WTF?
Link:
Right-hander Kyle Lohse, who moved into the Cincinnati Reds' starting rotation down the stretch last season, agreed Tuesday to a one-year contract.
I thought he was supposed to go to arbitration. And win.
In other, less snark worthy news, the Twins arbitration numbers are in.
| Player | Club | Club Proposal | Player Proposal |
| Michael Cuddyer | MIN | $3M | $4.25M |
| Lew Ford | MIN | $800K | $1.3M |
| Joe Mauer | MIN | $3.3M | $4.5M |
| Justin Morneau | MIN | $4M | $5M |
| Nick Punto | MIN | $1.6M | $2.1M |
| Juan Rincon | MIN | $1.6M | $2.4M |
The Twins offered Mauer less than the Cubs offered Mark Prior. And Prior only asked for $3.8 million. The Twins are pretty far apart on Mauer, Morneau, and Cuddyer (especially Cuddyer). Although I doubt that the Twins will go to arbitration with Mauer and Morneau (but remember, they beat Santana the year before his Cy Young Award), if they do I think they will lose. The Cuddyer number is interesting and if he's not interested in splitting the difference, I don't know who would win.
If anyone else is shuddering just a little bit about the prospect of handing Nick Punto about $2 million, raise your hand.
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Beau
I think part of the reason we beat Santana is that he wasn't a full-time starter the entire year before, pitching only 158 innings. Mauer and Morneau were both healthy all year, played a lot of games, and were MVP worthy candidates.
I can't imagine Mauer not winning his case. Morneau would likely win it with the help of his MVP award, though I still believe Mauer's more valuable.
twayn
TR hasn't finished shopping the clearance racks, it seems. Matthew LeCroy is back with the team, signed to a minor league contract. If he makes the big squad, he'll get $500,000 next year. I'll always love LeCroy for his great quote after the catching debacle with the Nats last year that forced Frank Robinson to pull him from the game in the middle of an inning.
"I'd like to be better," said Matthew of his defensive prowess. "But if I was, I'd be a lot richer."
Matty is always good for a laugh, and an occassional long ball off of lefty relievers.
brianS
Why, exactly, is the club offering Morneau so much more than Mauer? And why is Joe asking for less? The u(mauer) > u(morneau) argument to the Twins (or almost any other club) would seem easy to make, MVP award be damned.
Beau
Off-topic. Johan Santana is already 10th place in career Cy Young shares. Five people ahead of him are still active. Does that mean there are less dominant pitchers these days, so the few exceptional ones stand out more?
ubelmann
If you want to really determine whether or not Mauer and Morneau will win their cases, you have to look at what players of comparable talent entering their first year of arbitration are making.
Take Grady Sizemore, for instance. According to Cot's Contracts, he signed "the largest deal ever for a player with less than two years of ML service." On that contract, Sizemore is scheduled to make $4.6M in what would be his first year of arbitration eligibility.
Eric Gagne won the NL Cy Young in 2003, and then lost in arbitration the following off-season, with proposals of $8M from Gagne's agent and $5M from the Dodgers. (That was also his first year of arbitration. There's a little more info on Gagne's case here.)
The way I see it, the club is low-balling Mauer and Morneau a bit, but $4M-$4.5M each isn't unreasonable given the salary structure in MLB. Hopefully, they'll just split the difference.
brianS
I dunno. "Losing" to get $5 million three years ago (Gagne), versus "winning" to get considerably less (both in real terms and relative to where the free-market price of talent has gone since 2003)? Looks like serious low-balling by the club and shyness by the agents.
ubelmann
Give me other comparable players then. Show me which first-year arbitration eligibles are making a lot more than $4.5M.
Moss
Are there any comparables? Are there any other arbitration-eligible AL MVPs or batting-champ catchers on the market?
Moss wouldn't be upset if the players win those cases or if they split the difference, but the team numbers do seem a bit low.
ubelmann
They only have to be similar in value--not specific details of how they acheived that value--and examples don't have to be limited to this year only.
brianS
I know we've had this conversation before. The CBA allows the negotiators to bring up ANYONE as a comp if they make a compelling case, even though it strongly suggests that only players within one year of the player's experience be used.
ubelmann
Right. In looking at rulings, it seems as though arbitration panels have a pretty high standard for what constitutes a compelling case for using players of different experience levels as comps. It's the price that the players pay for being unionized. Sure, some of their pay is based on merit, but at least for the first six years of their career, a lot of their salary is based strictly on seniority. For better or worse.
SDfan
Labor unions - the refuge of the lowest common denominator.
SBG
Just so you know... my dad was a member of a labor union for 30+ years and negotiated contracts for his local for over 20 years. As we speak, he's off at the state capitol as a lobbyist for labor interests in the area of workman's compensation. I don't think of him as a member of the LCD, but I do believe that the increased wages he received allowed him to put food on the table.
Rhubarb_Runner
There's going to be give-and-take from both sides on this one (and I think LCD is pretty harsh).
My dad was a school board member for 18 years, and I know the teachers' union sure made it near impossible to have an incompetent teacher removed. Common sense doesn't always enter into it, unfortunately.
ubelmann
At the same time, how many more bad teachers do you think there would be if teachers had even less job security and got paid worse than they do now? With the exception of a very few extremely well-run organizations, if you want better employees, you offer more money and get to select from a more qualified pool of applicants. (For instance, the Twins and the A's get away with this, but it would certainly be a lot easier for them to operate with the same payroll that the Angels, White Sox, and (now) Tigers are operating at.)
I was on the frustrated student side of the incompetent teacher issue a few times, but the alternative could be pretty bad, too.
Rhubarb_Runner
Like I said, there's two sides to this issue.