Atlanta Braves arbitration win one of many forcing MLB to rethink arbitration

In the days since the arbitration panel selected the Atlanta Braves contract in Max Fried’s arbitration hearing, players from other teams are openly condemning the process.

Last week, I wrote explaining why the arbitration system exists, how the process works, discussed the Fried decision, and concluded that an extension was possible. Shortly after that post went live, Fried told the world he harbored no hard feelings about the decision. Seth broke down his comments a few days ago and came to a less optimistic conclusion. Fried took the result in stride, Brewers' number one starter Corbin Burnes took the news personally.

As I noted last week, owners don’t like the system any more than the players, so it wasn’t a huge surprise when MLB announced that its newly formed Economic Reform Committee would look at ways to reform or replace the system.

Tensions Rising?

Today Ken Rosenthal suggested in The Athletic (subscription required) that the debate over MLB salary arbitration rulings could translate to another battle.

It’s true that, on a personal level, players don’t like arbitration. However, as a matter of policy, the MLBPA likes the system. A union spokesman told Rosenthal why the MLBPA supports arbitration.

“While we often disagree with individual hearing results, salary arbitration is a right that generations of players have fought for and defended despite. . .It empowers players who are under club control and their agents to negotiate a salary or, . . .have an arbitration panel step in to determine that salary.”

This year, 14 of the 33 players who filed for arbitration settled or signed extensions. Thirteen of the remaining 19 players went to a hearing ended up with the contract offered by the team. Only six players saw their offer accepted.+

The union has good reason to support a system responsible for raising player salaries across the board since 1973. The union would consider any change that increased salaries overall, but nothing MLB proposed does that.

WAR: This Isn’t What It’s Good For

During last year’s CBA negotiations, MLB proposed a plan to base raises on performance measured by WAR, and service time, with free agency starting at 29 1/2 years of age.

The last requirement doomed the proposal before the ink was dry because so many more players enter the league at 19 or 20 today. The idea of basing performance on any flavor of WAR or an average of the different flavors of WAR will never fly for a few reasons.

1. All flavors of WAR use weighted values in the formula – formulas, formulae, never mind – and each formula includes data from another weighted formula.
2. The owners can change the formula anytime they want. A few years ago, Baseball-Reference revalued existing WAR numbers because of changes to the formula. Fangraphs internal metrics in their version and changes them when they discover new data.
3. Players are viewed differently by each flavor of WAR, skewing results to a metric controlled by an outside source.
4. The websites mentioned want no part of it. 

After the union rejected MLB’s proposal to create a fixed salary level based on years of service time and performance based on WAR, an MLB spokesperson explained why they wanted to change it.

“We continue to believe that the salary arbitration system creates unnecessary acrimony between Clubs and players and wastes an enormous amount of time and money. We would welcome the opportunity to discuss changes to the system.”

MLB could develop a new version of WAR; I’m sure the union would embrace it . . . by the throat until it ceases to exist.