{"id":16469,"date":"2020-01-22T10:47:47","date_gmt":"2020-01-22T15:47:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=16469"},"modified":"2020-01-22T10:48:16","modified_gmt":"2020-01-22T15:48:16","slug":"nats-arbitration-results-guesses-versus-actual","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=16469","title":{"rendered":"Nats Arbitration Results: guesses versus actual"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"I<\/a>

I was way off on my salary prediction for taylor. (AP Photo\/Nick Wass via nbcsports.com)<\/p><\/div>\n

Each year various pundits put out projections on Arbitration salary figures.\u00a0 I put my own simple guesses in early in the off-season to do payroll projections.<\/p>\n

Lets see how everyone did this year guessing the Nats cases?<\/p>\n

You can see these guesses on the Nats 2020 Payroll page on the Big Board here:\u00a0https:\/\/docs.google.com\/spreadsheets\/d\/186nm-v5F-zTCoR2Be7TFYM3e2cZ-gYi2WVqJLEkHdmc\/ .\u00a0 I’ll take them one by one and talk through my guess versus the pros versus the actual settled number (they’re in the order they are on that page, not alphabetical or by salary amount).<\/p>\n

Note: I tend to use the 40%\/60%\/80% guess for salaries, meaning in a player’s 1st arbitration year their salary should be 40% of their fair market value, in the 2nd year 60%, in the 3rd year 80%.\u00a0 For those Super-2 players I guess what really happens is something like a 40\/60\/80\/90 range.\u00a0 I also figure players can’t get a salary cut, so even a poor player once tendered gets a salary increase … or so I thought.\u00a0 Read on.<\/p>\n

1. Trea Turner<\/strong>.\u00a0 I guessed $8M even.\u00a0 Cots guessed $8M as well, while MLBtraderumors guessed $7.5M.\u00a0 Actual 2020 salary: $7,450,000<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

I was off by more than $500k, as was Cots, while MLBTR was right there, just $50k off.\u00a0 Great guess.\u00a0 In his 2nd arbitration year I figured he’d get to about $8M, meaning he’s projecting to be about a $14M\/year player.\u00a0 He definitely improved his overall stock year over year after earning $3.725M last season.\u00a0 Its hard to imagine what he dealt with in 2019, basically playing the entire season with a busted finger.\u00a0 Can he explode in 2020?\u00a0 I bet he can; he had as many homers in 2019 (19) as he did in 40 more games in 2018.\u00a0 Can he return to his crazy stats from his rookie season?<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0Michael Taylor<\/strong>: I guessed $4.5M, Cots guessed $3M, and MLBTR guessed $3.25M.\u00a0 Actual 2020 salary: $3,325,000<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

This was my worst guess; I’m not sure why I thought he’d improve so highly on his 2019 salary of $3.25M.\u00a0 I’m guessing that the team probably made him a deal and offered to tender him (and guarantee his 2020 salary to some extent) but that he had to agree to just a nominal raise.\u00a0 Interesting how MLBTR predicted he’d get zero raise from 2019; how did they project that?\u00a0 Nonetheless, MLBTR was just $100k off here, while I ended up more than a million dollars off.\u00a0 What was I thinking?\u00a0 I”m not sure; perhaps I was thinking that Taylor’s improved 2019 numbers and his now-recognized defensive prowess would be worth a decent amount on the open market.\u00a0 I dunno; if he was a FA right now, i think he’d be looking at a MLFA contract and one last “show me” season starting in AAA.\u00a0 Will he make the 2020 team?\u00a0 I still sense there’s some detractors out there who think he’ll get cut.\u00a0 I don’t: I think he was improving in AA, he shone in the post-season and is an excellent guy to have on the bench who can play the OF at gold-glove levels as a late inning replacement.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0Hunter Strickland<\/strong>: I guessed $2.5M, Cots guessed $2M, MLBTR guessed $1.9M.\u00a0 Actual 2020 salary: $1,600,000<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

So, three for three, MLBTR is closest in their guesses.\u00a0 I think i’m over valuing Strickland for past performance, not what he did in 2019.\u00a0 I know that there are those who think Strickland should have been non-tendered; i think those people forget he was hurt in 2019 and may not have really recovered.\u00a0 If he’s anywhere close to his 2017 self, then $1.6M is an absolute steal.\u00a0 We’re talking about a back of the bullpen guy who can take over games.\u00a0 \u00a0I also figured he’d get a decent increase over his 2019 $1.3M salary, especially given that he’s worth $8M\/year if he’s in his past form on the open market.\u00a0 If if if.\u00a0 2020 will be an important year for Strickland.\u00a0 Plus he gets to pitch against\u00a0Bryce Harper<\/strong> all the time!\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0Roenis Elias<\/strong>: I guessed $1.3M, Cots guessed $2M, MLBTR guessed $1.9M.\u00a0 Actual 2020 salary: $1,975.000<\/strong><\/p>\n

This one kind of confused me; i didn’t think Elias’ 2019 season merited more than a doubling of his 2019 salary of $910k.\u00a0 \u00a0So I predicted an incremental increase … but both Cots and MLBTR were spot on here, with both being within $100k of the eventual figure.\u00a0 These guys are good.<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0Wilmer Difo<\/strong>: I guessed $800k, Cots guessed $900k, MLBTR guessed $1.2M.\u00a0 Actual 2020 salary $1,000,000<\/strong><\/p>\n

I guessed that a completely replacement-level middle infielder would get basically the “MLB veteran FA minimum” of around $800k.\u00a0 MLBTR went $200k to the other side.\u00a0 A flat million for a guy who a lot of readers here don’t think makes the team over an even lesser hitting replacement middle infielder we have on our roster in\u00a0Adrian Sanchez<\/strong>.\u00a0 If he’s released mid-spring training they’re only on the hook for 1\/6th of the figure … so there’s that.<\/p>\n

6.\u00a0Joe Ross<\/strong>.\u00a0 I guessed $1.4M, Cots guessed $1.25M and MLBTR also guessed $1.4M.\u00a0 Actual 2020 salary: $1,500,000<\/strong><\/p>\n

My closest guess, and I still couldn’t beat MLBTR, which guessed the same.\u00a0 I like this as a salary for Ross, still a 50% raise over last year where he barely contributed though.\u00a0 In his sole healthy, solid season he was perhaps the best 5th starter in the game; here’s hoping he can return to that form in 2020.<\/p>\n

———–<\/p>\n

All told, I was more than $3.6M off on salaries one way or the other for these six players, an average of $600k wrong.\u00a0 I’m not good at this.<\/p>\n

Cots was a cumulative $1.625M off one way or the other, an average of $275k wrong per player.\u00a0 MLBTR was off by a cumulative $1.1M, or an average of just $183k per player.\u00a0 Their system continues to be the best and predicting these kinds of things.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Each year various pundits put out projections on Arbitration salary figures.\u00a0 I put my own simple guesses in early in the off-season to do payroll projections. Lets see how everyone did this year guessing the Nats cases? You can see these guesses on the Nats 2020 Payroll page on the Big Board here:\u00a0https:\/\/docs.google.com\/spreadsheets\/d\/186nm-v5F-zTCoR2Be7TFYM3e2cZ-gYi2WVqJLEkHdmc\/ .\u00a0 I’ll […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3684,164,3568,2691,3994,2583,2426,2650],"class_list":["post-16469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-natsgeneral","tag-adrian-sanchez","tag-bryce-harper","tag-hunter-strickland","tag-joe-ross","tag-michael-a-taylor","tag-roenis-elias","tag-trea-turner","tag-wilmer-difo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16469"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16477,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16469\/revisions\/16477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}