Projected Arbitration Salaries for 2016

[DrungoHazewood]

$1.1m seems ridiculously low for Brach, especially coming off a pretty outstanding year and second in the league in reliever IP.

Arb is only vaguely tied to performance. It's based on comparable players, service time, and salary going in. A general rule of thumb is 20/40/60% of free agent rates in your three arb years, but that's no hard-and-fast rule. Brach was worth about a win, so $1.1M is in the ballpark of 20% of what a win costs on the semi-open market.

[DrungoHazewood]

Trades are all about leverage. It is hard to have leverage when trading for a mid-season rental. Offseason is a different animal entirely. People struggle to realize that distinction.

It's also about finding a situation where both teams can see an advantage in making the deal. Most trades aren't a MacPhail wonder where you wait out the other side for months to try to get a big win.

[Frobby]

Just saw that the deadline for exchanging arbitration figures is this Friday, January 15. At least we'll have that to talk about.

[abbott]

Matusz is worth the minimum. Over the 4 years he's been a replacement level player. Reimold is a bench player. If Gonzo is with 4.5 Chen is worth 15

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[El Gordo]

Just saw that the deadline for exchanging arbitration figures is this Friday, January 15. At least we'll have that to talk about.

Manny's will be very interesting.

[backwardsk]

Flaherty 1.5

Tillman 6.225

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[MurphDogg]

Matusz is worth the minimum. Over the 4 years he's been a replacement level player.

Words having meaning. Replacement level player has a specific meaning when it comes to MLB players. Brian Matusz has been worth 2.7 fWAR over the last four seasons (a bit more if you subtract his sub-replacement level performance as a starter in 2012).

[DrungoHazewood]

Words having meaning. Replacement level player has a specific meaning when it comes to MLB players. Brian Matusz has been worth 2.7 fWAR over the last four seasons (a bit more if you subtract his sub-replacement level performance as a starter in 2012).

Not that I'm defending what's pretty obviously random and hapazard statements, but consistently being worth a fraction of one win per season isn't that far off from repacement level. And I'd make the case that it's justifiable to have a general policy of not paying free agent rates for 0.7 wins/year.

[MurphDogg]

Not that I'm defending what's pretty obviously random and hapazard statements, but consistently being worth a fraction of one win per season isn't that far off from repacement level. And I'd make the case that it's justifiable to have a general policy of not paying free agent rates for 0.7 wins/year.

$3-4 Million is not the free agent rate for 0.7 wins. Especially factoring in that it is only a one year commitment. It would be nice if we had a Matusz replacement making the minimum but we don't and if Matusz was a free agent he would certainly get more than 1/$3.4M.

[DrungoHazewood]

$3-4 Million is not the free agent rate for 0.7 wins. Especially factoring in that it is only a one year commitment. It would be nice if we had a Matusz replacement making the minimum but we don't and if Matusz was a free agent he would certainly get more than 1/$3.4M.

That's close. At $7M/win $5M would be the rate. But I woudn't pay it. I'd have a spring competition among generic lefties and save $4M.

[MurphDogg]

That's close. At $7M/win $5M would be the rate. But I woudn't pay it. I'd have a spring competition among generic lefties and save $4M.

Yeah, I definitely get the logic of not paying non-elite relievers, but on a one-year deal I have no problem with a guy who has a 3.16 ERA, a 1.17 WHIP, 9.7 K/rate and a 3.18 K/BB rate as a reliever. I would rather spend the extra 3 million instead of trotting out generic lefties in spring training.

[DrungoHazewood]

Yeah, I definitely get the logic of not paying non-elite relievers, but on a one-year deal I have no problem with a guy who has a 3.16 ERA, a 1.17 WHIP, 9.7 K/rate and a 3.18 K/BB rate as a reliever. I would rather spend the extra 3 million instead of trotting out generic lefties in spring training.

The median numbers among relievers with 40+ IP in 2015 were:

ERA: 3.16

BB/9: 2.92

K/9: 8.52

HR/9: 0.76

fWAR: 0.5

LI: 1.23

That's Brian Matusz, average MLB reliever. Except his HR rate was higher, walk rate higher, and had an LI when entereing the game of 1.05 so he was used in less-leveraged situations than average.

[MurphDogg]

The median numbers among relievers with 40+ IP in 2015 were:

ERA: 3.16

BB/9: 2.92

K/9: 8.52

HR/9: 0.76

fWAR: 0.5

LI: 1.23

That's Brian Matusz, average MLB reliever. Except his HR rate was higher, walk rate higher, and had an LI when entereing the game of 1.05 so he was used in less-leveraged situations than average.

Average relievers typically aren't showing up in spring training fighting for roster spots. It is possible that a handful of guys who end up with those numbers don't have guaranteed spots going into spring training, but there is no way of knowing who amongst those types of players end up as average relievers and who will end up released in May and never reach 40 innings in relief to qualify as an average reliever. I'm not suggesting Matusz is an above-average reliever. I just prefer the devil I know.

Also that is a lot of parsing of stats to suggest that Matusz is potentially below average. If he had given up one fewer home run he would have a better than average HR rate, so it isn't like we are dealing with massive sample sizes. Given Matusz's 3 and a half years as an average reliever, I have more faith in him remaining an average reliever than plugging and playing guys off the scrap heap.

[DrungoHazewood]

Average relievers typically aren't showing up in spring training fighting for roster spots. It is possible that a handful of guys who end up with those numbers don't have guaranteed spots going into spring training, but there is no way of knowing who amongst those types of players end up as average relievers and who will end up released in May and never reach 40 innings in relief to qualify as an average reliever. I'm not suggesting Matusz is an above-average reliever. I just prefer the devil I know.

Also that is a lot of parsing of stats to suggest that Matusz is potentially below average. If he had given up one fewer home run he would have a better than average HR rate, so it isn't like we are dealing with massive sample sizes. Given Matusz's 3 and a half years as an average reliever, I have more faith in him remaining an average reliever than plugging and playing guys off the scrap heap.

It's small change in the overall picture, especially if we're in a brave new world of $20M contract offers to Cespedes/Upton/Davis. But hard to shift from the "we traded Chad Bradford for cash to sign a pick" mode.

[Frobby]

The median numbers among relievers with 40+ IP in 2015 were:

ERA: 3.16

BB/9: 2.92

K/9: 8.52

HR/9: 0.76

fWAR: 0.5

LI: 1.23

That's Brian Matusz, average MLB reliever. Except his HR rate was higher, walk rate higher, and had an LI when entereing the game of 1.05 so he was used in less-leveraged situations than average.

Just because the median numbers of that group are close to Matusz's doesn't mean those guys are easy to find. There are an awful lot of guys who pitched less than 40 innings, because they were tried and failed. I see 161 relievers who threw at least 40 innings, and another 213 who threw 10-39.2, and another 191 who threw under 10. The average reliever ERA was 3.71, so those guys who threw 40+ innings and had an ERA of 3.16 or better are in the upper tier.