Track the salaries of Major League Baseball players and what many fans don't realize becomes perfectly clear. There is a scale and escalation involved that goes well beyond how a player performs, particularly the the pre-arbitration and arbitration years. So when Ryan Howard broke the bank in 2008 with a $10,000,000 arbitration award when he was just a Super Two player (Super Two relates to the small percentage of Arbitration Eligible players under 3 years of Major League Service Time), he received way more than had previously given to that class of player. His salary of $15,000,000 this year does the same for a Year 3 player in his 2nd year of arbitration. But just how does the scale look and how does it escalate. For players under one year of Major League Service time (the days up to 172 that a player is on the Major League roster or injured reserve), the average salary for 2009 is $436,185, not including veteran Japan League players in their first year of service. By the time a player reaches 1.000 of MLST, this jumps 12.5% to $490,894. Once a player reaches full free agency at 6.000 MLST, the escalators continue to rise through year 11.000, reaching a peak of $9,140,064 for the 18 players in that service class. Listed below are the service classes and % increase over the class before. For the purpose of this study, veteran Japan League players are listed at no lower than 6.000 MLST, including their rookie years.
MLST (Years), Class - % Increase Over Previous
Under 1.000, Pre Arbitration - $436,185
1.000, Pre Arbitration - 12.5% Increase
2.000, Pre Arbitration - 13.4% Increase
2.140, Arbitration - 321.6% increase
4.000, Arbitration - 28.1% increase
5.000, Arbitration - 63.3% increase
6.000, Free Agent - 16.8% increase
7.000, Free Agent - 14.6% increase
8.000, Free Agent - 22.0% increase
9.000, Free Agent - 13.1% decrease
10.000, Free Agent - 2.1% increase
11.000, Free Agent - 28.5% increase
12.000+, Free Agent - -29.7% decrease
Salary source: USA Today Salary Database
MLST source: Cott's Salary Archive
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
It's history, baseball style. Check out our new book, Baseball's Best @ 150. Makes a great gift for the baseball fan. Comprehensive...
No comments:
Post a Comment