J.T. Realmuto carries the ball for all catchers in groundbreaking arbitration case

Any way you slice it, Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto is headed for a historic contract in 2020.

Realmuto and the Phillies began the salary arbitration process with an exchange of proposals on Friday.

The Phillies filed at $10 million.

Realmuto’s camp came in at $12.4 million.

A consideration of catcher value across the board- purely financial here, but something of broader interest given the complexities of assessing them.

Tim Lincecum once flaunted his Cy Young Awards to win arbitration case

Friday was an important day for many of Major League Baseball’s top stars. The deadline for teams and arbitration-eligible players to submit salary figures passed at 1 p.m. ET.

Some of those stars, such as Mookie Betts, Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger, avoided arbitration by agreeing to massive one-year deals. Others, like George Springer, failed to settle. That means he could end up having his case decided by a judge next month.

Once upon a time, that was the scenario Tim Lincecum faced after failing to reach an agreement with the San Francisco Giants. As former teammate Kevin Frandsen revealed in an interview with MLB Network Radio on Saturday, Lincecum planned a spectacular pitch that forced the Giants to fold before any words needed to be said.

According to Frandsen, Lincecum “Walked into the courtroom with both Cy Young Awards, they never even started talking — it was signed, sealed and delivered right there. I think it was a two-year deal, right there.”

For those wondering how award voting can have a broader significance…..

George Nicolau dies at 94, arbitrator in MLB collusion cases

NEW YORK (AP) — George Nicolau, who ruled against baseball owners in two collusion cases and served as president of the National Academy of Arbitrators, has died. He was 94.

Nicolau died Jan. 2 at Lenox Hill Hospital, Gene Orza, the former chief operating officer of the Major League Baseball Players Association, said Friday.

Nicolau took over as the independent chairman of Major League Baseball’s arbitration panel in 1986 after owners fired Thomas Roberts, who ruled teams acted in concert against free agents after the 1985 season. Nicolau decided teams acted in concert against free agents after the 1986 and 1987 seasons. The cases were settled in 1990 when management agreed with the players’ union to pay those players affected $280 million.

In another notable decision, Nicolau decided in 1987 to cut short a season-long suspension of free agent pitcher LaMarr Hoyt to 60 days. Hoyt had been penalized for his involvement in three illegal drug incidents during 1986.

Cody Bellinger and Aaron Judge are both getting 1000% raises for next year

Friday marked another key date on the Major League Baseball offseason calendar. It’s the final day in which players and teams can exchange figures in their on-going arbitration negotiations.

It’s not a hard deadline for an agreement to be reached, but for a lot of players it means the first truly big payday of their baseball careers. Among those players this year are sluggers Cody Bellinger of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees.

The respective 2017 Rookie of the Year winners were arbitration eligible for the first time this winter, and both ended up receiving a raise of over 1000% from their 2019 salaries.

In Bellinger’s case, he agreed to a $11.5 million salary, which breaks the record for a first-time eligible player.

For those curious about how the arbitration process is working this off-season…..

MLB will stop awarding prize belt to team that best suppresses salaries in arbitration

Earlier this year, Marc Carig of The Athletic published a report on a belt, awarded as a prize at the GM meetings every year to the team that did the most to “achieve the goals set by the industry.” That’s code for salary suppression in arbitration.

MLBPA executive director Tony Clark responded to the report, saying, “That clubs make sport of trying to suppress salaries in a process designed to produce fair settlements shows a blatant lack of respect for our Players, the game, and the arbitration process itself.”

Does this mean that dozens of authorities will be issuing belts, making it impossible to determine a clear champion?

Super Two eligibility set at earliest point in a decade

MLB Trade Rumors reports that the Super Two cutoff has been set at two years and 115 days of service time. It’s the lowest the threshold has been set in a decade.

Super Two eligibility is a salary arbitration concept. All players who have zero to two years of service time are not arbitration eligible and thus have their salaries unilaterally set by their teams. All players with three years or more of service time — but who have not yet reached the six years required to become unrestricted free agents — are eligible for arbitration. By having one’s salary set via arbitration, their past performance is taken into account and they can begin to make some real money.

A small handful of players who have more than two years but less than three years of service time are considered Super Two players, and they are included with the 3+ players and get to go through arbitration. They go through up to four times instead of the typical three. That small handful of Super Two players consists of the guys who finished the previous year in the top 22 percent of service time among players with two to three years of service time. Depending on when that top 22 percent was initially called up, the exact level of service time to reach Super Two eligibility floats. Sometimes by as much as a couple of weeks one way or the other.

Look, up in the sky!

It’s a bird!

It’s a plane!

It’s Super Two!

This Year’s Super Two Cutoff Is Abnormally Low

This year’s cutoff point to determine Super Two status will be unusually low, per Adam McCalvy of MLB.com (via Twitter). While an exact cutoff point is yet unclear, McCalvy reports that Josh Hader, who has two years and 115 days of MLB service time (abbreviated as 2.115) will be eligible for arbitration this winter. In essence, that means that Hader is about to become a very well-compensated reliever. That would’ve been the case in the 2020-21 offseason anyway, but he’ll now tap into that earning power a year early. It’s also worth noting that this cutoff point will place Miami’s JT Riddle, who finished the season at 2.118 years of service, into arbitration eligibility as well.

A 2.115 cutoff would already be the lowest Super Two threshold in the past decade. The previous lowpoints in that span came in 2010 and 2013, when the cutoff was 2.122. Last year, it settled at 2.134. If the threshold is any lower this season, others could also be impacted. Arizona’s Luke Weaver (2.112) and Oakland’s Matt Chapman (2.109) are the most notable names within reasonable distance of Hader’s 2.115.

MLB Trade Rumors: Projected 2020 Arbitration Salaries

Red Sox (12)
Jackie Bradley Jr. – $11MM
.  .  .
Mookie Betts – $27.7MM
———————————-
Yankees (12)
James Paxton – $12.9MM
.  .  .
Gary Sanchez – $5.6MM
Aaron Judge – $6.4MM

I think that’s low for Aaron Judge. I suspect the formula dings Judge more for his injury time than the actual process will, and fails to consider his enormous popularity. Betts may be a bit low, too. I’ve seen $30M estimates elsewhere.