BRADENTON, Fl. – Neal Huntington addressed the media today regarding Gerrit Cole’s comments on his salary last night, and was surprisingly open about the subject, rather than declining to comment on any negotiations, as has been his practice in the past. He also admitted the club made a mistake.
“We made a mistake in the process,” Huntington said. “Gerrit’s base salary a year ago, plus his bonus, took him above our scale. We initially did not incorporate the bonus that he earned last year for making the All-Star team. We made that adjustment, took him above our scale. Gerrit agreed, unhappy with that. We understand that. We can empathize with him. At the same time, there is a system in place that is negotiated by the union and by Major League Baseball.”
One of Cole’s complaints was that he was receiving less salary than he had in 2015 with the original offer of $538,000. Last year he received a base salary of $531,000, along with a $10,000 bonus for making the All-Star Game. So the Pirates corrected that by giving him the total amount he made last year — $541,000 — while also giving him the same performance bonus package, including the potential for another $10,000 bonus if he makes this year’s All-Star Game.
The move makes Cole the highest paid Pirates pre-arb player in history. He also has the highest amount this group has paid over the league minimum for a pitcher, with his salary being $33,500 over the minimum.
Huntington explained that the Pirates have a system in place to determine how much pre-arb players will receive. Technically, the Pirates could pay everyone the league minimum each year, with no raises throughout the process. There are some teams which take this approach. The Pirates incorporate a player’s performance, service time, and playing time in their system.
“We choose to go above [the league minimum],” Huntington said. “It’s our choice to go above that. One of the other things that we work to do is put a system and a structure in place that is consistent throughout the organization. In some organizations, it’s based solely on service time. Every zero-plus is treated exactly the same. Every one-plus is treated exactly the same. In our system, we want to compensate players in some balance of performance, service time, and playing time. In our system, Gerrit scales out very well. He was going to be compensated at the top of our two-plus class.”
The question that is raised here, and which was raised by Scott Boras when the issue first came up last night, was that other teams would have paid Cole more. The Pirates do have a scale, but it’s smaller than other scales, and it’s fair to question whether they should be spending more.
Boras brought up the Mets and the Marlins when he said that Cole would have been paid more in other organizations. It’s not a coincidence he brought these two teams up. The Marlins paid Jose Fernandez $635,000 in his second pre-arb year, after his first big season. The Mets paid Matt Harvey $614,125 in his third pre-arb year, after two big seasons. Both players also happen to be represented by Boras, just like Cole.
The other side of this is that a lot of teams pay less than the Pirates and their scale. The Astros, for example, paid Dallas Keuchel $524,500 last year, following a season where he put up a 3.8 fWAR. I also can’t find any of their current players who have received more than the $524,000 to $526,000 range in pre-arb deals. The Rays keep almost everyone close to the league minimum, and their biggest pre-arb cases are just over $520,000.
So while the Pirates’ scale is lower than some teams, it’s also higher than some teams. And considering they’re never a team that pays the most money for MLB talent, it’s not a surprise to see them in the middle of the pack here, closer to the bottom.
“It’s always easy to grab one side of the argument and run with it, especially when that side of the argument is made very public,” Huntington said. “We believe that we want to treat our players consistently across the board, and given the fact that we take in more than just pure service time, and not every two-plus player is treated the same as every other two-plus player, we do think we do that to an extent.”
But what about making an exception for someone like Cole? Technically, the Pirates did make an exception by making him their highest paid pre-arb player. That said, it’s still low when you look at what some of the highest paid pre-arb guys receive.
“Once you make an exception, how do you draw the line at what the next exception is?” Huntington asked. “If you say it’s only for MVPs, well what if somebody wins the Cy Young? Or what if someone finishes second in the Cy Young? Or what if someone finishes fifth in the Rookie of the Year voting? Where do you draw the line with the exception? In our system, we believe that it is appropriate. We believe that it is consistent across the board. We believe it’s the right thing to do in our system.”
The problem you have with this situation is that once you get in the habit of basing player salaries off what other players with similar service time and performance make, then you’re essentially creating a smaller version of arbitration. That goes against what the Collective Bargaining Agreement has established for zero to three players, and starts driving up the prices for those players. The Player’s Union agreed to a league minimum and giving unilateral control to teams during these years because they got concessions elsewhere. And asking teams to start paying more would be similar to asking players to reduce the amount of Super Two eligible players, or the amount for a qualifying offer in a given year.
This is a situation that might need to be addressed in the upcoming Collective Bargaining Agreement following the 2016 season. I wrote about that in more detail last night, and you should check out the article here.
As for Cole, Huntington doesn’t believe this situation will impact his feelings in the future.
“We’re always sensitive to that,” Huntington said. “Our reality is, he’s an intelligent man. He’s a passionate man. He’s a driven man. We’re ready to move forward. My belief is he’s probably ready to move forward. He said what he had to say. We respect his ability to say what he has to say. Not sure his gripe is completely with us. We made a mistake in the process. We understand that, we’ve owned that, we’ve acknowledged that, we’ve more forward from that. We broke our scale because of that. We’ll evolve. We’ll continue to move forward. Our hope is that Gerrit is ready to move forward, put this behind him, and recognize the better year he has, the better year we have, it’s good for all of us.”
