The Case Against Brett Anderson

shudiddy — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 05:36:33 -0000

**A number of these points were brought up in the comment from Nico’s post, but they deserve to be compiled for fair arguments sake.**

Let me start out by saying that right now Brett Anderson is absolutely one of the 5 best starting pitcher the A’s have. The same is true of Trevor Cahill. But this does not mean that either of them should break camp with the A’s.

The A’s almost never sign their homegrown players into free agency. So A’s fans can basically put a countdown on players leaving or being traded before their final year under team control. Because of this, the A’s need to put a premium on working the service time system to benefit them.

Players are eligible for free agency after they have accumulated 6 years of service time (Although 172 days in a season counts as a full year, even though there are 183 or so days). What this means is that if you wait to bring up your prospects just 12 days into the season, they will only accumulate 5.99 years of service time by the sixth season and will not be eligible for free agency.

Normally players begin arbitration in their 3rd year, but the “Super-2” rule means that the top 17% of players with between 2 and 3 years of service time are also eligible for arbitration. Thus, if you wait around two months to bring up your rookies, then they likely will not be eligible for arbitration until their fourth season.

So there are three basic strategies we can use in handling our rookies and each one affects their arbitration and free agency clocks:

1. If they break camp with the A’s and spend the entire 2009 season in the majors, they will have three pre-arb years (2009-2011), three arbitration years (2012-2014), and will hit free agency after the 2014 season.
Estimated finances: 6 years for: 3 x 400K, 4, 6, 8 = 19 million

2. If they spend just 2 weeks in AAA, they will have three pre-arb years (2009-2011), FOUR arbitration years (2012-2015), and will hit free agency after the 2015 season.
Estimated finances: 6.9 years for: 3 x 400K, 4, 6, 8, 10 = 29million

3. If they spend 2 months in AAA, they will have three and a half pre-arb years (2009-2012), three arbitration years (2013-2015) and will hit free agency after the 2015 season.
Estimated finances: 6.6 years: 3.6 (400K), 4.5, 6.5, 8.5 = 21 million

So which one would you rather have?

In a perfect world, every team would choose option 3. It clearly maximizes the service time and allows for the cheapest way to get the most out of our prospects.
But, the A’s are not in a perfect situation this year with Duke and Gio already hurt, so there is clear necessity. Despite this, the A’s should simply do without for at least the first 2 weeks of the season. But from a business decision, there is no excuse for allowing any prospect to spend their entire first full year in the majors. Now if the A’s want, they could send them down in the middle of the season, but that’s a tough sell if they are pitching well. And if they aren't, then they shouldn't have been in the majors in the first place.

And all this is not to mention the fact that these kids are 21 years old and haven’t even pitched in AAA yet.

So as exciting as this year is shaping up to be, this team has a chance to be very good for at least the next 6-7 years, and short-term gains cannot get in the way of long-term planning. And I know Billy Beane realizes that and will not let it.

SB Nation User Blog: shudiddy

The Case Against Brett Anderson