Salary Arbitration and Hearings in MLB Explained

Kinda ... to the best of my understanding at least. I knew a bit prior to writing this piece for Sports Unbiased, did some research, tried to simplify it a little and well, here's what I came up with ....  you may find it a little bit boring but it's one of those things that people who are into baseball should probably know about more so than just like "oh that guy's a free agent" or "so and so is up for arbitration" ya know? Here's my understanding of the process .....

With Major League Baseball’s arbitration hearings beginning today and running through February 21st, I thought it might be nice for those new to baseball, casual fans and even fanatics like myself to take a little refresher course on what salary arbitration and arbitration hearings are. I mean, we hear them talked about every year but what is really going on?

Charles Rex Arbogast

All this is largely based on free agency so I need to preface this article by saying that free-agency in MLB is different from free-agency in any other sport, in that a player cannot become a free agent without six full years of big league service.

Let’s go over the basics of salary arbitration in MLB. Really, the most complicated part of the process is deciphering who is eligible in the first place, after that things become a lot less complicated.

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