Rays reliever Ryan Thompson recently lost his salary arbitration hearing against the Tampa Bay Rays, having filed for $1.2 million with the Rays offering only $1.0 million.
Arbitration hearings are conducted before a panel of judges and typically rely on old school, public facing statistics. Advanced metrics are rarely used, and if utilized rarely accepted in arguments.
Given that precedent, it was interesting to hear directly from Thompson on what statistics the Rays utilized to argue against his higher salary request. His full twitter thread is posted below:
My thoughts concerning arbitration: (THREAD)
I want to make clear that although I lost my case, there is absolutely no ill-will towards the Rays as they were as professional and respectful as possible considering the circumstances.