[h2]Arbitration Savings[/h2]
by Brendan Scolari on Jun 1, 2009 2:20 PM PDT in Payroll
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More photos » by David Zalubowski - AP
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After Will Ohman was put on the disabled list, it seemed logical that Blake Dewitt would get recalled from AAA Albuquerque. Instead, A.J. Ellis got the call, putting three catchers on the 25-man roster. One reason for this is probably that the Dodgers don't want to take away at bats from Dewitt. But another reaason could be the salary arbitration savings if Dewitt were to remain on the major league club. Arbitration was the process by which Russell Martin, Andre Ethier, and Jonathan Broxton all saw huge jumps in their pay during this last offseason.
When a player gets called up to the majors, their service time clock begins to run. Once they have six years of service time in the major leagues, they can become a free agent. Of course, if they get sent back to the minors, the clock stops for the time being. For a player's first three years in the majors they make the major league minimum salary (or close to it), but once they have three years of service time they can file for arbitration and thereby increase their salary. For the next three years their salary jumps until they finally reach free agency. There is also Super Two eligibility, which grants players in the top 17% of service time under three years arbitration as well. These players get four years of arbitration instead of three. A full season of service is 172 days, and players with 2 years of service and close to 3 years end up getting Super Two status. This nearly always ends up being players with 2 years and 130 days of service or more.
At this point in the season, we are just passing the point where there is no longer 130 days left in the season. This means that teams can call up their top prospects and not fear that they will get Super Two status, giving them an extra year of arbitration and consequently costing the team millions of dollars. We've seen Matt Weiters, the Orioles top catching prospect finally got called up, and this was the reason why. In the next few weeks we can expect to see a few other top prospects called up as teams now know they can get three years of service at the minimum salary out of them.
Which brings us to Blake Dewitt. Dewitt ended last year with 150 days of service and has been in the major leagues for 24 days so far this year, so he currently has 1 year and 2 days of service time. There are currently 127 days left in the season, so today marks the first time that Dewitt can be called up and remain indefinitely in the major leagues without likely qualifying for Super Two Status (he would only end up with 1 year and 129 days of service). This means that Dewitt will not be arbitration eligible until at least the 2012 season. It may not matter much right now, but he could end up being a starter as soon as next year. It would be nice to have a starter making the minimum as other young Dodgers see their salaries increase.
Russell Martin, Andre Ethier, and Jonathan Broxton will all be arbitration eligible again next year. On top of that, Chad Billingsley, Matt Kemp, James Loney, and Hong-Chih Kuo will all be eligible for arbitration for the first time in their careers. All these pay increases will probably add $15-20 million onto the Dodger payroll, making up for the expiring contracts of Jason Schmidt, Randy Wolf, Guillermo Mota, etc. Luckily, these young players are all still under team control for three more years (with the exception of Broxton, who is only under control for two). It will be important to start locking up some of them to long term deals in the near future, both for the payroll relief and to ensure that we are able to keep most of them.
The next wave of players is in the same boat as Blake Dewitt, they'll have at least one year of service time after 2009 but won't end up receiving Super Two status. This includes Dewitt, Clayton Kershaw, Ramon Troncoso, and Ronald Belisario. These players will make the major league minimum until 2012.
After them there are tweeners like James McDonald (67 days of service), Chin-lung Hu (131 days), Scott Elbert (44 days), Brent Leach (31 days), Xavier Paul (26 days), and Jaime Hoffmann (11 days). The last four in the group would need to stay up for most of the rest of the year just to get to one year of service time. So they will likely make the league minimum salary for at least four more years. James McDonald could end up with a year of service time, but his recent demotion to the minors makes it unlikely. Chin-lung Hu would just need to get called up before September.
Finally we have the players who have not yet been called up to the majors but could end up being important pieces of the Dodgers' future, players like Josh Lindblom, Ivan Dejesus, and Andrew Lambo. All of these players could be called up for the rest of the year and stick with the major league club and still not be arbitration eligible until 2013. In the event that they are not in the majors full time next year it could be even longer until they get to arbitration. All of these players can be safely called up at this point without having to worry about them wasting their cost controlled years. Of course, with the team rolling right now it's better to having them honing their skills in the minors anyway.
[h2]Arbitration Savings[/h2]
by Brendan Scolari on Jun 1, 2009 2:20 PM PDT in Payroll0 comments
More photos » by David Zalubowski - AP
Browse more photos »
After Will Ohman was put on the disabled list, it seemed logical that Blake Dewitt would get recalled from AAA Albuquerque. Instead, A.J. Ellis got the call, putting three catchers on the 25-man roster. One reason for this is probably that the Dodgers don't want to take away at bats from Dewitt. But another reaason could be the salary arbitration savings if Dewitt were to remain on the major league club. Arbitration was the process by which Russell Martin, Andre Ethier, and Jonathan Broxton all saw huge jumps in their pay during this last offseason.
