The Giants are talking about starting Brandon Belt in the minor leagues this season.
Here we have a world-class pitching staff and a very ordinary offense that could be helped measurably by Belt. What’s so hard to figure out here?
This is why I would like to see the arbitration rules changed from service time to seasons played.
A second change to the CBA which I believe would raise salaries a bit would be the elimination of service time as the standard for arbitration and free agent eligibility. When arbitration first came into existence, a player needed three years of service time to qualify. Teams, however, quickly moved to keep players in the minors until they could not earn a full year of service time in a season. This allowed teams to get four years out of a youngster before they faced arbitration. Eventually, the union won super-two status for players who were in the majors for most of three seasons, but they still needed to wait until they accumulated six years of service time to become free agents. Basically, a team willing to give up a couple of months of a prospect’s time in the majors can control someone for seven years.
I propose the rule gets changed to honor the original spirit of the idea. Use the season as the basis for both arbitration and free agency. The first call-up prior to September, or the second September call-up starts the arbitration clock. That first qualified call-up counts as one season, even if the player is only in the majors for one day. This will take away any need for GMs to manipulate the arbitration clock. Once the clock starts, any call-up to the majors in a season counts as another year. After three seasons, the player goes to arbitration. After six seasons, he may become a free agent.
With a rule like that, there’s no reason not to bring up players like Buster Posey and Brandon Belt when they are ready.
I agree that something should be done about arbitration to prevent teams from holding back prospects.
But just because fans think a player is ready does not mean that he is.
For a really apt example, Giants fans thought that Posey was ready to start the season with the Giants in 2010. But he struggled to dominate AAA hitting that April, his MLE was in the low 700 while Molina had a 1000 OPS and leading the offense.
Posey then got hot for a week or two in May, cooled for a week before getting hot again and then brought up.
He was hot initially, but then struggled to hit for a couple of weeks in the majors, dropping to .695 OPS before figuring it out again. He wasn’t fully locked in until July.
I don’t see how anybody looking at that full detail could believe that Posey was fully ready with the bat when he joined the Giants, yet fans still persist in thinking that he was being held back.
For a better example of the fans not really being as good as they think, Matt Weiters was widely viewed as being held back when he was finally brought up, yet he was totally lost with the bat all that season until 2 weeks were left when he got hot, giving hope to the next season, but he again was lost offensively for the most part in 2010. Luckily the Orioles held back, they would be even more screwed if they had started the 2009 season with Weiters up.
Wouldn’t this eliminate the September call ups for most high level prospects? Or do you make an exception for that?
@Zippercat: The first September call up would not count.
David, I think your modified rule solves one problem while creating another one. What if a team feels a player is ready to be called up in August? Under today’s rules, the player would be called up. Under your modified rules, that player would likely be left in the minors to avoid wasting a whole year’s service time.
Why not let teams control each drafted player for a fixed number of years, whether the player is in the majors or minors? Then teams would have no reason to keep a major-league-ready player in the minors.