Pre-arb players have even less leverage than their arbitration-eligible brethren, but sometimes you just gotta wonder how cheap teams can be.
This is the time of year when teams get around to inking their pre-arbitration players to contracts for the coming year, and the Atlanta Braves have apparently now done so.
Except that in at least one case, the two sides didn’t quite agree on terms.
Ian Anderson contract is renewed by Braves. $575K in majors, $142,978 in minors.
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) March 11, 2021
That’s not the major league minimum. That number is $570,500 for this season.
Of note: while $575K is just a $4500 increase above the minimum, it’s still a large rise from 2020 when Anderson made the equivalent of the ML-minimum ($563,500), pro-rated down to 9.4 days of service time… plus whatever he earned at the Alternate Training Site.
But for Anderson, that wasn’t really the point.
The Braves will typically add a modest increase for such players until they reach arbitration eligibility… usually $10,000 per year. Some players with obvious talent/upside/performance will occasionally get a little more.
That said, even Mike Soroka got the perfunctory $10K bump last year: $583,500.
Apparently, Anderson wanted a little more. $10K? $20K? The exact amount is unknown. It actually would have been a little ridiculous to hold out for more than that as it isn’t something the Braves ever really do.
So on the one hand, Anderson might have been asking for an amount out of the normal team policy. On the other hand, the team is pinching pennies over a policy that truly isn’t worth the effort.
Heck, Alex Anthopoulos has been filing waiver claims like people buy lottery tickets. Each of those claims costs $20,000… and most won’t pan out.
The Atlanta Braves have the right to impose salaries on pre-arbitration players.
If the Braves really wanted to, they could simply give all of these guys the major league minimum — no raises ever until you reach your arbitration service time. They are, however, adding a bit to that.
But a 1.75% raise each year? That sounds cheap, but especially so when we’re talking about somebody who bailed out the team in the playoffs by pitching like a 10-year veteran.
Everybody got a decent playoff share (the Braves shared $10.24 million — $135,759 per player before any extra shares were doled out), but the team certainly also benefited from Anderson’s work.
It may have been a bit forward for Anderson to ask for a bit more, but for the sake of harmony in the clubhouse — and future goodwill — it might have been worth it to throw the kid another 20 grand or so… and the same for others.
Pennywise and pound foolish, perhaps? It might not seem like a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but having happy players is a good idea… and this wouldn’t have cost that much to achieve “happy”.