Re: 2023 Rule Changes
Reply #2 –
I am a bit concerned about the changes to the arbitration system. I can understand the concern that just using the previous year's WAR might not fully reflect the "true" value of a player, but this change seems to swing too far in the opposite direction. I don't have the chart from previous years, but I'm more concerned about the inflation in the upper end of the scale. I'm guessing the highest starting salary in the first year of arbitration was around $4 million (given that Juan Soto's salary is $4 million in his first year and that's based on a WAR of 7.0), and now a player like Soto would get an initial offer of $7 million. The idea of arbitration was to mimic arbitration, where the salaries start to move towards what a player gets in free agency, and this adjustment seems just a bit too much.
I understand the concern of some GMs about free agency and pushing more players into free agency quickly. However, I think the arbitration system has been working well as is. Teams that have been good at drafting minor leaguers do get a benefit from that skill, but as I can attest and I think Brendt can now attest to, this is a double-edged sword. Arbitration can really tie the hands and salary cap of a team, which is an indication that teams aren't getting cheap talent. For example, this past off-season, instead of going to arbitration with Lindor, I declined arbitration and then resigned him at a price that was cheaper than arbitration. I have a feeling that increasing the starting values of arbitration will push more teams to do what I did with Lindor, which could be the CO's desire; although I'm not sure if everyone would agree with that.
I guess a comparison of how the old and new system would affect salaries would be nice to see what the true impact of this is, so we can better judge this change.