MLB Spring Injuries and Concerns.

[CaptainRedbeard]

How is that not being compensated based on past performance?

He has a big year, the next year he makes more money.

Looks like you just want to expedite the process for the player.

That's exactly my point - the next year he didn't get the money. He got three years of league minimum salary. In an ideally fair world, you'd get a check at the end of the season based on how well you did that year. There are obvious systematic reasons why it doesn't work that way, but the closest you get to that is when you get your first arbitration salary, extension, or FA contract.

Ideally, payment should be compensation for the value past performance rather than payment for projected future performance (as a function of past performance). In most situations it doesn't really matter because a player sticks around and it evens out. But if you get hurt like Parker did, you don't reach arbitration, you don't get paid for future performance, and you end up never getting paid for your past performance either.

[Can_of_corn]

That's exactly my point - the next year he didn't get the money. He got three years of league minimum salary. In an ideally fair world, you'd get a check at the end of the season based on how well you did that year. There are obvious systematic reasons why it doesn't work that way, but the closest you get to that is when you get your first arbitration salary, extension, or FA contract.

Ideally, payment should be compensation for the value past performance rather than payment for projected future performance (as a function of past performance). In most situations it doesn't really matter because a player sticks around and it evens out. But if you get hurt like Parker did, you don't reach arbitration, you don't get paid for future performance, and you end up never getting paid for your past performance either.

All you are doing is moving more money from owners to players.

My guess is that players almost always have a chance to lower their risk by signing a long term contract. Do you think his team would have flatly refused a request for a long term deal after his big season?

I don't see anyone, ever, feeling sad for owners when they fork over large sums of money to a guy that blows out his shoulder six starts into a six year contract.

[CaptainRedbeard]

It is unfair that only 700 guys at a time are good enough and healthy enough to get paid the union wages. But that is how it goes. I was watching a lottery commercial that talked about winning a 1000 dollars every day. MLB minimum is 150% of that.

That's a bit different, it's certainly a crapshoot for those players on the fringe but at least whether they make it or not is somewhat determined by their ability. Some do and some don't and there's a degree of luck in that. But with Parker's situation, he actually DID make it, far beyond the level on league minimum-type performance, and he never saw a dime for that value that he produced.

Hypothetical: In Mike Trout's first two years, he put up a 20.8 fWAR. If he got hurt in spring training of his third year and never played baseball again, don't you think it'd be unfair that he only made the league minimum salary for two seasons? Parker's situation is just a less extreme version of that. It'd be less unfair, but its the same type of unfairness.

[CaptainRedbeard]

All you are doing is moving more money from owners to players.

My guess is that players almost always have a chance to lower their risk by signing a long term contract. Do you think his team would have flatly refused a request for a long term deal after his big season?

I don't see anyone, ever, feeling sad for owners when they fork over large sums of money to a guy that blows out his shoulder six starts into a six year contract.

Yes, I don't think the A's would have signed him to an extension after his second season, given they had 4 years of control and wouldn't have wanted to commit to a 5+ year contract for a starting pitcher, particularly one who'd already had TJS. The type of contract that would have made sense for the A's, if Parker was extremely risk averse and willing to take it, would have been the type that agents and the MLBPA staunchly oppose and one never would have come to fruition.

I don't see your point on how the money is distributed between owners and players is relevant. I'm talking about how the money is distributed to players relative to other players. How much money the players or owners make out of the big pot of money that MLB produces isn't part of it.

[Can_of_corn]

Yes, I don't think the A's would have signed him to an extension after his second season, given they had 4 years of control and wouldn't have wanted to commit to a 5+ year contract for a starting pitcher, particularly one who'd already had TJS. The type of contract that would have made sense for the A's, if Parker was extremely risk averse and willing to take it, would have been the type that agents and the MLBPA staunchly oppose and one never would have come to fruition.

I don't see your point on how the money is distributed between owners and players is relevant. I'm talking about how the money is distributed to players relative to other players. How much money the players or owners make out of the big pot of money that MLB produces isn't part of it.

If the 2-4 year players are getting more than someone else will be getting less.

I also think that the A's would have been foolish to refuse to extend him under favorable terms. I think you are just dismissing the possibility since it hurts your argument.

[CaptainRedbeard]

If the 2-4 year players are getting more than someone else will be getting less.

I also think that the A's would have been foolish to refuse to extend him under favorable terms. I think you are just dismissing the possibility since it hurts your argument.

The A's would have extended him under favorable terms, certainly. My point is that they would have been so favorable for it to not be feasible for Parker's agent & MLBPA to want to sign off on it. The system is not set up for young players to get to choose if they desire to be especially risk averse. Parker had had serious injury issues in the past, and he declined in performance from his rookie year to his second season. You don't usually see extensions that don't cover FA seasons, so the A's would have to be committing at least 4 years + option years. It's not out of the realm of possibility but it's just not realistic at that point. I doubt there was even a whisper about an extension.

I think it would be much more fair if the 2-4 year players got more and late career players would be getting less. That's exactly what I'm saying. It won't ever change, and a big reason is that very few players get hurt by the system to the degree that Parker was.

[weams]

That's a bit different, it's certainly a crapshoot for those players on the fringe but at least whether they make it or not is somewhat determined by their ability. Some do and some don't and there's a degree of luck in that. But with Parker's situation, he actually DID make it, far beyond the level on league minimum-type performance, and he never saw a dime for that value that he produced.

Hypothetical: In Mike Trout's first two years, he put up a 20.8 fWAR. If he got hurt in spring training of his third year and never played baseball again, don't you think it'd be unfair that he only made the league minimum salary for two seasons? Parker's situation is just a less extreme version of that. It'd be less unfair, but its the same type of unfairness.