When a player gets called up to the majors, their service time clock begins to run. Once they have six years of service time in the major leagues, they can become a free agent. Of course, if they get sent back to the minors, the clock stops for the time being. For a player's first three years in the majors they make the major league minimum salary (or close to it), but once they have three years of service time they can file for arbitration and thereby increase their salary. For the next three years their salary jumps until they finally reach free agency. There is also Super Two eligibility, which grants players in the top 17% of service time under three years arbitration as well. These players get four years of arbitration instead of three. A full season of service is 172 days, and players with 2 years of service and close to 3 years end up getting Super Two status. This nearly always ends up being players with 2 years and 130 days of service or more.
At this point in the season, we are just passing the point where there is no longer 130 days left in the season. This means that teams can call up their top prospects and not fear that they will get Super Two status, giving them an extra year of arbitration and consequently costing the team millions of dollars. We've seen Matt Weiters, the Orioles top catching prospect finally got called up, and this was the reason why. In the next few weeks we can expect to see a few other top prospects called up as teams now know they can get three years of service at the minimum salary out of them.
Which brings us to Blake Dewitt. Dewitt ended last year with 150 days of service and has been in the major leagues for 24 days so far this year, so he currently has 1 year and 2 days of service time. There are currently 127 days left in the season, so today marks the first time that Dewitt can be called up and remain indefinitely in the major leagues without likely qualifying for Super Two Status (he would only end up with 1 year and 129 days of service). This means that Dewitt will not be arbitration eligible until at least the 2012 season. It may not matter much right now, but he could end up being a starter as soon as next year. It would be nice to have a starter making the minimum as other young Dodgers see their salaries increase.
Russell Martin, Andre Ethier, and Jonathan Broxton will all be arbitration eligible again next year. On top of that, Chad Billingsley, Matt Kemp, James Loney, and Hong-Chih Kuo will all be eligible for arbitration for the first time in their careers. All these pay increases will probably add $15-20 million onto the Dodger payroll, making up for the expiring contracts of Jason Schmidt, Randy Wolf, Guillermo Mota, etc. Luckily, these young players are all still under team control for three more years (with the exception of Broxton, who is only under control for two). It will be important to start locking up some of them to long term deals in the near future, both for the payroll relief and to ensure that we are able to keep most of them.
The next wave of players is in the same boat as Blake Dewitt, they'll have at least one year of service time after 2009 but won't end up receiving Super Two status. This includes Dewitt, Clayton Kershaw, Ramon Troncoso, and Ronald Belisario. These players will make the major league minimum until 2012.
After them there are tweeners like James McDonald (67 days of service), Chin-lung Hu (131 days), Scott Elbert (44 days), Brent Leach (31 days), Xavier Paul (26 days), and Jaime Hoffmann (11 days). The last four in the group would need to stay up for most of the rest of the year just to get to one year of service time. So they will likely make the league minimum salary for at least four more years. James McDonald could end up with a year of service time, but his recent demotion to the minors makes it unlikely. Chin-lung Hu would just need to get called up before September.
Finally we have the players who have not yet been called up to the majors but could end up being important pieces of the Dodgers' future, players like Josh Lindblom, Ivan Dejesus, and Andrew Lambo. All of these players could be called up for the rest of the year and stick with the major league club and still not be arbitration eligible until 2013. In the event that they are not in the majors full time next year it could be even longer until they get to arbitration. All of these players can be safely called up at this point without having to worry about them wasting their cost controlled years. Of course, with the team rolling right now it's better to having them honing their skills in the minors anyway.
I can't co-sign this enough right here. I flat out HATE Joe Buck for this crap.
« Prediction: Andre Ethier will outperform Juan Pierre in June | Main
June 01, 2009
[h1]The flowering of the Dodger blogosphere[/h1]
How is it possible that the Dodgers generate so much copy that I can read Dodger blog after Dodger blog and see interesting, well-written stories that aren't duplicates of each other? Though I don't link to all of them each day, I do hope by now you're regularly checking out the other Dodger sites listed on the Dodger Thoughts sidebar.
[table] Diamondbacks at Dodgers,
7:10 p.m.
