Mock baseball contract negotiations - my role in pwning the opponent.

[kyleb]

As many of you may know, 2+2 poster beset was a law student in Seattle. While there, he studied sports contracts and negotiation. This was obviously quite fascinating to me, so when he asked me to help him on one of his projects for the class, I jumped at the chance.

He would be pitted against a team representative who would be trying to re-sign our client to avoid salary arbitration, while he (the player agent) would be attempting to maximize the client's payday.

Initial offer by the team representative was a one-year non-guaranteed contract of $450,000, which was obviously pretty ridiculous given that the player in question posted some pretty good numbers (as can be seen in the memo that I will link shortly).

My strategy to maximize the player's earnings was to find comparable players in the MLB that were paid well and to find good PECOTA matches to show that the player that beset was representing showed good value for the team. In doing so, I found a good comparable in Brandon Lyon for his upside, and also showed how much Jae Seo was being paid despite our client's (Jacob Sandoval) abilities and stats. Using the data I gave beset, he was able to negotiate a sickeningly good contract with terms that I'm pretty sure don't exist for anyone in the MLB currently. Examples include "Guaranteed No Minor League Demotion" and a limited NTC for a player who hasn't even completed arbitration. It's obvious that the opponent was underprepared and got totally owned, but it was interesting work nonetheless for me.

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dhdjq6qs_2vzxp96 - This is the memo written by beset with Jacob's stats and beset's presentation

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dhdjq6qs_3cdfjgv - This is the contract signed and agreed to by both parties

Just thought I'd share this with you guys, since some of you might find it interesting.