Maybe the Angels could do a three-year, $45-50 million pact with Trout. Votto's salary would have risen from there, so what the Reds did was buy a bigger package for cheap rather than a small package for cheap. This was instead of the $7-ish million Maury Brown floated as a possible first-time arbitration payout. The Reds did that with a three-year, $38 million extension that paid Votto an average of $12.66 million per year. One thing the Angels might try to do is copy what the Cincinnati Reds did with Joey Votto in 2011: Just buy out three arbitration years in one fell swoop. I guess this puts us in best-guess territory. What would have been a relevant arbitration case for Trout was nixed.ĭarn. The Pirates inked McCutchen to a six-year, $51.5 million contract in March of 2012, buying out his final pre-arb year, all three arbitration years and two free-agent years in the process. But by that time, he was already taken care of. 327 average, 29 homers, 20 stolen bases, 96 RBI, an All-Star appearance, a Gold Glove and a top-five MVP finish. McCutchen would have been in line for quite the payday given what he did in 2012: a. The Pittsburgh Pirates star was heading into his final pre-arb season in 2012, at the end of which his service time was going to be somewhere in the 3.000 (years, days) range, the same place Trout is going to be after 2014. Like Trout, McCutchen is a center fielder with a good ability to get on base, good power, good speed and a good glove. We'd be having a different discussion if there was a recent and relevant test case for Trout, but there's only one that might have been: Andrew McCutchen. Not unless the arbitration panel were to play against type and buy into Trout's sabermetric excellence. Point being: Trout may be looking to beat Howard's payout this time next year, but using Howard as a comp to do so might not work. Nor will Trout have the 129 homers and 353 RBI Howard had at the time. The 27-homer, 83-RBI season Trout is projected to have in 2014 would pale in comparison to Howard's 2007 season. What he won't have are old-school counting stats to match the ones Howard had in 2008. He might have an MVP by the time he goes to arbitration. The year before that, he won the Rookie of the Year. The year before, he had won the NL MVP after leading the league in homers (58) and RBI (149). At the time, he was coming off a 47-homer, 136-RBI season in 2007. Thus is it not surprising that Howard holds the record for a first-time arbitration payout.
The more of those a player has, the better.
Other things that help in arbitration: awards and honors. What you get are the traditional stats, with the likes of OPS and WHIP just now making its way into the arbitration panel vernacular. Here's Maury Brown of writing for FanGraphs in 2010: Because the arbitration process ultimately could be determined by a panel of arbitrators, not of a baseball background but from the American Arbitration Association, no advanced stats are used to compare players. Ken Rosenthal made a point of comparing WARs in discussing Trout and Howard, but it wouldn't be in an arbitration panel's character to do something like that. In regards to the first two, if we dial up FanGraphs and plug in what Steamer is projecting for Trout in 2014, we get: The recent performance record of the player's club.The existence of any physical or mental defects.The record of the player's past compensation.The length and consistency of the player's career contribution.The quality of the player's most recent season.Here are the criteria for determining arbitration payouts as laid down by MLB's collective bargaining agreement: In such a way that it could be tricky for Trout to top Howard's $10 million payout if his case were to actually go to arbitration. Howard had power, but Trout has power, the ability to hit for average, steal bases, play excellent defense and to see through walls (probably). Beyond being younger-Trout will be through his age-22 season, whereas Howard was through his age-27 season-Trout is the superior player. Thinking more conservatively, Ken Rosenthal of floated $12 million as a possibility. The thinking is that Trout, who right now is only entitled to the league minimum of $500,000, is destined to shatter the record payout of $10 million for a first-time arbitration-eligible player set by Ryan Howard in 2008.īill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times spoke to a source who floated $15 million as a possibility.
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