Posted by tufft on 10/9/2012 2:41:00 PM (view original):
Every day on the ML roster during the season counts toward arb time.
If you bring him up for 15 days this year, and want to extend his arb time by delaying his promotion next year, you'll have to wait 15 extra days to bring him up.
It's not quite that straight forward.
An ML season in HBD is 175 days long. A year of ML service is 172 days.
If this guy comes up this season for 15 days, he accrues 15 days of ML service time.
If he's held back for the first 20 days next season, that means he'll accrue an additional 155 days of ML service time next season.
155 + 15 = 170 ML service days. Which is less than a year of ML service, though just barely.
Keep in mind that the "hold back 20 days" thing is not because all 20 of those days would put you over the limit. It's because optional minor league assignments of less than 20 days count as ML service time.