It’s a given that if we are going to discuss baseball salaries that logic gets tossed out the window. You would be hard put to describe another industry where you labor for slave’s wages for anywhere from one to ten years and then, if you are good enough, start to make logarithmically higher sums.
Your humble blogger works with a man whose nephew was a 28th round draft pick back in 2009. The young player worked his way up the ladder and was traded from one organization to another. He has pitched a bit in the majors but like Eric Campbell, Johnny Monel, and many others he has settled into a quadruple-A career. Over the years my coworker and I have discussed the irony of how the young man would make a mere pittance in the minors and then as he surfaced in the Show his salary would balloon. A player in his first exposure at the double-A level makes about $1700 per month. So a six month season pays a player about $10,000 total. But on the road there is the $25 per day meal allowance to help a tiny bit.
When the player reaches triple-A he gets a raise but he starts at $2150 per month. That’s better but still chicken feed when compared to the major league minimum salary which is now just a bit above $500,000 per year. These numbers blow my mind.
One of the brightest young star pitchers the Mets have is Jacob deGrom, a 9th round selection in 2010. He spent 2/3 of the 2014 season in the majors and was paid at the major league minimum for the time he was in the bigs. You know how impressive he was as he won the NL Rookie of the Year Award.
Last year, his first full one in the majors, deGrom was given a salary of $557,000 by the Mets who legally had the right to pay him anything they wanted at or above the major league minimum.
He was awesome in 2015 pitching to a 2.54 ERA while hurling 191 innings. He made the All-Star team and was seventh in the Cy Young Award voting. His WAR (wins above replacement player) was 5.2 which is very high.
Since he is still a few years short of arbitration eligibility the team again could award him a salary of their choosing and they chose $607,000. And while that salary seems astronomical to us non-major league baseball players it is really the tiniest of bumps when the player sees teammates like Ruben Tejada (whose projected WAR for the season is a puny 0.3) making $3,000,000.
Such is the way this screwy system works. Then arbitration starts tilting the bar in the players’ direction until finally free agency gives the players the ultimate hammer. So we see oddities like deGrom at 600 grand, Tejada at 3 mill, and free agent prize Yoenis Cespedes making at least $25 million (add 2 more mill if he does the opt out at season’s end).
In an act of passive aggression deGrom has opted to not sign the contract the Mets have given him and legally he does not have to. Whether he signs it or not that $607,000 is what he will make.
He says he understands that this is just business and that he harbors no hard feelings. I believe he is being politically correct but have to wonder whether this will ultimately affect where he plays once his free agency looms.
In 2021 when he can become a free agent he may receive an offer from the Dodgers, Yanks, Angels, Cubs or elsewhere offering him a five year deal for, let’s say, $125 million. The Mets, always in economic turmoil and normally reticent to offer long term deals, might counter with three years for $72 million or maybe four years for $96 mill.
At that point he will have to weigh a lot of factors. Where does he want to play? How happy has he been in NY and as a Met? How well does he feel he has been treated by the front office?
It’s possible that he would look back to the time when he was assigned a salary well short of what he felt his services were worth.
Of course, we do not know what number would have flipped the frown to a smile. Would he have been happy/satisfied at $800,000 or would it take $1 million, 1.5 mill or more?
In defense of the team they may have stretched their budget to its upper limit when they bumped their payroll from about $115 million to $140 million in inking Cespedes.
One can only hope that Jeff Wilpon wasn’t penny wise but pound foolish in giving one of their star pitchers just a token raise.
It’s business, whoever has control at the time uses it. Certainly, once Jacob has control, he’s not going to give the Mets the hometown discount. That said, he’s already indicated he wants to stay and they could still wirk out a long term deal before he hits arbitration and free agency.
Stupid decision by deGrom to bring this issue up and shows that he isn’t very smart and understand how the system works.
Besides, he should be focusing his efforts at the union and not the team. If he wants to make change, then become the player’s union rep for the team and bring up the issue at their meetings.
“You never get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate”.
I have no idea why this was made public. Hopefully this does not impact future negotiations between deGrom and the Mets.
Arbitration doesn’t tilt things towards the player – it means the owners get to screw the players less than before. After 2015, Matt Harvey was in his first year of arbitration and settled for a $4.3 million deal. Considering his open market value would be at least $20 million, that’s still a much more favorable outcome for ownership.
Agree with Name that there’s nothing to be gained for JDG by making this public.
