Modeling Salary Arbitration: 2024 Projections

(10/12/23) Projecting 2024 salaries for arbitration-eligible players.

Originally published on Medium on October 12, 2023.

Welcome to another installment of my series exploring Major League Baseball’s arbitration process, and projecting salaries for players who are eligible for salary arbitration during this upcoming offseason.

Similar to last year, I will be utilizing a regression model to predict arbitration-eligible salaries based off of salaries awarded to players by arbitration panels in recent seasons. While these projections can be used as an “anchor” to predict how much a player should be awarded and/or to predict whether a team or player will win their arbitration case, the main takeaway from these projections is to approximate how much a team’s payroll should be allocated for arbitration-eligible players in the upcoming off-season.

Wearable technology and Statcast data are not permissible statistics to be used in an arbitration hearing, so expected stats (such as xwOBA) and metrics such as Hard Hit Rate are not included in the predictive model. Arbitration panels have historically relied more on “traditional” statistics (such as batting average) as opposed to “advanced” metrics (such as wRC+) when awarding raises, so the predictive model features primarily “traditional” statistics. One development that occurred when formulating the model this year was that there is a stronger relationship with a pitcher’s awarded raise with FIP than ERA, potentially signaling that the panels might move towards a more analytical direction in the future (albeit at a much slower pace than the rest of the sport). Onto the projections!:

Team Projections:

AL East + NL East:

AL Central + NL Central:

AL West + NL West:

Follow @MLBDailyStats_ on X (Twitter) and Adam Salorio on Substack for more in-depth MLB analysis. Statistics provided by FanGraphs and Baseball-Reference.