Ball Park Figures? Better Believe It

For all those owners who view free agency as the Achilles' heel of baseball, there was a harsh reminder last week that in Hellenistic lore, Pyrrhus was a descendant of Achilles. The annual February slugout known as salary arbitration ended, and when the gold dust settled, the clubs had again redefined the term Pyrrhic victory. The owners won seven of the 13 cases this year and have a 102-86 record since arbitration began in 1974. But in the same period the average annual salary has risen from $40,839 to $329,408. And the highest individual salary has grown from Dick Allen's $225,000 to Mike Schmidt's $2,130,000.

All of this explains why the owners were so happy to see the beginning of spring training. It meant the end of another financially gloomy winter. Everywhere you looked, someone was signing a seven-figure, or—Calvin Griffith just fainted—an eight-figure contract. At least 36 players will make $1 million or more in 1985, compared with 22 in 1984. Two of those players, Montreal's Tim Raines and Boston's Wade Boggs, made their million through arbitration in February. Other, more established players used free agency or its threat to negotiate long-term bonanzas. In Baltimore: Fred Lynn, five years, $6.8 million. In Chicago: Rick Sutcliffe, five years, $9 million. In Atlanta: Bruce Sutter, six years, $9.6 million. And in Boston, Jim Rice signed a four-year escalating extension that will start at $1.5 million a year beginning in 1986. Add these to the growing number of clubs for sale and the widening pool of red ink in which the teams are wallowing, and it's no wonder that baseball executives sound like the Chicken Little Glee Club. It has been said that, all told, the clubs suffered $80 million to $120 million in losses last year and that eight teams are on the block to be sold.

But let the buyer beware. Not only have salaries gone through the roof, but you can't just sign a player to a certain salary; you have to sweeten the deal with bonuses or incentive clauses. The salaries of the 36 players listed on the cover were determined by adding prorated signing bonuses to base pay but, of course, don't include incentive payouts. The only exception to the formula is Rice, who in 1985 will receive $1.35 million of his new $3.2 million bonus. (On the same day last month that Rice signed, the Red Sox, who ranked 16th in average salary in '84, also signed reliever Bob Stanley to a four-year, $4.3 million extension that will make him a millionaire next year, and heard from an arbitrator that they would have to pay Boggs $1 million this year. Triple play!)

Some familiar names are missing from the list, but those players planned it that way. San Diego first baseman Steve Garvey earned $1.85 million in 1983, but because he knew 1985 could be interrupted by a strike, his contract was structured to yield only $800,000 this season. For the same reason, Toronto reliever Bill Caudill will take $500,000 in base salary in '85 and $1.2 million in '86. Others have performance and/or attendance clauses that should be easily achieved: Cub third baseman Ron Cey will make $950,000 in base pay and prorated bonus this year and will probably equal the $500,000 in attendance bonuses he was given last season.

Thanks to arbitration, which determines a player's salary for one season, some players don't need a bonus to make a million. All it takes is at least two years in the majors, some knock-your-eyes-out statistics and an inflationary market. It certainly worked out that way last week for Raines at a hearing in Chicago. At stake was whether Raines, 25, with less than five full years of major league experience, would receive his requested $1.2 million from arbitrator Tom Roberts and become baseball's 36th million-dollar player for 1985, or the Expos' offer of $1 million and become baseball's 36th million-dollar player for 1985.

"I began hearing baseball cases in 1974, the first year they were held," says Roberts, a 61-year-old Los Angeles-area attorney. His first case involved Cito Gaston, then a veteran San Diego outfielder and now the Toronto batting coach. "The club offered $42,000, and Gaston asked $50,000," Roberts says, and, with a touch of wonderment, adds, "Imagine that."

Better yet, imagine that 11 years later, Raines would win the largest arbitration award ever and hardly anyone in baseball would bat an eye. What's a million these days? "This is not a landmark case by any stretch," says Tom Reich, Raines's agent.

There is little dispute about Raines's talent. His career stolen-base percentage of .863 is a major league record. In 1983 he scored 133 runs, a National League record of 19.6% of his team's scoring. He has led the league in stolen bases in each of his first four seasons and was an All-Star every year. His career batting average is .293 and his career on-base percentage is .380.

How much are good stats worth? A lot more than a year, six months or even two weeks ago. Under a system of player compensation in which salary standards just keep soaring, it doesn't take a David Stockman to figure out how much Raines was helped by an arbitrator's decision in favor of Boggs on Feb. 13. Boggs was awarded $1 million; the Red Sox had offered $675,000.

Only three players and no clubs were prepared to submit figures of $1 million or more to an arbitrator before 1985, but—talk about salary spirals—seven players and three clubs did so this year. All but three of those cases were settled beforehand; in those that went to arbitration, the winners were Raines and Boggs, and the loser was Chicago Cub first baseman Leon Durham, who will receive $800,000 instead of his requested $1.1 million. Durham's "defeat" brought the fifth-highest arbitration award in history. New York Met reliever Jesse Orosco lost his case but still came away with $650,000, the seventh-highest. He had asked for $850,000. (Fellow reliever Doug Sisk also lost, getting $275,000 after asking for $470,000.) As Julio Cruz said in 1983 after he lost his bid for $500,000 and instead received $425,000 from the Mariners, "I could have been one richer Puerto Rican, but now I'm just a rich Puerto Rican."