Major league baseball relief pitcher Jeremy Affeldt has hired you to negotiate a new professional services contract for him with the Kansas City Royals. Under baseball's "free agency" clause Jeremy can only (1) negotiate a new contract with the Royals or (2) seek binding arbitration if the negotiation ends in an impasse. Affeldt made $460,000 last season, which was his best year in the majors. Thus, at an absolute minimum he told you, he wants to double his salary for next season. He has directed you to start by asking for $2.0m which is far less than the average of $2.8m which is the average salary in the league, and $3.3m which is the average for pitchers. John Swanson, the Royals team negotiator knows that Jeremy had a great season, and the team wants to keep him. However, Kansas City is a "small market" club and can't match the average league salaries. The average team salary last year was only $1.45m, and the average for pitchers was only $2.3m. Thus John has decided to offer all players that the team wants to keep a 50% salary increase as a start, and hopes to re-sign most, but not all of them. For a relief pitcher John can go only as high as $1.2m. John is aware that in the past two years arbitrators have generally sided with the small market teams in salary dispute cases As Jeremy's negotiator, what is your BATNA? binding arbitration court mediation talk to another team quit bascball