Just started a new league Gary Carter. Have a handful of guys in AAA that show 1 year of ML exp with pro exp ranging from 3-7 yrs. If a guy all ready has pro exp is there an advantage to waiting 20 days into the season to bring him up. A better explanation of the arb years and options would be helpful. Thanks

Hover your mouse over the number next to ML years and a box will come up that says something like "ML Service time: 1.000" or "ML Service time: 1.084"

The 1 means that they have 1 year of ML service time, and the number after that are the # of days on top of the year.  Since you need 172 ML service days to qualify for a full season, you could just call up a 1.000 guy 20 minor league games into season and he'll get an extra pre-arb year.  If a guy has 84 days, that means that you would need to wait until halfway thru the season (<88 days remaining, to be specific) to prevent his clock from ticking forward.

Thanks, I did not know that, still learning the intricacies of the game.

With the 4 added days per season since the update has been put into place, I think you're going to have to keep guys down more than 20 days.

How many "days" are there in a full season. If I have a guy 0.048, how many days into the major league season should I wait before I call him up?

176 days in a season.

If you start a guy in the minors, than bring him up 20 minor league days (which is starts 2 days later than the major leagues start) you get:

Season 1: 154 service days
Season 2: 1 year, 158 days of ML service
Season 3: 2 years, 162 days
Season 4: 3 years, 166 days (arb eligible)
Season 5: 4 years, 170 days (arb eligible 2)
Season 6: 6 years, 2 days of ML service (FA eligible??? has this been confirmed that it will work this way?)

So it would appear that the old 20 day minor league wait period is now more like 23 days of minor leauge time.  add in the 48 days that he already has and you'll want to wait 71 days into the minor league season, which should be sometime right around draft day IIRC.

Taz, it doesn't work that way, because you can't accumulate more than one year of ML service time in a single rollover. In your season 6, you have him jumping from 4 to 6 years, when it will actually show 5 years.

Posted by jonas1102 on 9/21/2010 6:56:00 PM (view original):
With the 4 added days per season since the update has been put into place, I think you're going to have to keep guys down more than 20 days.

When was this update?

Posted by shobob on 9/28/2010 7:32:00 PM (view original):

Posted by jonas1102 on 9/21/2010 6:56:00 PM (view original):
With the 4 added days per season since the update has been put into place, I think you're going to have to keep guys down more than 20 days.

When was this update?

I don't know for sure, but my guys rolled over this year with the extra four days. Jim Carlson had 2.000 going into last year and had 3.004 this year.

I think jonas is referring to this update:

http://www.whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx?ForumID=505&TopicID=109203&ThreadID=9032434#l_9032434

Posted by saintonan on 9/28/2010 7:28:00 PM (view original):
Taz, it doesn't work that way, because you can't accumulate more than one year of ML service time in a single rollover. In your season 6, you have him jumping from 4 to 6 years, when it will actually show 5 years.

well I hope so, but after 6 years, using the above schedule you'd have 5 years, 174 days of service time or 2 more than 1 "service year" so it wouldn't shock me if it flipped to 6 years.  I haven't heard confirmation one way or another, so I'll just be holding my guys back a few games longer to make sure we're ok, rather than risk losing someone to free agency that I thought was going to be eligible for a long term contract prior to arbitration.

Let's follow a random player through the process as it stands now.

ML year 1, beginning: 0.000
ML year 1, end: 0.153 (after holding the required number of days in the minors)
ML year 2, beginning: 0.153
ML year 2, end: 0.255 (ML service days is a short data type, so will not go above 255)
ML year 3, beginning: 1.083 (this is currently a crapshoot - I've seen some players end up like this and some at 1.000)
ML year 3, end: 1.255
ML year 4, beginning: 2.083 (or 2.000, or 2.004, depending on the degree of rollover brokenness)
ML year 4, end: 2.255
ML year 5, beginning: 3.083 (or 3.000, or 3.004, or 3.008, etc.)
ML year 5, end: 3.255
ML year 6, beginning: 4.083 (or...)
ML year 6, end: 4.255
ML year 7, beginning: 5.083 (or...)
ML year 7, end: 5.255
ML year 8, beginning: 6.083

So it appears that with maximum usage, the player will be arb eligible at the beginning of his fifth ML year, and a free agent at the beginning of his eighth ML year. If at any point the rollover process inadvertently resets days to .000, then another 20 day minor league stint will add yet another year of team control.

You're right about the 255 days thing, I had not noticed that.  Thanks for the info.

Seems like it should go to 2.000 instead of increment to 1.173, even if it's mid-year.