Even with a possible lockout of baseball, teams still have to plan for their arbitration-eligible players. MLB Trade Rumors is an excellent resource for projecting those salaries. The Washington Nationals have eight arb-eligible players.
The analyst who creates these arb projections for MLBTR is Matt Swartz who has been a consultant with the Nats since 2013. He has created a model to project salaries for arbitration players and does an excellent job. We feel good as we nailed the number on CJ Abrams ($10.2 million), but we were high on everyone else. The good news for Jake Irvin is that Swartz’s number is much more reasonable than ours, and that probably means that Irvin will be tendered at a number just over $3 million.
Per MLBTR, “In the baseball industry, teams and agents determine arbitration salaries by identifying comparable players. To project the entire arbitration class in this way would take a massive amount of time and effort. So, Matt has developed an algorithm to project arbitration salaries that looks at the player’s playing time, position, role, and performance statistics while accounting for inflation. The performance of comparable players matters, but our system is not directly selecting individual comps for each individual player.”
We have found over the years that Swartz’s numbers are almost always spot on. Last year we saw how Paul Toboni handled arb numbers and they were not comfortable with Cade Cavalli‘s number and instead worked out a 2-year deal for him. After signing his extension, none of that matters, but you could see the team trying that with someone like Josiah Gray or even Irvin.
Here are the numbers sorted by service time in parentheses:
- Josiah Gray (5.075): $1.6MM
- CJ Abrams (4.130): $10.2MM
- Richard Lovelady (4.052): $1.7MM
- Jake Bird (3.169): $1.3MM
- Jake Irvin (3.152): $3.4MM
- Ken Waldichuk (3.150): $1MM
- Jacob Young (3.037): $2.3MM
- Mitchell Parker (2.167): $1.1MM
With both Waldichuk and Parker on the 60-day IL with arm surgeries, the Nationals might non-tender both as the team needs to clear several 40-man spots and neither would be ready to start the season if it begins on-time.
If Waldichuk and Parker are non-tendered, the Nationals are still required to pay for their reasonable medical and rehab costs per the CBA.
What does all of this mean for the Nats salary projections? There are so many numbers that have to be established by the new CBA like minimum player salaries, player benefits, and bonuses. If we use the $1 million minimum player salary number, our payroll projection is $84 million. Remember, the salary cap floor proposed by MLB for the new CBA is $171.2 million.
In comparison, the Nats 2026 opening day payroll was $123 million. Just to get back to that number, the Nats would have $39 million to spend. Why so much? There is no Stephen Strasburg in next year’s official payroll, and his $35 million number is no longer included in the payroll for CBT official purposes. Strasburg signed his deal for the 2020 season, and that was a 7-year deal that ran through the 2026 season.
Remember, outside of the CBT payroll numbers, that does not include Strasburg’s retirement numbers that were never disclosed. Also the team is still paying Max Scherzer at $15 million a year for 2027 and 2028 for the remaining payments as part of his $210 million deal signed in 2015.
❝Going into the next year, we haven’t even set a budget yet. … I wouldn’t have [taken] this job if I didn’t think there was a real chance to win here for a good amount of time. The jump to 77 wins this year and what led to that — and a lot of what drove that was ownership pouring money into things that fans didn’t really see. … The [technology, analytics, and machines] and we hired a ton of people who are top of the industry and that requires a lot of money. ❞
— Paul Toboni said @JunksRadio
The hope is the Lerner ownership group invests all of Strasburg’s money into current payroll plus more!
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