Today's lineup
[tr][td]
Juan Pierre, LF
Mark Loretta, 3B
Orlando Hudson, 2B
James Loney, 1B
Russell Martin, C
Andre Ethier, RF
Matt Kemp, CF
Juan Castro, SS
Hiroki Kuroda, P
[/td] [/tr][/table]This year will remembered as the year the Dodgers opened the press box to bloggers, but I think 2009 has also become a watershed in terms of how deep the Dodger blog lineup has become, regardless of where the blogger sits.
* * *
I hope expectations are in check for Hiroki Kuroda's return tonight. As we've seen from the Angels' John Lackey and Ervin Santana, mere activation doesn't guarantee domination. Kuroda could still be a work in progress.
- A.J. Ellis went back to Albuquerque to make room for the return of Kuroda. The Dodgers are back to 13 pitchers on the roster.
- Casey Blake and Rafael Furcal are out of the starting lineup and back in the recovery dugout.
- The bottom floor of a Chattanooga, Tenn. house might hold the greatest private collection of Dodger memorabilia - at least if you ask Dodger team historian Mark Langill. David Paschall of the Chattanooga Times Free Press checks it out (link via Blue Heaven).
[*]Blake DeWitt's stint in the minors this season has, among other things, postponed his salary arbitration eligibility for an extra year, notes Brendan Scolari at True Blue L.A. [*]Thanks to Sons of Steve Garvey for the nice review of "100 Things Dodgers Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die." Don't forget about the June 28 book signing at Dodger Stadium.
[h1]'Boys of Summer' pitcher Preacher Roe dies at age 92[/h1] [h3][/h3]
NEW YORK - Preacher Roe, who began pitching in the Ozarks and became a four-time all-star as a revered member of "The Boys of Summer" in Brooklyn, has died.
Roe died Sunday in West Plains, Mo., said the funeral home handling the arrangements. His own website listed his age as 92 - other reference materials differed by a year or two.
Roe went 127-84 in a 12-year career with the Dodgers, Pittsburgh and St. Louis. But it was in Brooklyn, where he played alongside the likes of Pee Wee Reese, Jackie Robinson, Gil Hodges, Ralph Branca and others at Ebbets Field, where he enjoyed his greatest success and acclaim.
Though those Dodgers teams of the 1940s and 1950s won only one World Series - Roe was part of three teams that lost to the New York Yankees - they became a beloved part of the borough. And Roe, a skinny left-hander and mathematics teacher from a small town in Arkansas, was among the fan favourites in the big city.
"He enjoyed playing the role of a country bumpkin, but he wasn't one," Branca recalled by phone Monday night. "He was real smart, and real crafty on the mound.
"He threw two pitches, a slider and his 'Beech-Nut slider.' Beech-Nut was a gum we all chewed back then. He knew how to use that juice to get that ball all wet."
After retiring, Roe admitted in a Sports Illustrated story that he had benefited for years by throwing a spitball.
Like his age, there was no pinning down exactly how Elwin Charles Roe got his nickname. According to one family story, he dubbed himself "Preacher" at a young age because he admired a local preacher.
Branca remembered it differently.
"We all called him 'Preacher' because he could talk your ear off," he said. "If there was no one around, he would talk to the wall."
Roe led the NL in strikeouts in 1945 with Pittsburgh. He posted his best season in 1951, going 22-3 for the Dodgers - he did not, however, start in the three-game pennant playoff with the New York Giants, capped by Bobby Thomson's famous home run.
Roe helped put the Dodgers into the World Series in 1949, 1952 and 1953. He started a game in each of those matchups with the Yankees, going 2-1 and completing all three outings.
Known for his sharp control, Roe finished with a career 3.43 ERA and pitched 101 complete games.
Roe made his big league debut with St. Louis in 1938 and pitched only once for the Cardinals. He spent the next several years in the minors and returned to the majors with Pittsburgh in 1944.
Roe's path stalled for a few years following a brawl back home in Arkansas. He was coaching a girls' high school basketball team, got into a dispute with a referee and, according to local stories, wound up with a fractured skull.
"He wouldn't fly with us," Branca said. "It made his head hurt. He always took the train."
The Pirates traded Roe, infielder Billy Cox and reserve Gene Mauch to Brooklyn for former star outfielder Dixie Walker and two other players after the 1947 season.
Roe retired after the 1953 season and owned a grocery store in West Plains. He often attended the Dodgers' adult baseball camps at Dodgertown in Vero Beach, Fla.
"Preacher Roe left an indelible mark in Dodger history. He was one of the original 'Boys of Summer' and his success in the World Series against the Yankees in 1949, 1952, and 1953 helped pave the way for the 1955 world champions," Dodgers owner Frank McCourt and team president Jamie McCourt said in a statement.
