DementedReality said:
how about changing the rule so that the only comparables a player can use is from his own team. this means small revenue teams will be able to insulate themselves better from payroll choices of the larger revenue teams.
There aren't enough players. It won't work. The player proposal illustrates how their arbitration proposal would work using three examples from last year. It is interesting to look at the comparables used in those three arbitrations.
Biron's agent submitted Aebischer, Cloutier, Lalime and Dunham as comparables. The team countered with the same four players, plus Tomas Vokoun.
Ruslan Fedotenko named six players as being comparables. The team named five of the six (Bulis, Halpern, Stefan, LeClerc and Calder) missing only Afinogenov.
Ruslan Salei threw out seven names while his team countered with four (Gill, McKee Rathje and Warrener) that matched players on Salei's list. (Salei also thought Norstrom, McLaren and Carney should count.)
That's 18 comparables introduced in all with 14 in common which leads to the first point about arbitration. It is very easy to find the comparables. There is hardly any disagreement.
The second point is about how big spending teams supposedly drive up salaries in arbitration. Only two of the 18 players (Aebischer and Dunham) came from teams that could be described as big spending teams. Otherwise the comparable salaries were were set by Vancouver, Ottawa, Nashville, Montreal, Washington, Atlanta, Anaheim, Chicago, San Jose, Boston and Buffalo.
Until a player becomes a free agent his salary is largely determined by teams with smaller payrolls! The reason for this is obvious when you think about it. The big payroll teams have former UFAs in key positions drawing very big salaries. They don't have very many arbitration eligible players and so they don't have very many comparables for arbitration eligible players either.
Tom