Before I dive into this story, I wanted to give you a little background on the situation. Back in 1974 Major League Baseball created what we now know as, “baseball arbitration.” If an eligible player and their organization can’t reach an agreement on the players salary, the situation is most likely to lead to arbitration. In this event both parties will enter a final submission for their desired salary to an neutral third party arbitration panel. After each side makes their argument, the panel would then choose one of the salary bids with no other result being allowed. Players are basically separated into three different categories, pre-arbitration players, players eligible for arbitration and free agents. Now an organization has the contractual rights to a player until that player has registered six years of service time, after that, they become free agents. A pre-arbitration player generally will have less than three years of service time, while any player between that three and the six year mark, become eligible for arbitration. During those first three years of a pre-arbitration, a player usually make around the major league minimum ($563,500). Once a player eclipses that three year mark, they are able to enter arbitration. This is meant to benefit both sides. The player now has some leverage to earn a salary that is more corespondent to their performance, while organizations, even though the players salary will increase, it’s usually lower than what the player would earn if they were a free agent.
Okay now that you have a little background on how the system works, let’s get into Jack Flaherty’s case. Flaherty was arguably one of the best pitchers last year post all-star break. In fifteen of his starts, he posted a ridiculous 0.91 ERA, allowing opponents to a .424 OPS, and averaging nearly seven innings per game. He was one of the main reasons the Cardinals won the National League Central division. According to Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Flaherty will only be earning $604,500 this season, despite being one of the best players at his craft. Here’s the worst part, Flaherty’s salary was reduced by $10,000 as punishment for him failing to agree to terms with the Cardinals. This is the second year in a row that he has received penalization for not accepting their initial offer. Flaherty isn’t the only star player to receive such a treatment. The year after winning the 2018 Cy Young Award, Rays pitcher Blake Snell had his contract renewed for around the league minimum. The Rays stated that they couldn’t make exceptions for Cy Young winners when it came to their pay system. When teams renew contracts for pre-arbitration players they basically can dictate how much they want to pay you, as long as they don’t reduce their pay by 20% from the previous year or 30% from the year before last. Many young players are realizing that no matter how much they contribute to their team, during their pre-arbitration years they many never see the money they are actual worth for their production.
Oh and thank you Eric Sim for giving us a little background as to what Flaherty went through before putting up those numbers in the bigs. You would think a guy that paid his dues in the organization after grinding for all years, after thinking about giving it up, who kept pushing to ultimately lead your team to win the NL Central would be compensated accordingly. And I really thought Danny Vietti put an interesting perspective on it. Imagine being one of your companies best employees, seeking an increase in salary but not coming to agreement, and getting a pay cut because you didn’t agree to their salary terms. It’s definitely interesting to think about if these superstars are more inclined to head to free agency once they are eligible and leave the teams they grew up with because they were never fairly compensated for their production.
The Washed Up Athlete 