Yankees win arbitration case against Wang
-
- February
- 15
The Yankees beat Chien-Ming Wang in the arbitration case. Wang will be paid $4 million this year, not $4.6 million.
Working now to track down some reaction.
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on Friday, February 15th, 2008 at 3:48 pm by Peter Abraham.
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Peter Abraham
Wow, would love to know the behind the scenes here to see which party wasn’t ameniable to the $300k mid point.
I am slightly confused. With the regular season Wang had, how did he not win 4.6 million. Pitchers that put up his numbers definitely earn more than that. Please explain this.
I can’t believe they are nickel and diming Wang who has only won 38 games in two years. If he were a free agent, they’d pay him $10,000,000.
Now you see why the Yankees went to arbitration.
Its not a question of it being “only” 600k.
Its a question of compensation for Wang based on similar pitchers with the same (or close) service time.
When Scott Kazmir, who is a better pitcher than Wang, signed for 3.8 million, that was the benchmark number for pitchers with Wang’s success and service time.
In fact, the Yankees went over 200k to try and sign him.
Obviously, the Wang side felt they could win and decided to take a shot at arbitration.
Bottom line, it will have no effect on Wang.
However, it is an interesting lesson for those looking to learn about arbitration.
as a fan who watched almost every game last year i blame wang for flushing our season down the toilet and in my opinion the yanks cant get rid of him sooner
Its not nickel and diming him.
The point isn’t what he would have gotten if he was a FA.
The point is, what the salary benchmark is for pitchers with his success and service time.
The Yankees, like most teams, don’t want to raise the bar for salaries of players under their control.
When a player is a FA, the marketplace sets his salary.
When a player is not, past salaries for similar players with the same service time sets the market.
To argue what he would have gotten as a FA is irrelevent to the discussion.
Its a what a player, with his service time and track record, should get.
Scott Kazmir is the benchmark to work off of. The Yankees actually went 200K over Kazmir’s 2008 salary.
The arbitrator felt, correctly so, IMO, wasn’t 800k better than Kazmir.
I would guess the Yankees weren’t interested in, “meeting in the middle” because that would have been 500k more than Kazmir.
Too high a price for a players still under control to a team.
smitty, I sorta agree. If you had to blame one player for last years playoff collapse it would be Wang. However, you can’t ignore his 19 wins and effective innings he pitched. The good news is Wang is now going to make more money than he ever had to right to dream about. Also he just got a gigantic raise, what did he make last year $500k?
I think it is no big deal. It will be business as usual my man Wanger.
Can’t wait until Wang gets back at the Yankees by winning 20 games this year and a Cy Young, then gets overpaid for 6 years.
smitty: also in my opinion the yanks cant lose a fan like you sooner.
woohoo, yankees first win of the season!
If you are looking to get rid of players because they had a bad post-season last year, why not get rid of Jeter? He was as awful as Wang last year.
For the overly emotional, you don’t get rid of players because they had 3 bad days.
If you do, you will run out of players by June.
Smitty:
If not for Wang, we don’t get to that series at all.
As for the series itself, Blame Torre, not Wang. Wang’s #’s on the road were much, much worse than they were in Yankee. He never should have started in Cleveland at all. Not knowing or respecting those kinds of stark stat differences, that’s on Torre.
Also, I recall that Wang was pitching hurt toward the end of the season. He gave it all he had – can’t kill the guy for that.
Maybe if Jeter doesn’t hit .176 and GIDP 1,000 times in that series, or Posada doesn’t hit .133, we win it.
Smitty:
Take Wang off the staff last year and they don’t make the playoffs. If you’re going to comment here, try and make them intelligent.
Also, it’s not a matter of “Ok, lets meet in the middle”. The arbitrator either picks CMW or the Yankees offer and thats it.
EXCELLENT POINTS SJ44. EXCELLENT!! educating points. I didn’t know that so from now on I’ll know what the process means to the players and the teams involved. Thank You.
I have to laugh here! The Yanks try to pay a player LESS than what he’s asking, and people are UPSET?!? I must be in Bizarro World….
Wang told Taiwanese media yesterday he won’t be upset because he thought he would get 3~4 million at the beginning.
Now everyone can move on to figuring out how to beat the Sox come playoff time… Wanger is a classy guy and will give all he’ve got this season. However, he did admit to the Taiwanese media about his very tired arm in the playoff last season. Hopefully he will condition himself better this year.
I’ll take 500k… no need for 4.6 or even 4 mil.
“I am slightly confused. With the regular season Wang had, how did he not win 4.6 million. Pitchers that put up his numbers definitely earn more than that. Please explain this.”
i will explain.
pitchers that put up his numbers do NOT earn more than this *IN THEIR FIRST YEAR OF ARBITRATION*. that is the key part.
this is what i was trying to explain yesterday.
Wang is not a free agent.
you are treating him as if he were a free agent when you say pitchers with his numbers make more than $4M.
there is an established market rate for top flight starting pitchers with 3 years of service time.
that market rate is between $3M-$4M. it is not $4.6M.
the Yankees offered him the top of that range.
they did not “nickle and dime” him, and the fact that Wang lost the case serves to vindicate the Yankees’ position.
this is NOT a big deal. Wang will be fine.
