Guardians right-hander Tanner Bibee finished runner-up in this year’s American League Rookie of the Year balloting. While the honor went to Orioles infielder Gunnar Henderson, the runner-up placement is an important development for Bibee as he will earn a full year of service time for the 2023 campaign.
In order to disincentivize service time manipulation, the MLBPA and MLB agreed to include a prospect promotion incentive in the collective bargaining agreement that was agreed to prior to the 2022 campaign. As a result of the incentive, players with less than sixty days of service time entering the season receive a full year of service time if they finish in the top two of Rookie of the Year voting, so long as they were featured on at least two preseason Top-100 prospect lists from ESPN, Baseball America, and MLB Pipeline. Bibee met those qualifications, and as such will earn a full year of service time for the 2023 season despite making his big league debut near the end of April. That leaves Bibee likely set to hit free agency after the 2028 season as things stand.
It’s certainly exciting news for Bibee, 24, who looked like a potential front-of-the-rotation arm for the Guardians across 25 starts this season. The right-hander posted a 2.98 ERA that was 40% better than league average by measure of ERA+, alongside a 3.52 FIP that was 17% better than league average by measure of FIP- in 142 innings of work. Impressive as Bibee was during his first season in the majors, there were some potential red flags in his performance, perhaps most notably a whopping 80% strand rate that was ninth-best in the majors among pitchers with at least 120 innings of work this year. His 24.1% strikeout rate and 7.7% walk rate were both right around league average, but his exceptionally low 36.8% groundball rate could leave him vulnerable to major changes in his home-run-to-fly-ball fortunes, particularly if he struggles to replicate his exceptional 6.1% barrel rate.
Still, Bibee figures to be a mid-rotation or better arm for the Guardians going forward even if he’s unable to keep up the incredible production of his rookie season. With Bibee now a year closer to free agency than he otherwise would have been, he figures to have a considerable amount of additional leverage should the Guardians look to engage with him in extension talks. After all, Bibee now figures to hit free agency a few months before his 30th birthday, and free agents who hit the market younger than 30 tend to be in much better position to seek long term commitments from clubs in free agency. Of course, free agency is still a long way away for Bibee and there’s been no indication of the Guardians looking to lock the youngster, who won’t be arbitration eligible until the 2025-26 offseason.
Bibee’s runner-up finish for the award will not earn the Guardians an additional draft pick in the 2024 draft, unlike Henderson’s first-place finish for the Orioles. Baltimore will earn the extra draft pick because Henderson both met the aforementioned criteria to be considered a top prospect preseason and would have qualified for a full year of service time after being on the MLB roster for at least 172 days in 2023. Bibee, meanwhile, was on the roster for just 158 days and would have fallen short of a full year of service time if not for his top-two finish in AL Rookie of the Year voting.
Closer to a full pension with MLB.
Doesn’t this decentivize teams from wanting their players to do good in their rookie year? Indians just lost potential 20m value
@YanksTomator Basically this just amounts to Bibee starting out the year in the ML roster rather than being added at the end of April.
It disincentives teams from trying to get an extra year of control by starting MLB ready players a month late.
Well, it kinda does. Teams will still try it, but it allows players who meet this very strict criteria to bypass the organization’s attempt at gaining an extra year of control over them.
Cleveland was not trying to manipulate Bibee’s service time. Bibee had never pitched in AAA until this season. Cleveland had a full rotation and he was to get some AAA time. He was forced up much earlier by many pitching injuries. He made use of his opportunity to pitch.
I believe there’s a benefit to the team too through an additional draft pick.
Team only gets a pick if said player is on opening day roster. Baltimore gets a pick for Gunner for example.
Probably has or will increase it. If a prospect is ready in May just wait until June July so there isn’t enough time for ROY. Or if ready in July August just wait until September 1st and get them experience and they can still be eligible for ROY next year. That draft pick isn’t even close to valuable as the extra year.
Closer to being traded by Cleveland.
Time to pony up Cleveland Ians!
Guardians fuming right now
Chris Antonetti will be all smiles and high fives on camera, but behind the scenes he’s screaming into his pillow.
Nah. They weren’t manipulating his service time. He got up early because of a ton of injuries. Their plan opening last season was:
Bieber, McKenzie, Civale, Quantrill, Plesac
Depth: Curry, Pilkington, Battenfield, Gaddis
Coming soon: Allen, Bibee, Williams, Espino
By opening day they were down 2. All 5 would see the IL. Plesac bombed out of a roster spot. Pilkington got claimed on a DFA. Curry was in the bullpen. Battenfield also got hurt.
Truly there was no conspiracy to keep any of the three down for service time reasons. In fact arguably the better reason would have been to limit their innings, as all three ended up taking a big innings increase and Williams ended up getting shut down
Cleveland tends to burn through arms while they’re still controllable. Aside from Bauer and Clevinger, most of the guys that they’ve let go over the years had pretty much nothing left when they were traded/released.
Bible was robbed just like Kenny Lofton was for ROY
Henderson was the right choice. 6.2 WAR on the year. He didn’t just hit, he was an excellent defender as well.
He didn’t do squat early in the year. Bibee starred the moment he came up!
April .189
May .213
He was benched too!
That makes more impressive rookie campaign.
So for 1/3 of his season …. 2 out of 6 months….Henderson was pathetic
ROY IS A YEARLY AWARD….not 4 months!!!
I’m guessing this guy thinks Mookie was MVP too because of August
Yes it is a yearly award and for the year Henderson put up 6.2 WAR and Bibee put up 3.6 WAR.
Bibee with his 2.98 ERA was definitely worthy of winning. Henderson had all that press before the season started definitely helps. The fact that Bibee didn’t appear on 3 ballots really surprises me.
Bible? 🙂
Unlike Lofton, this was the right choice. Every voter agreed including a Guardian media voter. No debate necessary here.
lol no
I thought the ROY limit was 130 plate appearances, Gunnar had 132 last year. Is there another part of the rule, or did I misread something?
142 means he made the cut.
132 means he made the cut.
The 130 is based on AB’s so he was still eligible since he had 116 AB’s in 2022.
Plate appearances and At Bats are two different things.
Using AB instead of PA is foolish, but that’s the current rule.
Nice, well earned.
Gunnar Henderson wins by having a cooler name than Tyler Bibee.
The PPI is flawed. There is a stick but no carrot if the player is on the roster April 15th and not April 14th. If a player gets credit for a full year of service time (stick) their team should get the PPI benefits (carrot). Penalizes the small market teams at the beginning and the end of their control of a player as small market teams can’t compete in free agency with large market teams.
Someone should tell the Padres that “small market teams can’t compete in free agency”
LOL, $200 million payroll doesn’t really equal small market.
$200M payroll means the owner said to hell with being in a small market and spent trying to win.
That has nothing to do with market size. San Diego didnt magically stop being one of the smallest markets.
Getting to free agency and potentially arbitration a year earlier will mean much higher earnings for Bibee. Good for him.
Is Mark Vientos eligible for next year? 41 PA in 2022 and 233 in 2023.
You bet your BIBEE !!
@Baseballislife … the article says Bibee earned 158 days of service time for this season. While it’s beneficial to him to finish second and get the full year, I believe that he actually loses out on a year of arbitration because without gaining the full year he would have been a Super Two.
mlb.com/glossary/transactions/super-two
Deeds, you’re an awful writer.
“Meanwhile” can’t come in the middle of a sentence, set off by two commas—it needs to be at the start.
“Impressive as Bibee was” is not proper English. It’s “AS impressive as Bibee was.” How do you keep messing this up? Sleep through that day in 3rd grade English?