Question regarding arbitration year

Sean Marshall shows him being eligible for arbitration after 2010. However, when I have simmed, he becomes eligible this year. Why is that?

Arbitration isn't based strictly on a fixed year, but rather is determined my major-league experience. Here are the rules as explained in the help files:

Players are eligible for arbitration if:

1) They have at least 3 years of Major League Service at the end of the season.

2) They have 2 years of Major League Service and their Major League Service ranks among the top 17% of all such "2-year players".

So what is probably happening in your case is that he's falling under rule two and comes up early. The only real way to avoid surprises is to be vigilant. Personally I check arbitration status every month.

You can also keep an easy tab on your guys' major league service with the "vitals" tab on the players' profile...

You're right Steve, he probably is coming under the 2nd case scenario. It was just really surprising for me since the game said he was 2010 eligible, that he'd be eligible in 2008.

I'm not sure why it says 2010 at all. By my count he should come up at the end of '09 if not for the 2nd category. I think the trick here, which may actually be an error, is that ML Service time is counted for everyone through the playoffs, so at the end of the regular season in Marshall's case (at 1 year 169 days now) he'd be up around 1 year 350 or so, and then another month pushes him up to the second year category and there just may not be many 2nd year players around.

I'm probably over-analyzing.

Maybe I'll just keep him in the minors for a month