremy Sowers?), all he has to do is wait one more year and see who drafts him the next time?

7. How exactly can teams agree on Players To Be Named Later? Are there written rules, or does one team have to think there's possibility where the other thinks there is little to none (can the DBacks say "no, we think Micah Owings will be more valuable than Dunn one day, so pick somebody else"? It seems too arbitrary to ever be worth the risk.

I think an interesting way to explain most of these things would be "typical superstar prospect timeline" vs "typical Neifi Perez timeline," though I'm fine with any answers in any fashion, if they're out there.

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Some answers

1. Yes.

2. Not true. A team controls a player for 4 years (or 5, if signed/drafted before they were 18) . Then they are eligible for the Rule 5 draft.

Unless they’ve been added to the 40 man roster; after that point, they are controlled by the team for 3 more seasons, then they can become minor league free agents.

Unless they are added to the 25 man roster; then the team controls them for 6 more years. In all, you could control a player for his first 13 years in baseball.

3. Not exactly correct. From the CBA:

(A) Player with at least two but less than three years of Major League service shall be eligible for salary arbitration if: (a) he has accumulated at least 86 days of service during the immediately preceding season; and (b) he ranks in the top seventeen percent (17%) (rounded to the nearest whole number) in total service in the class of Players who have at least two but less than three years of Major League service, however accumulated, but with at least 86 days of service accumulated during the immediately preceding season.

and

Following the completion of the term of his Uniform Player’s Contract, any Player with 6 or more years of Major League service who has not executed a contract for the next succeeding season shall be eligible to become a free agent, subject to and in accordance with the provisions of this Section B.

Let’s say the first situation describes Jay Bruce. He would be eligible for arbitration after only 2 1/2 years of service time; however, since that first year wasn’t a full year, he would not be eligible for free agency after his 6th season – he’d only have 5 1/2 years in. So when someone talks about a team “watching the arbitration (or free agency) clock”, it isn’t to get that extra year of control (because you can’t predict if your player would fall into that group or not); it’s to make sure they don’t have enough time that year to count towards arbitration.

4. No. Again, from the CBA:

One full day of Major League service will be credited for each day of the championship season a Player is on a Major League Club’s Active List. A total of 172 days of Major League credited service will constitute one full year of credited service.

5. If a player has a major league contract but is playing in the minors, he still gets paid like a major leaguer. Unless he has more than 5 years of service time; then, he can refuse the assignment and become a free agent.

6. Yes. JD Drew also did this.

7. PTBNL are players who cannot be named now for some reason – Owings had to clear waivers before he could be traided; you can’t trade someone their first 12 months in professional baseball. So the only real risk is that a player gets hurt before he’s traded.

Often wrong, never uncertain.

by sidnancy on Aug 28, 2008 9:36 AM EDT 0 recs

PTBNL

could also include a set of players that the acquiring team wants to evaluate. I believe this is typically what happens when a team that is trading the PTBNL wants to make the deal quickly to fill a hole or avoid an injury.

I think the other use of PTBNL is when a team selects a group of players separated by a scale. Then they are given one of the players depending on how the player they traded performs against specified criteria. I’ve heard anything from if team A makes the playoffs then team B gets a specific player to if Pitcher X wins 8 games the rest of the season, then team B gets a specific player.

In both of these cases players would not be named because of the pool of available players. Sometimes it gets leaked who the possible acquisitions are though, but that’s rare.

"You never want to give up a 7-0 lead, in your rival's ballpark, that would put them in first place. Never want to do that." - Ron Darling

by Slyde on Aug 28, 2008 9:49 AM EDT up 0 recs

I was unclear

After rereading, this doesn’t seem to make sense:

So when someone talks about a team "watching the arbitration (or free agency) clock", it isn’t to get that extra year of control (because you can’t predict if your player would fall into that group or not); it’s to make sure they don’t have enough time that year to count towards arbitration.

In other words, you don’t call up a guy on May 15 to try to gain that extra 1/2 year of control (making him a “super 2”), you call him up on June 1 for the opposite reason: to make sure he doesn’t qualify as a “super 2”.

Slyde, I didn’t include “evaluating/conditional players” becasue I wasn’t sure that was allowable. Thanks.

Often wrong, never uncertain.

by sidnancy on Aug 28, 2008 10:20 AM EDT up 0 recs

I honestly don't know the rule

but there has been enough talk of it in the media in the past that I just assumed it was allowable. I’m a n00b on all of the CBA details too, so I should probably just shut up.

"You never want to give up a 7-0 lead, in your rival's ballpark, that would put them in first place. Never want to do that." - Ron Darling

by Slyde on Aug 28, 2008 10:23 AM EDT up 0 recs