With the arbitrator finding in favor of the Pirates in the Garrett Jones case and Pittsburgh settling with Casey McGehee, the 2012 arbitration season comes to an end. Only seven of the 142 arbitration eligible players went to a hearing, and the owners won five of the seven.
I wonder if the clubs are doing a better job of evaluating the worth of players than the agents, or if the owners are just better at arguing points that resonate with arbitrators?
Teams seem to hire companies who are experts to prepare their cases. Some players agents probably won’t hire these experts for non-elite players, and will only pay for their star players who will make more.
In every case, the player is walking away with a significant raise, win or lose. This probably introduces a bias in favor of the teams, even though the reason for the significant raises is due to the relatively low pay of cost controlled players the previous year under the system.
Also, I wonder if teams have access to MLB salaries used by arbitrators before player agents. Teams probably start preparing their cases before the previous season ends, and the first step is looking at the comps. Both sides get a list of players salaries on teams rosters as of Aug the previous year, so such a list could be available to teams as early as August.
I would also wonder about which side has more influence in the decision to bring back the arbitrators for another year. The 2 sides vote, but MLB represents 30 teams, and hundreds of players are represented by the players association. I think the owners might
vote might be a bit more coordinated.