Realmuto, Straily get baseball business lesson
JUPITER — Baseball is a business, people in it always say, and for three Miami Marlins, the business side became more tangible in recent weeks.
Catcher J.T. Realmuto, first baseman Justin Bour and pitcher Dan Straily all went to arbitration for the first time in recent weeks, meaning that for three-plus hours each, their opponent was their own team.
“It is unusual,” Straily said with a smile.
Different is one way to put it. Realmuto said it was “a little different,” manager Don Mattingly called it “funky.” Others would say it’s occasionally problematic, and in another sense everybody would agree it’s completely normal, part of the game for decades.
“It is what it is. It’s part of the system,” Realmuto said. “Everybody knows going into it what you’re going to get. It’s exactly what everybody says, what everybody talks about.”
The salary arbitration system is for players with more than three years but fewer than six years of time in the majors. The Miami trio went to hearings — Bour late last month, Realmuto early this month, Straily this week — because they didn’t come to an agreement with the Marlins on a 2018 salary beforehand.
Before a hearing, the player submits a proposed salary. The team does the same. A panel of three arbitrators hears out both cases and picks one. There is no middle ground hearing.
The player and his agent are present, but often hire outside counsel to state their case. The Marlins, similarly, have someone in the room, but new this year also opted to use outside counsel.
For most players, it’s their first chance to make “life-changing money,” as Straily put it, as they get a significant boost from the major league minimum ($545,000 in 2018).
Bour won his hearing, so he’ll make $3.4 million this year. Realmuto ($2.9 million) and Straily ($3.375 million) lost.
“You’re busy the whole time you’re there, flipping through these packets along with the lawyers,” once you get to Straily said. “I have a lot of respect for people who do that daily, because after a while I didn’t hear words it was just sound.
“The process itself was very interesting. As a process-driven individual, I’m always interested in how things work and why things work.”
Team often try to settle with players, as the Marlins did with Derek Dietrich and Miguel Rojas, for a couple of reasons. Settling is more efficient, since the arbitration process is complicated and time-consuming one.
And hearings sometimes become contentious or lead to bad feelings between employee and employer because the team — arguing its case that the player should be paid the figure it suggested, the lower amount — points out the player’s weaknesses.
Blue Jays pitcher Marcus Stroman, for example, was upset after his hearing this week.
“The negative things that were said against me, by my own team, will never leave my mind,” he wrote in a tweet.
Neither Straily nor Realmuto indicated they harbored any ill will against the Marlins for whatever may have been said. It is a business, after all.
And, in Mattingly’s eyes, if a player is in arbitration, it’s a winwin. He’ll either win the hearing and get a solid raise, or lose the hearing and get a slightly smaller but still solid raise. The salary figures requested by player and team are usually only a few hundred thousand dollars apart, which in the context of a major league budget isn’t much.
“I looked at it like you really lose,” Mattingly said.
Mattingly only went to arbitration once, but the story is a good one. It was 1987. The Yankees wanted to pay him, an MVP and perennial All-Star, $1.7 million. Mattingly asked for $1.975 million.
“Mr. [George] Steinbrenner called me 15 minutes before — we didn’t settle — and says, ‘Donnie, this is just business. Don’t worry about what’s said. It’s business. It’s just the way it is. After that, we can play,’ ” Mattingly said.
Mattingly won the hearing. His $1.975 million was at the time the largest salary determined through arbitration in baseball history. Steinbrenner, the late Yankees owner, said Mattingly “goes into the category of modern-playerwith-agent looking for the bucks. Money means everything to him.”
“I won, then he just trashed me,” Mattingly said, laughing. “I was like, oh, as long as he wins it’s good. … It was typical Mr. Steinbrenner.” can’t