IM sure the owners would gladly offer more to the 1-3 guys if they didnt have to shell out 20M$ on Jason Worth or Jason Bay or Bobby Bo for doing zero. For most 20 somethings would clamor just to finally get a shot in the Show, then all the sudden want to be treated as a FA while they are controlled. Its ridiculous to argue. If the Mets wanted to make incentives as part of the pre-arb process, then fine, but complaining about the contract you signed is stupid.
It would certainly be a different dynamic if players were FA earlier. But I don’t think it would eliminate too long & too many year contracts to veterans. You’re far from the only one who doesn’t trust young guys.
Everything is relative. JDG being upset about only making 607K is ridiculous to those of us who live paycheck to paycheck and hate the months with 31 days in it. But I’d much rather see JDG get paid what he’s worth than for the money to go to the owners.
It’s stupid for JDG to complain about the contract but that’s because it’s a no-win situation for him – not because he’s wrong. You’ve got to pick your battles and this is simply one not worth fighting. At least not in public.
“But I’d much rather see JDG get paid what he’s worth than for the money to go to the owners.”
Well, no. If you raise the minimum salary or let salaries escalate earlier, teams are still going to have the same payroll level because if you give extra to the smaller earners, they are going to take that off the top earners.
Unless deGrom just completely doesn’t understand how the baseball salary system works in that you are underpaid to start and then overpaid at the end of your career (or if what he really wants is just higher salaries all-around), what his argument should be is that he wants to change the timing of his earnings.
Instead of earning 500k 3 years, then 5m, 10m, 15m, and 20m for another 5 years for a total of 131.5m, he would like higher salaries earlier, and so maybe something like 500k year 1, then 2m, 5m, 7m, 12m, and 17.5m for the final 6 years which is still 131.5m total but higher salaries in the beginning (and less towards the end)
That’s theoretical.
It could be that it would be the abolishment of the middle class of pay raises, that it would encourage more “stars and stiffs” clubs. The only thing we can say for sure is that Marvin Miller thought it would be bad for players overall if everyone was a free agent at once – that it would flood the market with talent.
To be fair, he said starts to tilt the bar. 90% of the time (the other 10% are non-tendered), year 1 is still an underpay, that percentage goes down in year 2 and even more so in year 3.
I wonder what would happen if the reverse, the team coming out and publicly saying a player is overpaid and not wanting to pay them, were to happen.
Harvey’s getting paid less than 20% of what he’s worth. There’s tilt in this equation but it most certainly isn’t in Harvey’s direction.
To exaggerate to make a point – if I punch you in the face 10 hours a day and then drop down to punching you 8 hours a day, I don’t think you would describe that as tilting in your direction.
I guess you’re interpreting tilting as “favoring” while i view it more as “heading”
Certainly, Harvey’s contract is still “favoring” the Mets, but is “heading” in Harvey’s direction.
I think there needs to be some type of “equality” for tilting to be a viable construct. If two basketball teams are playing, and the score is 60-50 and then the losing teams reels off six straight points — I think it’s fair to say that tilting is an appropriate term. In the basketball game, both teams are playing on the same surface, the dimensions are the same on both sides of the court and they are shooting at baskets the same height.
There’s no equality at play when the system that’s set up makes it impossible for players of different service time to be on the same footing. It’s not “tilting” but rather not being exploited to the same degree.
Should the Mets pay him more? Sure, why not? It’s not my money.
Of course, the imposed salary structure for players with limited service time is the driving force behind the long-term contracts at seemingly team-friendly terms. I would very much like to see the Mets parlay Jacob’s desire to see a little more a lot sooner, into such a deal.
This is a non-issue. David Wright did the same thing in 2005, Derek Jeter in 1997. It means nothing.
Is he worth more? Obviously. Should the Mets pay him more? Meh. As others have already stated, this is how the system is built. Unfortunately for deGrom, his career path means that he’ll be on the (relatively) older side when he finally hits free agency. Such is life. Still, he’s going to get paid well before that. If he continues to perform the way he has, or even better, his arbitration raises will be pretty significant. Still not what he’s ultimately been worth, but this is how it is at this point.
This article in Today’s Knuckleball touches a bit on the deGrom contract situation and his symbolic protest.
http://www.todaysknuckleball.com/around-the-diamonds/evaluating-contract-situations-jake-arrieta-jacob-degrom-jose-bautista/