I think most union employment is compensated better on longevity than on ability. Once you exhibit the skill set to join the union.

[weams]

Hypothetical: In Mike Trout's first two years, he put up a 20.8 fWAR. If he got hurt in spring training of his third year and never played baseball again, don't you think it'd be unfair that he only made the league minimum salary for two seasons? Parker's situation is just a less extreme version of that. It'd be less unfair, but its the same type of unfairness.

Call me stupid, but I see nothing wrong with that. Or with the Angel and Brewers paying for Pujols and Braun.

[Can_of_corn]

The A's would have extended him under favorable terms, certainly. My point is that they would have been so favorable for it to not be feasible for Parker's agent & MLBPA to want to sign off on it. The system is not set up for young players to get to choose if they desire to be especially risk averse. Parker had had serious injury issues in the past, and he declined in performance from his rookie year to his second season. You don't usually see extensions that don't cover FA seasons, so the A's would have to be committing at least 4 years + option years. It's not out of the realm of possibility but it's just not realistic at that point. I doubt there was even a whisper about an extension.

I think it would be much more fair if the 2-4 year players got more and late career players would be getting less. That's exactly what I'm saying. It won't ever change, and a big reason is that very few players get hurt by the system to the degree that Parker was.

Like Longoria's contract? Like Archer's?

If Archer blew his arm out after his rookie year he would have had 25.5M in the bank.

It is risk reward, players can mitigate the risk by lowering the potential reward.

Or do you think the A's wouldn't have agreed to an Archer style deal?

[CaptainRedbeard]

Call me stupid, but I see nothing wrong with that. Or with the Angel and Brewers paying for Pujols and Braun.

I think it'd be pretty unfair that he would have been paid $1 million to produce roughly $150 million in value and never make another dime while guys like John Axford and Jonathan Broxton pulled in $10 million and $7.5 million guaranteed this offseason.

[weams]

I think it'd be pretty unfair that he would have been paid $1 million to produce roughly $150 million in value and never make another dime while guys like John Axford and Jonathan Broxton pulled in $10 million and $7.5 million guaranteed this offseason.

I think he was pretty lucky to get the opportunity to have a HOF career and a great extended contract because of his production. Just a different take. Olympic athletes get paid post production as well. So do College football greats.

[CaptainRedbeard]

Like Longoria's contract? Like Archer's?

If Archer blew his arm out after his rookie year he would have had 25.5M in the bank.

It is risk reward, players can mitigate the risk by lowering the potential reward.

Or do you think the A's wouldn't have agreed to an Archer style deal?

I don't think they would have. I think the Rays have demonstrated they have a much larger appetite for taking on those types of extensions than other teams, even the A's. I don't think every talented young player has a standing offer on the table to take an extension, especially pitchers. The way you make it sound is that a player can put up a good rookie year and then they have immediate hypothetically guaranteed money on the table, but I just don't think that's how it works, at least not for all players.

Pitchers are a different animal than position players, their pre-arb extensions are much rarer because they are much riskier to extend for that long. Parker didn't come back from TJS until 2011 and his rookie season was 2012. Archer has never had TJS. At no point before Parker's second injury do I think the A's would have considered extending him for a contract that ever could have happened.

Even assuming Parker would have been offered a bargain rate extension, which I highly doubt was the case, I think it's silly to suggest that you shouldn't feel bad for him because he made a rational decision not to accept one. There's a reason that so few of these long pre-arb SP extensions exist. They're risky for the club but also risky in terms of opportunity cost for the player, and the system is set up to disincentivize players from taking that risk because it's bad for player salaries. The system is still unfair in that it sets up that type of choice.

[Can_of_corn]

If you don't think, that the A's would have jumped at an Archer style extension than I don't think we have enough common ground to continue this discussion. I think every team in baseball would jump at the chance at that kind of deal, even the O's.

The A's spent 10M on one year of Jim Johnson, they gave Butler 3/30.

I think the player would be the one to say no.

[weams]

Kyle Schwarber exits game with injured knee.

[CaptainRedbeard]

If you don't think, that the A's would have jumped at an Archer style extension than I don't think we have enough common ground to continue this discussion. I think every team in baseball would jump at the chance at that kind of deal, even the O's.

The A's spent 10M on one year of Jim Johnson, they gave Butler 3/30.

I think the player would be the one to say no.

I said at the end of my last post that even if that is the case, you can't expect a player to want to incur the opportunity costs associated with such a contract. That's much easier to say with 20/20 hindsight. For one reason or another, multi-year extensions for pitchers with 1 or 2 years service time are exceedingly rare.

Either teams don't want to give them or players don't want to take them. No matter how you approach the issue, if a player like Parker ends up out of the game severely under-compensated relative to his peers, you can't blame him and say it's his fault that he didn't take a cut-rate extension. The system is designed in such a way that they don't make sense, otherwise they'd be occurring far more frequently.

Just because Parker hypothetically could have signed on for a bigger payday, that doesn't mean that he could have been expected to, and it doesn't change the fact that nearly every other similarly situated player who performs well in their first two years and then falls out of the league ends up with pennies on the dollar for their contribution.

I'm not advocating changing the system. I just think it's silly to say they're not getting a raw deal when players like Parker end up providing serious value and not getting commensurate compensation. It's the reason the "Tim Lincecum" rule for arbitration salaries exists - there's at least some recognition of the imbalance here with pre-FA salaries. Just on a smaller scale with cases like Parker's.