On Saturday, a baseball arbitrator announced that setup reliever Dellin Betances lost his case with the Yankees. Betances had asked for $5 million and the Yankees’ offer was $3 million. After the case was decided, Yankee president Randy Levine created a stir by taking the unusual step of criticizing Betances’ filing as a “half-baked attempt” to “change a well established market” for setup relievers.
The Betances decision spurred a justified uproar against the Yankee president and a less-justified furor against the arbitration process itself.
Arbitrators are not judges. The judicial system is crafted for judges to follow a series of established laws and precedents that bind future decision makers.