Arbitration Goodness
Looking at this post over at Biz of Baseball, I wanted to take my hand at predicting arbitration cases.
The one that seemed most interesting to me was Ryan Howard. He has the largest gap between the player and club offer and will get the highest raise of any player regardless how the case is decided.
Howard is asking the Phillies for $10 million and the club is only willing to pay $7. Another thing that interested me was that those figures are almost exactly what Albert Pujols and the Cardinals proposed four years ago.
Pujols lost that case despite hitting more than 40 home runs that year.
The first stumbling block for Howard is that his offer is so much higher than the club's. Since arbitration started more than 30 years ago 116 cases have been decided where the player had an offer more than 45 percent higher than the club. Players have won those cases nine times.
Howard comes in just under that mark at around 43 percent but I think those numbers show just how hard it is for a player to get closer to market value in arbitration. Matt Holiday recently opted for a 2-year, $23 million deal with the Rockies.
Pujols' case is the best comparable. In 2003, the year before his case, Pujols posted an 11.6 WARP and a line of .359/.439/.667. This last year Howard had a 6.4 WARP and hit .268/.392/.584. Pujols was second in the MVP voting and Howard was fifth.
The average player salary has gone up about 15 percent between 2004 and 2007, which would make Pujols' award just over $8 million now and probably more once the 2008 average comes in.
For now it looks as if Howard's best shot is to try and work out a deal with the Phillies before the case is decided.
The one that seemed most interesting to me was Ryan Howard. He has the largest gap between the player and club offer and will get the highest raise of any player regardless how the case is decided.
Howard is asking the Phillies for $10 million and the club is only willing to pay $7. Another thing that interested me was that those figures are almost exactly what Albert Pujols and the Cardinals proposed four years ago.
Pujols lost that case despite hitting more than 40 home runs that year.
The first stumbling block for Howard is that his offer is so much higher than the club's. Since arbitration started more than 30 years ago 116 cases have been decided where the player had an offer more than 45 percent higher than the club. Players have won those cases nine times.
Howard comes in just under that mark at around 43 percent but I think those numbers show just how hard it is for a player to get closer to market value in arbitration. Matt Holiday recently opted for a 2-year, $23 million deal with the Rockies.
Pujols' case is the best comparable. In 2003, the year before his case, Pujols posted an 11.6 WARP and a line of .359/.439/.667. This last year Howard had a 6.4 WARP and hit .268/.392/.584. Pujols was second in the MVP voting and Howard was fifth.
The average player salary has gone up about 15 percent between 2004 and 2007, which would make Pujols' award just over $8 million now and probably more once the 2008 average comes in.
For now it looks as if Howard's best shot is to try and work out a deal with the Phillies before the case is decided.
Labels: arbitration, Transactions
posted by Chris at
6:13 PM
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