Traded for a player after he had played 4 ML games for another team. Assigned him to AAA when he arrived he has played 25 games with my AAA. Is he still arb eligible next year if i bring him up now?

I'm beginning to think that you don't need to wait the 20 or 25 days to bring up a minor leaguer to get an extra year before arbitration.  I think you only need to wait 7 days.  There are 176 days in a full season, and 170 constitutes a ML year of service time.  So I think it would work like this if you waited 7 days to call him up...

Start of 1st ML season - 0.000 + 169 = 0.169
Start of 2nd ML season - 0.169 + 176 = 0.255 (guessing it's an 8 bit stat in binary, 2^8 = 256, which, I'm assuming, is why it stops at 255)
Start of 3rd ML season - 1.85 + 176 = 1.255 (85 comes from 255-170, which is a full ML season)
Start of 4th ML season - 2.85 + 176 = 2.255
Start of 5th ML season - 3.85, so this is the first year of arbitration.

Others can confirm or refute this, but I think this is the way it works today.

But whether I'm right or wrong about only needing to wait 7 days, yes, you can call him up now to delay arbitration.  Any minor league assignment longer than 20 days does not count as ML service time.  If he were only down for 19 days, those 19 days would count as ML service time.

I think you contradicted yourself there.

Yes, you only need to lose 7 days of service time to save the year - but you can't just wait 7 days, because if you wait less than 20, the games all count against his service time anyhow.

Sorry, I was unclear.  I didn't mean that mikebr13 only needed to wait 7 days after sending him down.  I meant that someone with a player starting in the minors at the beginning of the year only needs to wait 7 days.

Why is the situation any different at the beginning of the year?  The rule you cited is the same whether he started the season in the minors or not - it's still a minor league assignment, and if you don't wait at least 20, it's the same as if you brought him up day one based on the rule you cited in your last paragraph.  The way you described it (only needing to wait 7) is how it used to be, until they updated HBD to enforace that rule.

So he has now played 4 ML games and 27 at AAA yet he is still showing up on the arb eligible list for next season. That is my confusion, should he have lost this seasons service time already?

The arb report for next season assumes that he's getting a full season of ML service in the current season.  So he may show up on the report now, yet not actually be arb eligible next season.

Posted by AlCheez on 1/27/2011 5:03:00 PM (view original):
Why is the situation any different at the beginning of the year?  The rule you cited is the same whether he started the season in the minors or not - it's still a minor league assignment, and if you don't wait at least 20, it's the same as if you brought him up day one based on the rule you cited in your last paragraph.  The way you described it (only needing to wait 7) is how it used to be, until they updated HBD to enforace that rule.

You're still misunderstanding.  If your player has never been in the majors, you only have to wait 7 days (under the assumptions of the scenario I laid out).  If he's in the majors and you send him down, you have to wait the 20 so that those days in the minors don't count as ML service time.

Are you assuming that this player was in the majors last year, and not just for 4 days this year?  I'm assuming he's never been in the majors, and only has 4 total days of ML service time, which may be a false assumption.

I'm not misunderstanding at all. I agree with you that the player in question can be called up now without getting the full year of service. I'm questioning you on the piece about only having to wait 7 days for someon who has never been in the majors.

You're saying that the 20 game rule doesn't apply to time spent in the minor leagues at the beginning of the first season a player appears in the big leagues, and I'm questioning why you would think that.

The 20 game rule certainly does apply at the beginning of the season.  AlCheez is correct, mhultshult is mistaken.

I was under the impression that the rule about minor league assignments less than 20 days only pertained to players that were sent down.  I stand corrected.

Because the MLB "20 day" rule uses the term "optional assignment" to describe the time, you might be able to parse that to say that if you call up a player at the same time you add him to the 40 man, your situation would apply, since he wouldn't have been on an optional assignment prior to the call up (that only applies to guys on the 40 and not in the minors).

However, that would only apply to that specific situation, I don't think in practice that's how the rule works in MLB, and I'm sure the game isn't savvy enough to figure that all out. I'm guessing the game logic just looks at how many days the player accrued this season, and if it's less than 20 games fewer than the maximum, they get a full year.

days of service no longer stop at 255.  You may need to keep a guy down 25 days in order to save the full year, and avoid having them go from 4 years of service time (plus 170ish days) up to 5 years of service 174 days, which would equal another year and potentially push them to free agency before the last year of arbitration hearings.

http://whatifsports.com/HBD/Pages/Popups/PlayerProfile.aspx?pid=2890723

There's one guy w/ 285 days of service.

I always thought it was 20 AAA games.  I have 2 AAA players that I want to call up, does anyone know this for sure is it 20 or 25??