Rocco,
If you take 500K, how many win can you garantee? –
uh, or exactly what SJ44 said already. doh.
thanks pete i already knew you were the biggest wang apologist on the planet.is that a fact that they would’nt have made the playoffs? maybe they would’ve used kennedy or joba as a starter, both guys i predict will be around longer than wang and guys who i think will out pitch wang in the rotation this year.
“and in my opinion the yanks cant get rid of him sooner”
serenity now.
SJ44 is right on the money, like usual.
This is just the way arbitration is, if Wang continues like the past two years he’ll get more money next year in arbitration and even more in his third year.
Smitty, lay off the Smitty’s Scotch….
Yeah, two kids, with less than a year of service time in the game, were going to out pitch Wang last year.
Smitty, you are digging yourself in deeper and deeper.
What do you think hmmmm, is smitty “chris” with a new name?
I feel a Ron Mahay post coming soon! lol
The Wanger continues to pitch the way he pitched the past couple years, he’ll be able to get ‘market’ value when he’s a FA. Hopefully he can get that from the Yanks just before he becomes a FA.
If he pitches well enough up to when the time comes (and this does NOT require that he go 22-5/2.75 during the season then 5-0/1.23 in the post season) they Yanks will be willing to give him what he deserves in order to keep him. If they know he’ll get market value as a FA, he might even get a little more than market value from NY to stay.
If he’s worth it, it’ll be worth it for both parties.
How could you use Joba or Kennedy as a starter in place of Wang when both of them were low in the minor leagues when last season started?
Pull your head out of you butt, Smitty.
I’m not the biggest Wang fan out there.
I saw the guy absolutely crumble in the post season and make all the hard work this team did last year in the regular season go to waste. His 2007 post season numbers are some of the all time worst.
BUT, he is a dependable force in the rotation and gives this team a good chance to win every time he takes the mound.
Hopefully, whatever was going on in the post season is over and he’ll bounce back and be effective again.
Would I have traded him for Johan? In a heartbeat. However, there aren’t many other pitchers I would trade this guy for right now.
He’d be a #1 or #2 on almost every major league staff. Let’s hope he keeps that up.
Someone earlier had asked when the first preseason game would be broadcast- its Sunday March 2 at 1:15 p.m.
This link has the whole spring broadcast schedule on YES- seems like more games than they’ve had in the past but i may be mistaken.
http://blogs.timesunion.com/sportsmedia/?p=238
It’s not like we all need to take up a collection to help the Wanger make ends meet in the meantime.
Kennedy was injured and shutdown last year and I seem to remember Joba having a total meltdown in game 2. Blaming Wang and only Wang is retarded. The Yankees could’ve won the first game but could never deliever the KO on Sabathia (who was awful)
To Hmmmm:
I understand how the process works and that the established rate for a pitcher with Wang’s success and service time is somewhere around $3.5 – 4 million.
I do not think this was as much about saving $$ today as it was not increasing the range for tomorrow. The Yankees were probably concerned not only about the $600K they would have had to pay Wang but two, three years down the road it’s an extra $1,000,000 each to whichever of the young stud pitchers makes it Hughes, Joba, Kennedy etc…
I’m sure Wang will be fine, mentally. He just got a 700% raise. He did not get a 820% raise because, in my opinion, the Yankees were concerned about this cost and future costs.
The Yankees used the system the way the way they are entitled to in order to save what, to them, is quite a small amount of $$ compared to the returning production.
That’s why I think it’s nickel and diming (to the tune of 600K…which is a lot of dimes…and twice as many nickels
)
CC Sabathia also had a crappy post-season last year.
Had the ball in his hand, at home, to pitch the Indians into the WS and failed big time. Failed again in Boston.
Yet, everybody wants CC Sabathia. Folks will be on the blog BEGGING the Yankees to give him over 150 million bucks.
Everybody who has ever played the game has had a bad post-season. You just have to bounce back from it. The great ones bounce back.
Instead of burying Wang for two bad starts, how about supporting him. The guy has been awful good for this team in the 3 years he has pitched in NY.
I guess the same folks who want Wang out of town also want Arod out too.
As bad as Wang was, Jeter was worse. It happens.
The common thread. Both guys were hurting.
Its a new year, look forward instead of back.
Right, I’m an apologist for a guy who was second in the Cy Young voting in 2006 and won 19 games last season despite not making his first start until April 24.
Kennedy and Chamberlain weren’t in spring training last season. Hard to make the team as a starter when you’re not in camp — or haven’t pitched pro ball before.
If people are so smart, why don’t we use Wang at what he can do best – use him in the regular season and shelf him at playoff? Hindsight 20-20 can really work out great…
Heh, don’t forget that NL Triple Crown winner Peavy sunk the Padres’ season in the win-or-go-home game against the Rockies
SJ44 – Exactly the point!!! Bravo!!!
