cw said:
I think the purpose is that after filing for arbitration, the club has considerable uncertainty with more than one arbitration case within it's roster. The second buy-out period arguably more fairly allows the club the flexibility to keep a player after the arbitration decision and to dispose of a player who might have been a backup should they have to walk away. To me, the uncertainty exists whether they have an actual hearing or not.
By the same token, to some degree, that uncertainty exists whether or not a player even files for arbitration (in fact, it could be argued that it's a more uncertain situation, as, if a player is involved in an arbitration filing, the team knows that the player will be under contract in time for training camp before the upcoming season unless they choose to walk away from the decision and that the player can not be signed to an offer sheet), so, using that as a benchmark for allowing a team to use the second buy-out period when they didn't have the arbitration hearing seems somewhat arbitrary. That aside, however, even were one to include that as a parameter for allowing for use of the second buy-out period, Kostitsyn's arbitration filing doesn't qualify under section 12.3(a) being that A) it wasn't club elected and B) his salary in 10/11 was less than $1.5M. If teams are to be allowed leniency for having uncertainty created for them by having players file for arbitration (which seems to be the case), it follows fairly logically that they should not have the same benefits if they're responsible for creating the uncertainty themselves by taking a player to arbitration.
