Because Broxton has a minor league option remaining, he could potentially spend enough time in Triple-A to miss Super Two status, which would mean he’s not arbitration-eligible until after the 2019 season. Even spending a month in the minors would put Broxton’s year-end service time at two years, 118 days, which would leave him shy of standard Super Two range. Tom Haudricourt Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
Keon Broxton is the player I will forever credit for my knowledge of MLB player options. Well, him and B-Don of course. Turns out, a player option is good for an entire season. It doesn’t matter how many times he gets called up or sent down, Broxton won’t be out of options until next season. However, Broxton entered 2018 with one year, 137 days, of major league service time and the Brewers would be in a better spot, financially, to keep him from getting it.
Here is how it works. Arbitration gives a player the right to get paid what he is worth, which is usually more than what their team is required to pay. All players earn the right to arbitration after three full years of Major League service time. The exception to that rule are Super 2 players.
To qualify for a year of service time a player has to be on the active 25-man major league roster for 172 days. The season starts the day of the first regular season game and ends on the last game of the regular season. This year the regular season is 185 days, from March 29 to September 30, for all teams because they all had a game on opening day and they all play their last game on the same day. How nice, it has always been much more complicated as all teams started or ended their regular season on a different day.
In general, players must have accrued at least three years of MLB service time (written as Years.Days) before they can be eligible for salary arbitration. While players with 3.000+ years of service are eligible for arbitration, players with between two and three years of service may be eligible if they rank in the top 22% of service time among players with between two and three years of service.
Only players with two full seasons qualify for Super 2 status. After each season, all players who just finished their second full season of service are ranked according to how many days they were on the major league active roster in year two. Those in the top 20 percent of active days in the majors are given Super 2 status.
The confusing part about it is that there is no way to tell how many days a player needs to be active each season because it changes every year. It depends on how many days everyone else in the group is active. There is no way to really know where the 22% cutoff will be until the season ends. Here are the super two cut off days for recent seasons. They get released in October and last year any player with 2 years, 123 days, qualified for Super 2 status. That means he only needed 123 days in the majors to get arbitration.
Any player who got called up before May 30 and remained in the majors the rest of the season was granted arbitration after two years instead of three.
Because a full year of service time is reached at 172 days, any prospect who gets called up for the first time after April 11, 2018 will not have any chance of reaching 172 days in 2018, and therefore wont qualify for super 2 status until after 2020. Any prospect called up before April 11 could, oh wait, that never happens.
We still won’t see a whole slew of prospects getting called up today, because they have to play 23% less than all the other prospects this season to keep them from reaching arbitration after two seasons.
| 2017 | 2.123 |
| 2016 | 2.131 |
| 2015 | 2.130 |
| 2014 | 2.133 |
| 2013 | 2.122 |
| 2012 | 2.140 |
| 2011 | 2.146 |
| 2010 | 2.122 |
| 2009 | 2.139 |
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