Paolo:
Let’s assume that Wang wins another 19 games and the Yankees make the playoffs. I’ll write the intro sentence or two for the article that would be written if they followed your nutty scheme:
“Chien-Ming Wang, winner of 19 games for the third season in a row, will not pitch at all during the playoffs due to his collapse against Cleveland a year ago…”
You feel free to take it from there….
Yankees win THEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE YAAAAAAAAAAAAAANKEEEEEEEEEEEEES WIIIIIIIIIIIN.
Apparently it’s spring training for rookie blog posters too.
I think Paolo was being sarcastic. He wasn’t serious.
But, the lead to your story should read, “Chein Ming Wang, winner of 19 games for the third year in a row, will not pitch in the post-season because smitty from the LoHud Blog is still upset about his collapse last year against the Indians”.
Rumors of a Wang for Ron Mahay deal, since Mahay is now the newly favored son of some bloggers, is currently being discussed.
Scott,
I was trying to be sarcastic if it was not obvious…
But your headline title may be a blast – there will be a lot of blames and rage to be thrown at the coaching staff but not at the Wanger at least…
SJ44, I agree with everything you say except that Jeter was worse than Wang in the playoffs. Thats really not true, Wang’s performance was the main reason the yankees lost two games. You can’t say that about Jeter. This is just nitpicking though..
Pat,
Which pitcher should be put in replacement of Wang if you were Joe last season and time could go back?
I agree with everyone’s points, you can not get on Wang for his bad postseason, and he is a hell of a pitcher. But don’t say that Jeter had a worse postseason. jeter was horrible but Wang didn’t even give us a chance.
Scott,
that makes my day! I couldn’t stop laughing :p
You guys are right – we should stay away from pitchers that have ever gotten shelled in the postseason.
Guys like Pettitte, Carmona, Sabathia, Clemens, Pedro, Maddux, etc.
Please gain some perspective and learn the meaning “small sample size.”
I don’t know Pat. The errors, not getting to some balls he should have gotten to, the GIDP (especially the big one in Game 4), it was pretty ugly for DJ in that series.
If Arod had a series like that, he would have gotten run out of town.
It happens to everybody. Just unfortunate it happened to Jeter last year.
I don’t think its a coincidence he is in amazing shape coming into ST. I think the poor post-season, and the managerial change, caused him to make some adjustments in his off-season program.
I saw a week ago and he looks great. Much more fit (although I am sure he will deny it) coming into ST.
I want nothing to do with CC. I hope the Yankees stay as far away from him as possible.
Unless he learns how to condition himself and his body, I wouldn’t do anything with him other than a year to year contract.
Any team who gives him more than 3 years is insane.
He’s so large and overweight and the guy is power pitcher. If the weight takes it tolls on his knees, and it will, he’ll lose his fastball and be worthless.
Johan is a well conditioned athlete. He deserves the benefit of the doubt and the contract he received.
Unless CC gets his eating under control, he does not deserve that.
He’s in his 20’s and struggling with weight. As many of us know, when you hit your 30’s, it becomes even harder and you can’t eat the way you did in your 20’s and expect the same results.
Pitching : Hitting : MLB = Defense : Offense : NBA
- not a perfect analogy but should be close
- following this logic, Wang should be blamed more than Jetter does if blaming is needed
- maybe blaming is just for giggle but not helpful
Man, for $4mil, I think it’s hard to find a better deal anywhere in baseball. You can count on the fingers of one hand how many pitchers have more wins than CMW the last 2 years.
Let’s put it this way, if Phil Hughes and/or Ian Kennedy wins 38 games over the next 2 years, we’ll all be very happy.
As far as last year’s postseason goes, yes, CMW stunk. But let’s not forget his playoff games in ‘05 and ‘06. In ‘05 against the Angels he went 6 2/3 and gave up 1 run.In ‘06 he went 6 2/3 ,gave up 3 runs and got the win.
Let’s not panic here. This kid is a darn good pitcher. It just seemed like he tried to throw too hard at the end of last year.
The Yankees out to go into the playoffs this year with the pitching staff of last year’s Kansas City Royals. Not a one of them had a bad post season last year.
I’m with G Love. Last thing I want on the Yankees is bartolo colon ii.
SJ,
not to mention DJ was playing hurt last season (at least it seemed). If he is 100%, its reason to be optimistic.
Also, whats up with JB Cox. I was really looking forward to seeing him in the Bronx but it seems he is now buried (in terms of hype) behind guys like Melancon. I though JB was viewed as one of the most likely to be an excellent big league reliver?
Remind me how much Wang made last year? I don’t think Wang’s terribly disappointed.
Nice raise for the Wanger. Remember, the 600k he lost in arbitration is only 300k after taxes!
if Wang keeps pitching well, he may make double ($8M) next season. He has plenty of incentive, aside from winning games, to do well. He’ll be just fine.
Could somebody please tell me why Scott Kazmir is a better pitcher than Wang?
Hi, SJ44
Your Quote – ” When Scott Kazmir, who is a better pitcher than Wang, signed for 3.8 million, that was the benchmark number for pitchers with Wang’s success and service time.
In fact, the Yankees went over 200k to try and sign him.”
I am really interested to know why Scott Kazmir is a better pitcher than Wang ?