Left-hander Drew Smyly and his agents at Frontline Athlete Management have won their arbitration hearing against the Rays, reports Jon Heyman (on Twitter). Because of the arbitration panel’s ruling, Smyly will earn $3.75MM in 2016 as opposed to the $3.2MM figure that had been submitted by the team.
This will be Smyly’s second trip through the arbitration process. As a Super Two player, he landed a $2.65MM salary last offseason and will be eligible for arbitration twice more before qualifying for free agency. Because his future salaries will be based off of his 2016 salary, that fact that he received the higher of the two possible sums in this hearing means that not only will he receive a greater salary in 2016, but his future salaries, too, will be based on a considerably more favorable launching point.
The sum in question at the hearing may seem relatively trivial to onlookers, although as several GMs and assistant GMs explained to MLBTR last year at this time, teams feel a responsibility to manage the arbitration market, as it is shared by all 30 clubs. Because all arbitration cases are built on recent historical comparables, the slight increases would eventually compound and become more significant were every team simply to give in to what appear, on the surface, to be relatively trivial amounts.
Smyly should be proud being the first player to win in arb against the Rays.
Why always generically talk about a “higher launching point” than just say how much more he will end up making as a result of the win? He will make $575,000 more this season and each of the following two seasons (assuming he remains good enough to be tendered a contract) than if he had lost this hearing. Whether he sees raises of $1m or $5m in subsequent arbitration years, the result of this hearing is that he will make $1,725,000 more in arbitration than had he lost.
That’s not necessarily true because his $3.75 M salary for 2016 is not an accurate reflection of his value since a player who goes to a hearing almost always gets more/less than what he was actually worth.
A player coming off an arbitration award (as opposed to someone who avoids arbitration with a 1 year deal) gets treated differently.
That’s just not how it works so that’s why they don’t say it that way?