Around Baseball 2026

[Brownie19]

That's an insane gap for arbitration. Unreal.

[G-Snarls]

Stud starting pitchers just don't get to arb year 3 with their original team very often 

Digging up some examples 

[G-Snarls]

For fun I asked Chat GPT to sus it out, going back 15 years. 

-

A) Top-10 WAR / Cy Young pitchers who reached Arbitration-3.  This is the smallest group — it’s relatively rare for true aces to go year-to-year all the way to Arb-3.

David Price (Tigers) — Arb-3 2015 (record arbitration salary)

Corbin Burnes (Brewers) — Arb-3 2024, then traded

Trevor Bauer (Reds) — Final arb year 2020

Even among top-10 WAR pitchers, very few actually walk the full Arb-1 → Arb-3 path without something intervening.

 

B) Top-10 WAR / Cy Young pitchers who signed extensions.  This is the dominant outcome for elite pitchers their teams want to keep.

Clayton Kershaw (Dodgers) — Major extension in 2014

Jacob deGrom (Mets) — Extension in 2019 (ended arbitration entirely)

Max Scherzer (Tigers) — Extension before free agency

Chris Sale (White Sox) — Early extension buying out arb

Corey Kluber (Guardians pitcher"]) — Extension covering arb + options

Justin Verlander (Tigers) — Extended pre-free agency

Zack Greinke (Royals) — Extension early in career

Gerrit Cole (Astros) — Extension after trade, before FA

Blake Snell (Rays) — Extension buying out arbitrationL

 

C Top-10 WAR / Cy Young pitchers who were traded instead.  This is the second most common path once salaries spike.

Gerrit Cole — Pirates → Astros (2018)

David Price — Rays → Tigers (2014)

Corbin Burnes — Brewers → Orioles (2024)

Blake Snell — Rays → Padres (2020)

Shane Bieber — Guardians → Blue Jays (2025)

Max Scherzer — Tigers → Nationals (2014)

 

For top-10 WAR / Cy Young pitchers over the last 15 years:

Most common: ✍️ Extension

Second: 🔄 Trade

Least common: ⚖️ Playing straight through to Arb-3

[Ray]

I think the Tigers are going to end up winning here. Arbitration is all about traditional stat comps to players who had similar service time and have also gone through arbitration. David Price is the one who sticks out immediately (coming off recent Cy Young + multiple top finishes) and he ended up getting $19.75M, BUT he was also Super 2 so he had an extra year of arbitration. 

A 3x jump in salary for Skubal seems insane in year 3 of arbitration, even taking into account general monetary and baseball salary inflation. I hope he wins, but I find it very doubtful the arb panel will rule for him. 

[L54]

2 hours ago, G-Snarls said:

Crazy thing is if they'd even come in at 21 or 22M they'd win the case easily. 

Ya you’re probably right… maybe a little more like 25M but that’s a good point. 

[John_Havok]

8 hours ago, Ray said:

I think the Tigers are going to end up winning here. Arbitration is all about traditional stat comps to players who had similar service time and have also gone through arbitration. David Price is the one who sticks out immediately (coming off recent Cy Young + multiple top finishes) and he ended up getting $19.75M, BUT he was also Super 2 so he had an extra year of arbitration. 

A 3x jump in salary for Skubal seems insane in year 3 of arbitration, even taking into account general monetary and baseball salary inflation. I hope he wins, but I find it very doubtful the arb panel will rule for him. 

All Skubal has to do is prove he's worth more than the midpoint of 19 and 32 of 25.5. Starting from a point of back-to-back Cy Young awards it feels like he might have a case

[mphenhef]

10 minutes ago, John_Havok said:

All Skubal has to do is prove he's worth more than the midpoint of 19 and 32 of 25.5. Starting from a point of back-to-back Cy Young awards it feels like he might have a case

Yes, I think year 3 of arbitration now allows the player to use free agents as comparisons, in which he would definitely be getting over 30 million.  The argument goes like this.  Dylan Cease just got 30 million.  I'm better than him.  I also throw with my left hand.

[Laika]

If Skubal has another 6+ WAR year and stays healthy he should definitely set some kind of SP contract record.

Cole got 9/$324m for his age 29 season onward.

Skubal will actually be one year older. Is he going to get 9/$360m? $40m AAV? 

