Tom Brennan - The Mets’ Chattel Class

All young players want to leave the minor league life behind for good, making that leap to long term success and the riches such success will accrue.

What is “chattel” And what does it have to do with baseball?

Chattel is defined as tangible personal property that is movable between locations, as opposed to immovable property such as real estate.

I addressed earlier this week how, in the larger strategic perspective of the Mets attempting to win a World Series, that pitchers like David Peterson and Tylor Megill can still be moved up and down between the majors in the minors like - well, like chattel - until their options are expired, whether or not they currently deserve to be full-time major leaguers (hint: they do deserve to be, including on a contending team).

The same applies to Messrs. Alvarez, Baty, Vientos, and Mauricio, the quartet of young hitter-prospects.

Three things make each of them chattel until proven otherwise: 

The first is their minimum wage salaries in the game of baseball, 

The second being their ability to be auction back-and-forth between the minors and Queens, and 

The third being the fact that they have not yet indisputably established superior value at a major league level that would make it illogical to demote them, both because of the loss of the added value they would provide but also because fans know a good thing when they see one and they’ll be in wide scale revolt when their favorite young player gets sent down for a flimsy reason.

No one in their right mind would be sending Michael Harris to the minors because he has passed the yo yo stage as he has demonstrated indisputably superior value at the major league level. If our fearsome foursome wishes to not be yo-yoed up and down between the minors and Queens, then success makes for one-way tickets to Queens and not leaving Queens. Until then, and until the options run out, in the larger strategic picture, these guys are yo-yos with Cohen’s Mets.

Lastly, a factor is a player’s service time before free agency. Clubs have vested interests in not having currently unproductive young players cluttering their 26 man roster building up service time, since salaries for high quality players jump geometrically after they’ve accumulated sufficient service times.  High salaries add to luxury tax woes. Low salaries do not, but too many low salaries are antithetical to the overarching goal of reaching the World Series, because of greater uncertainty that they will provide superior value at a major league level in early 2023.

Regarding MLB service time, the rules, from the MLB’s website, are described in understandable parlance below:

Players receive Major League service time for each day spent on the 26-man roster or the Major League injured list. Important to players and clubs alike, service time is used to determine when players are eligible for arbitration as well as free agency.

Each Major League regular season consists of 187 days (typically 183 days prior to 2018), and each day spent on the active roster or injured list earns a player one day of service time. (Any player who violates MLB's Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program doesn't receive Major League Service during his suspension, unless his suspension is reduced by 20 or more games under the mitigation provision of the program.)

A player is deemed to have reached "one year" of Major League service upon accruing 172 days in a given year. 

Upon reaching six years of Major League service, a player becomes eligible for free agency at the end of that season (unless he has already signed a contract extension that covers one or more of his free-agent seasons).

All players with at least three (but less than six) years of Major League service time become eligible for salary arbitration, through which they can earn substantial raises relative to the Major League minimum salary. 

Additionally, MLB each year identifies the group of players that ended the prior season with between 2 and 3 years of Major League service and at least 86 days of Major League service in that season and designates the top 22% -- in terms of service time -- as arbitration eligible. 

Those in the top 22% -- "Super Two" players -- are also eligible for salary arbitration despite having less than 3 years of Major League service. The 2022-26 collective bargaining agreement established a $50 million bonus pool for pre-arbitration players.

So, the rule lingo seems clear…hit like Jeff circa 2018 and Pete circa 2019, and you’ve decisively crossed the “value added threshold” and are not being banished from Queens, and will be viewed as “Top 22 percenters“ too.

Back to our 4 prospects. Only 3 of our 4 top hitting prospects have reached the majors. Those 3, in 2022, combined to hit 15 for 85 with 4 HRs and 9 RBIs. 

Suffice it to say that in that light they have not decisively crossed the value-added threshold yet…not even close. They thus remain chattel. Of course, a blistering spring training might de-chattel a young player. Pete, for instance, still has 3 options for a good reason…he came and never left.

You as an owner don’t want a guy accumulating service time for long, though, if said player currently isn’t playing much, because free agency draws ever closer with each day spent on an MLB roster, resulting in geometrically higher future salaries and luxury cap pain.

Let’s all hope all 4 dudes decisively cross that threshold as early in 2023 as possible…even while keeping in mind that it is hard to compile consistent MLB playing time when joining one of baseball’s top team offenses. The guys who write the checks want to know it’s money well spent before signing those checks.

Therefore:

Message to Prospects:

…become a Jeff or Pete as quickly as possible. Those fellas are done with the minors. 

And, after all, who the heck wants to go to Syracuse anyway, no offense intended.  Simply put, Syracuse ain’t Queens.

Speaking of chattel…Mets claimed Tayler Saucedo off waivers November 9th…welcome aboard…and designate him for assignment this week. Mets innings? None. Future destination? Unclear. Maybe it’s to stay with the Mets, or be traded, or clear waivers and get picked up elsewhere. Or put back on a shelf in aisle 12. Time will tell.