Salaries for players who aren't yet eligible for arbitration can be assigned by their organization without the player's agreement. In many cases teams will still talk to the player, and even if they aren't trying to work out a multi-season agreement, they still attempt to negotiate a one-year deal. The logic behind this is that while you could pay all your non-arbitration eligible player the major league minimum $200K, you don't want to unnecessarily aggravate players with whom you need to negotiate future contracts.

If you're not planning to keep a player in your organization and/or if they really haven't done much to deserve more than approximately the minimum, then assigning them a salary is fine. This year we have fairly good examples of both the right way and the wrong way to handle quality players not yet eligible for arbitration.

Albert Pujols signed a one-year, $600,000 contract with the Cardinals on Sunday. Since Pujols will not be arbitration eligible until after the 2003 season, the Cardinals did not have to consult him about his salary this season. St. Louis wasn't really interested in committing to a long-term contract this off-season because they first want to see how he performs in his sophomore season. Their payroll is also already touching what they prefer to be its upper limits.

However, as last season's NL Rookie of the Year and MVP candidate, Pujols is obviously a quality player with a lot of potential, so the club had considerable interest in avoiding upsetting him. Therefore the two sides sat down to negotiate a "fair" price for Pujols in 2002.

Pujols was originally interested in making as much as Kerry Wood; the Cubs signed Wood to a $690K contract after Wood won the ROY in 1998. St. Louis reportedly preferred something close to $500K, so the final deal appears to be a compromise by both sides. In addition to the base salary, Pujols can earn an additional $50K if he makes the All-Star team.

Negotiating a multi-season contract may be more difficult if Pujols can perform at levels even approaching what he managed last season again this year. However despite the fact that I believe his age to be accurate and expect him to basically repeat last year's production, I agree with the decision to wait. They still have time and with his minimal minor league record there would be considerable risk if the team were to grant him a large contract right away. Additionally, while they didn't agree to Pujols' original request, he did seem to be happy with the final result. Consequently they maintained a good relationship with Pujols, while avoiding a bad precedent of unconditionally acquiescing to all of his demands.

Meanwhile, we also have a bad example of how to handle these players. On Saturday, the Angels announced that they had renewed the contracts of Ramon Ortiz, Scott Schoeneweis, and Jarrod Washburn.

Schoeneweis, the least talented of this group, was reportedly not offered an alternative. Ortiz was offered a four-year contract, which he has been prolifically quoted as calling "cheap". Washburn received a similar three-year offer.

Renewing Schoeneweis may have been permissible. At this point, the 28-year-old likely projects to a #4 starter and they did give him a $50K raise that puts him at $325K for the season, a number somewhat in line with the salaries of other non-arbitration-eligible players. However the Angels repeatedly include him when discussing the core of future pitching staffs, so you would think they would at least make some effort to avoid needlessly irritating him.

Now one could argue that with his recent rapid aging, Ortiz isn't worth what he used to be, but even that doesn't excuse not negotiating a one-year deal with him. In fact, Anaheim should probably be secretly happy that Ortiz is a few years older, because it reduces the likelihood that the team burned out his arm with the heavy workloads he's been given. His high injury risk because of his young age and workload was the primary reason I was unsure the Angels should hold onto Ortiz long-term. As it is, he will continue to pitch well with a reduced injury risk and should soundly trounce Anaheim if they allow him to go to arbitration in two years. The club has been marketing the idea of the homegrown trio, so again it seems logical that they wouldn't want to upset a key member of that trio.

According to Los Angeles Times Staff Writer Bill Shaikin, "The Angels offered Ortiz $450,000 this year as part of that four-year offer." When Ortiz did not accept, they gave him a $20K raise, so he will make $270K this season. If Bill Stoneman thought that Oritz would roll over and accept this treatment, he was wrong. Ortiz has been vocal about his displeasure with Anaheim's tactics. He understandably feels undervalued and unwanted.

The club's treatment of Washburn wasn't any better. Shaikin reported that "the Angels offered $375,000 and, after he said no, renewed him at $350,000." He's probably even more important to the long-term success of the organization than the other two and he deserves more consideration from Anaheim.

To top it all off, Washburn and Schoeneweis are represented by Scott Boras of Kevin Brown and Alex Rodriguez fame. If he has even adequate skills of perception, Stoneman should have noticed by now that the only thing that can interfere with Boras forcing a club to either pay up or lose out is the good will of the player in question, as with Andruw Jones, who was so intent on staying a Brave he basically left Boras out of the negotiations and went with the advice of his father.

Instead, Stoneman is reportedly using a salary chart from his days with the notoriously parsimonious Expos. The chart basically adds around $100K to the salary of quality non-arbitration eligible players each year, meaning first years receive between $200-299K, second years receive $300-399K, and third years receive $400-500K with the salaries gravitating towards the lower end of each grouping. Like all over-simplified devices, this system fails to take into account the majority of the relevant information required to make intelligent decisions on these matters.

The Schoeneweis relationship appears salvageable, but this is a poor start to earning Washburn's love. Unless the two sides continue negotiations for a long-term contract that would replace this year's salaries, I expect that Washburn will burn the Angels for his three years of arbitration and then head to the highest bidder.

Cultivating quality players through your minor league system is only half the battle; the other half is getting them to stick around.