Joe Posnanski is a fantastic baseball writer and a brilliant student of the game. But that's not why I love Joe today. The reason I love Joe today is that he has brought the awesomeness of a new dastardly villain into my life.

Quake in fear, friends, as you behold the evil of... DR. STAT!

Apparently, the Devil Rays decided that the biggest scourge facing baseball today isn't steroids, or inflated salaries, or the designated hitter, or even Joe Morgan. The horror against which the Rays and their manager must fight is statistics. BOO, numbers! And rational thought! And logic! And the absence of hyperbole!

Naturally, they made a cartoon about it. Of course they did.

[I]t's a cartoon where the Tampa Bay Rays are superheroes. Yeah. I wasn't able to get the entire plot line, but apparently Joe Maddon is some sort of superhero mastermind, kind of like a baseball superhero Charlie, and he has the power to turn his Rays players into superheroes. One becomes really fast -- so fast his feet look like a tornado. One I guess can throw stuff at bad guys -- sort of a Roger Clemens for kids. The other one seems to be able to destroy bad guys by hitting them with a bat. Good lesson for the kids.

But, believe it or not, that's not the hilarious part. No, the hilarious part is this: The villain they were trying to catch was someone named "Dr. Stat." No, really. It seems that Dr. Stat -- and I'm quoting from the cartoon now -- wants to "use his knowledge of useless statistics to destroy the game." [...] He says as punishment he will point his stat ray direction at Tropicana Field in order to make it impossible for people to enjoy the games.

OK, timeout here -- what is a stat ray? How would that work? I should ask the guys at Baseball Prospectus if they have one. A stat ray. How great is that? I wonder what would happen if we would point the stat ray at some of my baseball writing friends. I'd love to aim it at my buddy Rick Morrissey up in Chicago, just to see what happened. Would he explode? Would he start talking about VORP and Eqa? I need to get me one of them

Or, at least, simple-r.

Now that the general managers' and owners' meetings have passed, the next big event on the baseball calendar is the December 1st deadline for clubs to offer arbitration to their former players who have now become free agents during the offseason.

The salary arbitration process sounds complicated, but in order to help simplify it, I've put together this primer to help answer any questions about what arbitration is and how it works in the MLB context. I'm no expert, but I'm hoping this can be helpful.

Basic Information

Salary arbitration is the method of using an independent third party to evaluate, and set, a player's salary for the upcoming year. As with most legal arbitrations, the decision of the arbitrator is binding on both parties- so both the ballclub and the player in question must abide by whatever the arbitrator's decision is.

Unlike most other arbitrations in the labor context, baseball salary arbitration is "final offer" - which means there is not a lengthy hearing and negotiation process between the two sides. The ballclub submits their single, final contract offer; the player submits his single, final contract request-- and the arbitrator evaluates them both, and picks one. That's it.

The almighty Collective Bargaining Agreement (or "CBA", as its called by just about everyone) between the ballclubs and the Major League Baseball Players Association governs the entirety of the arbitration process-- including which players are eligible for arbitration. Back in the olden days, a ballplayer had no freedom to move from team to team-- once he signed with a club, he remained with that club until his career ended... or he was traded or sold to another club. As you might imagine, this left little wiggle room in contract negotiations for the players, because the clubs had the deck stacked in their favor: if the ballplayer didn't like his contract offer, his only other option was not to play baseball. Now, players are required to put in just six years of major league service for their club before they can become free agents (if they so choose)... but players are eligible for arbitration under the CBA after just three years of major league service (and in some cases, even sooner!).

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