It’s February, so for me and scores of others in the baseball industry, it’s time for the annual ritual known as salary arbitration. A time when players and clubs make their case before a panel of arbitrators to determine the player’s salary for the coming season. I’ve been at this for over 15 years and it still remains among the most difficult and challenging things I take on in my practice. As I sit here now in Tampa between cases, my thoughts turned to the number of people I have met over the years who possessed a deep-seated curiosity about the salary arbitration process and what is it, exactly, what goes on inside the hearing room. While the hearings holds the fascination of many, there are many steps along the way that are important to understanding this unique process. First, only certain players are eligible for salary arbitration. Generally, players with three or more years of service, but less than six, are eligible for arbitration. There is a subset of players between two and three years of service who are also eligible. A player will fall into this second group if he has between two and three years of service, […]