[sliderguy35]

52 minutes ago, mphenhef said:

Yes, I think year 3 of arbitration now allows the player to use free agents as comparisons, in which he would definitely be getting over 30 million.  The argument goes like this.  Dylan Cease just got 30 million.  I'm better than him.  I also throw with my left hand.

it's not free agency though, from what I understand about the system, your pay in arb-3 is more so based on a combination of what your previous salary was alongside what other arb 3 pitches have made. its supposed to be slightly depressed from free agency. 

he's not going to be justifying why he'd be worth $30M on the open market, he's justifying why his salary should increase by $20M from the previous year and over $10M from the next highest arb-3 pitcher (degrom). the tigers offered the highest amount ever by a team for an arb-3 pitcher, you could argue they low-balled a bit because of inflation but it's really not egregious. the offer just looks low b/c boras corp decided to make their offer extreme.  

skubal is definitely WORTH the $32.5M that boras filed for (you could argue more as well), but it's just not how the system works.

 

 

[mphenhef]

6 minutes ago, sliderguy35 said:

it's not free agency though, from what I understand about the system, your pay in arb-3 is more so based on a combination of what your previous salary was alongside what other arb 3 pitches have made. its supposed to be slightly depressed from free agency. 

he's not going to be justifying why he'd be worth $30M on the open market, he's justifying why his salary should increase by $20M from the previous year and over $10M from the next highest arb-3 pitcher (degrom). the tigers offered the highest amount ever by a team for an arb-3 pitcher, you could argue they low-balled a bit because of inflation but it's really not egregious. the offer just looks low b/c boras corp decided to make their offer extreme.  

skubal is definitely WORTH the $32.5M that boras filed for (you could argue more as well), but it's just not how the system works.

 

 

The process is a little different for the last year, which I didn't know until today.

From Passan  (https://www.espn.co.uk/mlb/story/_/id/47538606/mlb-2026-tarik-skubal-detroit-tigers-record-arbitration-contract)

"On top of that is a rarely used provision that allows players with more than five years of service time to compare themselves not only to past arbitration-eligible players but to everyone in baseball. Meaning that if Skubal were to choose, say, peak Max Scherzer ($43.3 million a year) or Zack Wheeler ($42 million) as his comparables, he could make the case in front of an arbitration panel that because of his special achievements and consistent performance, he is worthy of a salary similar to theirs."

 

 

[harvey16]

Skubal definitely shot for the moon, but the Tigers offer is a huge lowball at the same time. Vladdy $19M arb award is currently the largest ever, keep in mind that was during his Arb 2 year. I think Tigers ownership might of screwed themselves by trying to be cheap asses and not even offer him at least $20M. I think there is a real possibility that Skubal wins here. Hope this insulting offer bites the Tigers in the ass. Either way I think Skubal will be traded at some point this season and this offer just likely strained there relationship.

[Brownie19]

It's easy to point to Skubal's recent success and suggest he should be getting $30M+.  However, the arbitration system never allows a players salary to decrease based on previous failures.  Bellinger is a great example of this.  He had an MVP season and got a huge raise during arbitration - then he had a couple of terrible years, but still would have been paid handsomely through arbitration.

You can't pay Skubal $30M+ because he was good last year if you're not going to cut Bellinger's salary after a couple of crappy years.

So - the best guys don't get paid enough to protect the guys who sh*t the bed from having to take pay cuts.

[sliderguy35]

39 minutes ago, mphenhef said:

The process is a little different for the last year, which I didn't know until today.

From Passan  (https://www.espn.co.uk/mlb/story/_/id/47538606/mlb-2026-tarik-skubal-detroit-tigers-record-arbitration-contract)

"On top of that is a rarely used provision that allows players with more than five years of service time to compare themselves not only to past arbitration-eligible players but to everyone in baseball. Meaning that if Skubal were to choose, say, peak Max Scherzer ($43.3 million a year) or Zack Wheeler ($42 million) as his comparables, he could make the case in front of an arbitration panel that because of his special achievements and consistent performance, he is worthy of a salary similar to theirs."

that's interesting, i didn't know about this special provision. i wonder how heavily they'd weight that vs the standard arb process. 

39 minutes ago, harvey16 said:

Skubal definitely shot for the moon, but the Tigers offer is a huge lowball at the same time. Vladdy $19M arb award is currently the largest ever, keep in mind that was during his Arb 2 year. I think Tigers ownership might of screwed themselves by trying to be cheap asses and not even offer him at least $20M. I think there is a real possibility that Skubal wins here. Hope this insulting offer bites the Tigers in the ass. Either way I think Skubal will be traded at some point this season and this offer just likely strained there relationship.

vladdy was a super 2 guy who got an extra year of arb tacked on, so his arb-2 year was closer to a standard arb-3 raise. He almost won an MVP in one of his pre-arb seasons, so his baseline salary was much higher ($7.9M in what would have been his final pre-arb year if not for super 2).

skubal's arb-1 salary was $2.6M (the year before he won his first Cy Young) because he hadn't really done anything prior to his arb-1 season. whereas vladdy's salary at the same service time was $14.5M because of what i mentioned above. when vlad won his hearing, he got a $5M raise, but the the tigers' offer to skubal would have been a $10M raise. you can quibble that it's slightly low but it's not an insulting offer when you put it into context

[Laika]

28 minutes ago, Brownie19 said:

It's easy to point to Skubal's recent success and suggest he should be getting $30M+.  However, never allows a players salary to decrease based on previous failures.  Bellinger is a great example of this.  He had an MVP season and got a huge raise during arbitration - then he had a couple of terrible years, but still would have been paid handsomely through arbitration.

