The Great Tillman Debate

[Dr. FLK]

If we don't call him up until mid June, we'll get an extra year of service time (assuming he doesn't spend any more time in the minors once he's called up).

He'd have to have 181 total days of service or less to be at only 0.181 years as opposed to 1.000 years after 2010. He had 68 days of service last year, so if he gets 113 days of service or less this year, we'll get an extra season before he's a free agent. Oct 3rd is the last day of the season, so 113 days before that is June 13th. So if we call him up on June 13th or later, we'll get an extra year. June 12th or earlier, and his status won't be affected.

1. How does 181 days equate to 0.181 years? Is this like 2 outs = 0.2 IP?

2. What is the significance of 181 days of service time?

[Mackus]

1. How does 181 days equate to 0.181 years? Is this like 2 outs = 0.2 IP?

2. What is the significance of 181 days of service time?

Its just the nomenclature for how the years and days are written. 0.150 means 0 years and 150 days, 2.040 means 2 years and 40 days, etc.

I made a mistake, its actually 171 and 172 that are the significant numbers. So back that date off to June 23rd.

MLB considers 172 days of service a full year. A full season, from Opening Day to the last day, is usually in the 180-183ish range. But, if you accumulate 172 days on a MLB roster or DL, you get credit for a full year. You can't get more than one year in one year, so if you're on the roster for every day, you still get 1.000 years of service, not 1.010 or anything like that.

So if you have 171 days of service time, you don't get credit for a full year, and could fall short of free agency. Days across multiple years are just added up, so a young guy who rides the elevator a lot between AAA and MLB for a couple years might only have 150 or so days despite playing in parts of 2 or 3 or more seasons. Before he got to Baltimore, Luke Scott was an example of this. He played in parts of 2005, 2006, and 2007 but only had 144 days of service time across the 3 years.