Has anyone ever experimented with just skipping the whole arbitration option and giving a player a 5-year deal right off the bat?

Obviously the reason I am thinking about doing this is that I want this guy to spend his whole career with my team, I am wondering if he'll be more likely to be signable when his 5-year contract is up, if I don't make him go thru arbitration.

You don't want to do that. You want to at least arb him 2 seasons, and then sign him to a long term deal. That gives you more years of control over that player. If you sign him to a 5 year deal right now, he might leave after 5 years. If you do the arb thing, you'll have him for at least 2 extra seasons.

I don't believe that any current decisions of this nature affect future ones, other than that if you arb a player for the third time he will elect free agency the next season (unless he has 99+ Patience).

(Yes I'm aware some owners have had players with lower Patience stick around. I've had a player with 98 Patience choose free agency.)'

So no, I don't think that if you sign him LT early he's going to give you any kind of loyalty consideration later on. Far as I know the only thing that determines that decision is Patience rating.

I would only sign LT if one of the Arb seasons would cost more than LT; otherwise I'm taking the extra seasons of contract and cost control.

The only time I would skip arb is if I had take n over a team and the player got to the ml level late and I do not feel he is worth having at an older age like the 4th or 5th year of the long term deal.

Posted by brianp87 on 3/28/2020 10:36:00 AM (view original):
The only time I would skip arb is if I had take n over a team and the player got to the ml level late and I do not feel he is worth having at an older age like the 4th or 5th year of the long term deal.

That's my strategy. I try and plan what the player would look like x years ahead, and see what my minor league system would look like then. I'll sign a guy before the last year of arb if it would fit my timeline better than waiting.

If the player is a real keeper, I'll arb once and then sign for five. Seems to work in them not going FA on me later, but this is not to say I wouldn't get the same result by arbing twice.