Can anyone point me to a full explanation about when a player is eligible for arbitration? I've seen some explanations scattered around, but nothing comprehensive.

I have a couple young players that should be very good and I want to maximize the years they play for my team cheaply.  I have a couple aging veterans they are doing an OK job for now, but I'd like to bring these young guys up. I'm a 70 win team right now, but in 2 or 3 years, I think I could contend with these young guys in my system if I can afford them all.

A few questions.  Once a player is on the ML, but is then demoted, how does that affect his arbiration?  I had a guy on the team that had 3 ML years and did his first arbiration last offseason, but I set him down.  Does he still do arbitration next year again?  If I bring a guy up midseason, how does that affect his service time?  Is there a place I can check that?  How does it get calculated?

Thanks for the help.  

  

I guess I've heard other people talking about fractions of "service time" in other threads, and I'm wondering where they find those numbers or how those numbers are calculated and how service time between 3 and 5 years affects arbitrations.  

Anyone that can point me in the right direction on this would be a saint.

Pull up a player's profile.  Move the cursor over the number to the right of "ML Years".  You'll see the actual years and days of service time that the player has accumulated as of the current HBD day.