Would A's Risk MLBPA Grievance By Trading Luis Severino?

With all of the talk about the potential for the Athletics to trade Luis Severino ahead of the July 31 Trade Deadline, one question that has been asked by fans is whether or not the A's would be risking a grievance against them by moving his contract. Last winter, the club signed the 31-year-old right-hander for a franchise record three years and $67 million.

In a report in The Athletic last winter, Evan Drellich reported that the A's would have to spend roughly $105 million in order to avoid drawing the ire of the Union. Severino is making $20 million this season and has an AAV on his deal of $22.33 million.

Players are only paid during the season, so the quick way to do the math is to divide what a player is making by six (number of months in a baseball season), then multiply by however many months they've played with the team to that point. While this isn't going to give you the exact number, it'll give you a pretty good approximation.

For the real sickos, you can just divide the player's salary by 187 (number of days in a regular season) and then multiply by the number of days that have passed.

First, the quick way. $20 million divided by six is 3.33 million per month. Multiplied by three, you get $10 million. That's the rough estimate of what the A's have already paid Severino this season.

The more in depth way is dividing that $20 million by 187, which comes out to $106,951.872 per day during the season. With five games played in March, full months of April, May and June, and another single day of July (to date), the A's are on the hook for 97 days of pay for Severino this season, heading into Wednesday.

That 97 multiplied by his $106,951 per day works out to $10,374,331.60. That's the more specific number. So if you're looking for what he's owed for the remainder of the year, it's $9,625,668.40.

That nine million dollar number is going to be key here in a minute.

The A's projected payroll over at FanGraphs is $116,621,176, so they surpassed the threshold they needed to hit for a grievance by a decent margin. Because of that, it's actually possible for them to still end up above the $105 million bar. That $116 million, minus the $9.625 million he's still owed if he were moved immediately would still leave the team with a payroll of $106,995,508--let's call it $107 million.

Of course, we don't know what the exact number is that the A's have to hit to avoid a grievance since we don't know how much they received in revenue sharing. The guesstimate that had been reported was $70 million, with teams needing to spend 1.5 times what they'd received, which would be $105 million for the A's.

If they received a bit more, then the mark they'd have to hit could be a little higher. We can assume that they didn't receive as much as $80 million, since they would have needed a $120 million payroll, which they didn't have to begin with. If the payout was $75 million, then they'd have to be at $112.5 in payroll.

That unknown number makes it tough to say for certain what benchmark the A's need to clear with their payroll, but the reporting that has been done said somewhere in the realm of $70 million was what would be received, so we'll roll with that.

Of course, the A's will also be adding 30 more days this month, which will bring up the amount paid to Severino to $13,582,887.7 million this season. If they held onto him for most of the month and moved him in late July, their payroll would still sit right around $110 million.

The question would be how they would go about reaching that same threshold next season. Brent Rooker and Lawrence Butler's extensions will see them earn a little more, with Shea Langeliers, Mason Miller, and others entering their first year of arbitration, which will make up some of the financial gap, but Severino is scheduled to make $25 million, too.

The reviews of Sutter Health Park from the players haven't been great, so it could be tricky to land another big ticket guy on the market next winter, which could ultimately lead to Severino needing to stick around due to what the precise financials of the club look like and what specific threshold they need to reach. If he sticks around, they could trade him next year, too.