Moving forward without Grades

[Andy Barnes]

With the closing of MinorLeagueBall our source for grades for our prospects will cease to exist. We will need to figure out a system to implement and move forward with. My suggestion is that we remove grades altogether and go with a flat $1/$4/$7/$10/$13 pricing scale for arbitration contracts. No more grades, no more maybe getting a raise maybe not, it's a flat raise every arb eligible player that qualifies will receive.

I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts and discuss this for a few days before we hold a vote on the matter. Post your thoughts or alternate suggestions below.

[Deleted]

I think that significantly changes the way the league works on f all cost controlled players get a raise every year. It makes it harder to succeed through prospects. Very few current ARB players get to $13 by year 5. I’d suggest starting all prospects at $2 and keeping the current arbitration system.

[Deleted]

I agree with Simon but I would just start with $1 and use the current arb system. I think that year 2 across the board on prospects will deter anyone from keeping a solid young player and just try and get FA's. The proposal in my opinion will only be good for the elite prospects.

[Andy Barnes]

The current system has 3 starting prices, $1,$2, and $3. An A prospect that earns a raise each year would be $3/$5/$7/$9/$11 for a 5 year total of $35. Without having different starting prices, no more grades, A prospects will be much cheaper at $2/$4/$6/$8/$10 ($30x5) whereas my proposed increase is also ($35x5) at max contract and allows all prospects to be league minimum of $1 starting off.

[Deleted]

i'd like to match DLF salaries with real MLB salaries for prospects. So most prospects would stay $1 pre-arb and then increase by the same factor as their real arb salaries (or whatever their yearly salaries are if they sign real contracts in real life)

Nationals players (2018 salaries)
Bryant - 3/5 $7 comp in DLF. Now would be $11 in in real life equivalent ($10.8m)
Contreras - 2/5 $4 in DLF, now would be $1 (pre arb $600k)
Lindor - 3/5 $7 in DLF, now would be $1 (pre arb $620k)
Paxton - 5/5 $4 in DLF, now would be $5 ($4.9m)


Its not a whole lot of work to match up salaries (and almost certainly less than mining all the prospect grades was), and now our salaries will be better aligned with real life player value.

Main catch is draft has to wait until arb hearings conclude, so more like mid march. Any contract adjustments after the draft wouldn't affect DLB salaries until the following year (i.e. Trout getting his $144m contract on March 29th 2014 wouldn't change his DLF comp until 2015)

[Andy Barnes]

Ideally I'd like to move away from running an arbitration program to determine raises, and being a structured auto raise will do that. Players would still need to hit their playing time requirements to earn the raise and year advancement.

[Josh Moody]

My contract raise proposal would be a tiered raise system based on yearly performance. All rookies start at $1 like a street free agent. At the end of the year, if they finish out of the top 25 at their most played position they maintain the $1 contract. If they finish 25-20 at their most played position they receive a $1 raise. If they finish 19-11 in their most played position, they receive a $2 raise. If they finish 10-1 at their most played position they receive a $3 raise. This yearly evaluation/raise process happens at the end of each season until their arb contracts are over.

[Brett Cook]

I like Josh’s proposal. The only problem is that we would still have to determine raises somehow.

[Kody Siebers]

Id think a system that starts off at $1 and goes up a lil bit slower than Andys prosposal would be a bit benificial to teams that are trying to rebuild like myself. So heres my thoughts on this:
$1,$3, $5, $7, $10
Its a lil bit cheaper but its not an outrageous amount you are paying for a rebuild either.

[Andy Barnes]

Maybe a non linear raise structure, instead of always going $2 or $3 we start slow, but increase more each subsequent year, for example, $1/$3/$5/$8/$12

[Kody Siebers]

I wouldnt mind that

[Andy Barnes]

Dec 10, 2018 16:27:43 GMT -5 Brett Cook said:

I like Josh’s proposal. The only problem is that we would still have to determine raises somehow.

This would depend on how we rank those positions, is it using player rater on espn?

[Josh Moody]

My idea was that we would base it off of ESPN’s positional ratings, since that is the platform we use.

[Deleted]

I don't really mind an auto-increase, but I think it should be much slower. Andy's original proposal would result in all prospects being paid about the same as stars currently get. Most guys don't end up at elite levels, so I think the correct comparison is really with a guy who ends up as a regular rather than a star. Something like 1/2/3/6/9 seems more reasonable, and is closer to how MLB salaries go up. This would allow people to get a few cheap years out of relievers, platoon guys and so on, and would also allow you to hold guys who took a while to establish themselves at the big league level.

[Brett Cook]

I like Josh’s proposal the most still. Simons new one above is a close second