You can't pay Skubal $30M+ because he was good last year if you're not going to cut Bellinger's salary after a couple of crappy years.

So - the best guys don't get paid enough to protect the guys who sh*t the bed from having to take pay cuts.

Not really, a team can just non-tender someone who has an inflated arbitration projection then they'll sign a FA deal for whatever they are actually worth 

[Brownie19]

27 minutes ago, Laika said:

Not really, a team can just non-tender someone who has an inflated arbitration projection then they'll sign a FA deal for whatever they are actually worth 

Sure - but that's a flaw in the system too.

The arbitration system is there so teams can retain their players.  In the Bellinger case, the Dodger either had to pay him $15M (or whatever he was projected to get) or cut him.  There's no option for them to pay him what his recent performance suggests he's worth (say $8M).

The arbitration raises aren't as aggressive because you can't go the other way and decrease their pay if they aren't as good in subsequent years.

[Spanky__99]

13 hours ago, G-Snarls said:

 

 

 Holy sh*t... that should be an interesting follow. 

[Spanky__99]

13 hours ago, Laika said:

Damn. Bad blood. Extension never happening in Detroit.

Bigtime, I've never seen that gap like ever, lmao... they need to trade him.

[G-Snarls]

 

 

[G-Snarls]

Time to bring Bo back home 

[John_Havok]

1 hour ago, Laika said:

Not really, a team can just non-tender someone who has an inflated arbitration projection then they'll sign a FA deal for whatever they are actually worth 

They would be a free agent but they'd still be bound by the arb 3 guidelines from the new team. Getting non-tendered doesnt eliminate the arb process. 

But I think what you meant is some team that doesnt care would just sign him to a 1 year 30 million dollar deal and avoid arbitration 

[John_Havok]

3 hours ago, mphenhef said:

Yes, I think year 3 of arbitration now allows the player to use free agents as comparisons, in which he would definitely be getting over 30 million.  The argument goes like this.  Dylan Cease just got 30 million.  I'm better than him.  I also throw with my left hand.

He doesnt need to prove hes worth 32. He needs to prove hes worth 25.5. 

Yes. He would use Cease as an example and some other comparable sure but he also still has to understand the mathematical formula which calculates the raises based on his previous earnings using those comparable and his back to back CY Young awards. 

He is betting that his/his agents calculations are going to come out higher than 25.5 and those calculations are similar to what the arbitrator uses. 

[Eat My Shatkins]

Damn, I was really hoping Skubal would sign a big extension in Detroit.

Way better than having him end up on the Yankees or Red Sox. Imagine going into a playoff series with those two teams and having to face Skubal/Crochet or Skubal/Cole?

Gross. 

Yankees have been just laying in the weeds all off season so far too.

[Jonn]

46 minutes ago, G-Snarls said:

 

 

Aka they weren't getting anywhere near what they wanted in the market. Realized they had a franchise caliber player signed cheaply and should really be building around him not expect some other team to fix all their woes in one move. Embarrassing.

[Brownie19]

Max Kepler hit with an 80 game PED suspension.  That might be it for him.

[Orgfiller]

21 minutes ago, Brownie19 said:

Max Kepler hit with an 80 game PED suspension.  That might be it for him.

Heading into his age 33 season, with consecutive 90 wRC+ years and sub 1 WAR. Platoon corner only OF with passable but declining defense. Yikes, it's not looking good for him.

[Spanky__99]

1 minute ago, Orgfiller said:

Heading into his age 33 season, with consecutive 90 wRC+ years and sub 1 WAR. Platoon corner only OF with passable but declining defense. Yikes, it's not looking good for him.

itsovervincecarter.gif

 

[Jonn]

On 1/7/2026 at 8:05 AM, Stangstag said:

That's my number 4 starter with a big personality 😍

He's about to be the best 4th Starter you have ever seen in your life.

 

[max silver]

7 minutes ago, Jonn said:

He's about to be the best 4th Starter you have ever seen in your life.

 

It appears as though there isn't a single front office in MLB that shares your enthusiasm.

[Jonn]

50 minutes ago, max silver said:

It appears as though there isn't a single front office in MLB that shares your enthusiasm.

If they don't now. They soon will.

[hanton]

 it didn't work lol

Max Kepler Receives 80-Game PED Suspension