Arbitration sucks. Players hate it. Agents hate it. Teams *mostly* hate it. I want to make something clear about arbitration, general managers are not in the room commanding attacks on every nickel and dime against the player’s case.
There’s a wing of the front office that is dedicated to analyzing and combing through statistics with the finest-toothed comb on the planet. Player representatives are doing the same to prove their case. There’s a winner and a loser, and feelings are only hurt when the player loses.
The process we call now call arbitration has roots back to the birth of the game in the 1880s … but the real collective bargaining arrived in 1970 thanks to Marvin Miller – the architect of the modern Players’ Union. It was intended to empower the player, but 60 years later, it feels more like a burden on all parties involved – giving the leverage back to the teams.
At the end of the day, Burnes is still going to pitch for the Brewers this season, and by all projections, going to pitch very very well. He still earned a raise equal to the rest of the market, he’ll earn another raise next season too. Now it’s behind everyone involved, and let’s get ready for some baseball in a week here on WTMJ.
