Regarding the rankings, perhaps you should be a little patient before making definitive statements about teams when they've played about 50 games of a 162 game season. Give it a little more "as of now."
The man's been a butt of enough jokes, and maybe he isn't even alive any more, but it seems Willie Mays the councilman was a perpetual teenager trying to distance himself from his name. In search of his own identity.
That clubs flaunted the "control" they had over players, that they outright tried to screw them over, did seem outrageous at the time, but now that certain scores basically automatically trigger position players pitching, I'm numb to it. It seems like small potatoes.
Could we see a division winner with a sub-.500 record this year? I know we’ve had sub-.500 playoff teams but I bet no division winners. The balanced schedule this year could make it happen in the AL Central!
2005 Cardinals were 82-80 during the regular season. By the time the playoffs were over they were 82-83.
Depending on how you want to look at it, they may or may not be the only division winners to finish the season with a losing record.
BTW, if you're thinking regular season, the Brewers, the NL Central leaders, have a worse record than the Twins so it could happen in either or both divisions.
My understanding is that we're way past the cutoff for gaining a year of control, and that after the end of April (more or less), teams are waiting to pass the (approximate) Super Two deadline.
Did the dates change in the latest CBA, or is Joe just conflating the two things?
Noted with interest Joe's reference to George Springer turning the early dough down, and immediately thought of Jon Singleton, who signed a 10 million dollar contract and then played 114 games in the majors, hitting .171.
So the rule of thumb appears to be: bet on yourself when dealing with MLB (unless you're a pothead, in which case, sign that sucker and get yourself some SNAX.)
Service time "manipulation" makes it sound underhanded and shady. It's not. There are rules. Everyone agreed to the rules. Everybody is following the rules. And teams will go right up to the edge of the rules, if that's what they see as their best interest. There's no basis for complaint.
If the rules said that 5 games on a minor league roster is all it took to deny a player a full year of major league service time, then teams would keep their prospects down for exactly 5 games. If the rules said it took 30 games, then some team would keep its prospects down for exactly 30 games. No matter where you draw the line, someone will walk right up to it, if that's to their advantage.
Is it "manipulation" to intentionally walk Barry Bonds with the bases loaded? No. Is it "manipulation" to trade all your stars for position players and tank for a few years as you rebuild? No. Is it "manipulation" to play three infielders to one side of second base? Didn't used to be. Then they changed the rule. And now you see middle infielders playing as close to second base as the rules allow. It's legal. Get over it.
In any contractual relationship it is assumed that the parties are dealing with each other in good faith (the legal term is “the implied covenant in good faith and fair dealing”). In this context the assumption is that the team will decide when to call up a player based on his merit, and not for purely financial reasons. Only a willful contrarian would so narrowly construe this rule as to think service time manipulation is within the spirit of the agreement.
Bryant lost because he could not PROVE bad faith. His underlying legal theory - that the team must act in good faith - is correct. Otherwise, there would be no need for a hearing and four-year grievance process. Nobody disputed when he was called up and when he was eligible for FA.
Exactly! There has probably never been a clearer case of a team delaying a call-up for service-time reasons than Bryant: a team clearly ready to contend, with a clear need on its roster, and a star player at AAA clearly ready to fill it. Yet even something that blatant is not considered "bad faith." Ergo, service-time "manipulation" is legal and permissible.
I am reminded of my all-time favorite line from any sitcom ever. On "WKRP in Cincinnati," the titular radio station had sold air time to an advertiser who turned out to be fairly shady. The station manager, Mr. Carlson, met with his lawyer to see if he could break the contract. The lawyer said he had no legal basis to do so. In frustration, Mr. Carlson blurted out, "Are you telling me I can't control what I broadcast on my own radio station?! That can't be right!" The lawyer sighed and said, "Mr. Carlson, we're not talking about what's right; we're talking about the law."
The service-time rules may strike some as unfair, but the rules they are.
In general I agree with this and was planning to comment similarly, although you covered it.
The challenge is the structure of the minor leagues. The teams spend a lot developing players, most of them never making the majors. I often think baseball would work much better if it had a draft where the MLB team choosing the player had to basically put the player on their MLB roster - maybe you would have a taxi squad at AAA, like another 10 players, but they would all get MLB contracts. If you drop a player from your team, he becomes a free agent or maybe goes into waivers, etc. And they could fund the minors by taxing all the MLB teams in some manner.
And I had no input into setting the speed limit in the towns I drive through. Yet when I applied for my driver's license, I agreed to obey them.
How would you remedy that, anyway? Have every high school and college player who *might* make the majors during the course of the CBA take part in the negotiations? Wy would the players and owners agree to that? And if they did, would the end result have been any different?
None of your examples result in 20-something athletes in their physical primes getting robbed of the otherwise legal right to shop one’s (substantial) talents to the highest bidder.
And remember, those young pups had NO ROLE in negotiating the CBA you refer to as “the rules.”
(And I think we can also agree none of them sat on the SCOTUS when baseball earned its omnibus antitrust exemption.)
You are correct, but I think that what people really don't like is the basic premise that teams "own" a player for longer in baseball than any other sport. This just highlights that fact in a way that people see it more clearly and it leaves the back of their mind and comes to the front. Plus, in many cases, the team is a team doing badly with a bad player in that spot, and they just want the guy up for a short term shot of adrenaline and hope.
Funny thing, though. These same fan bases, when a player is successful and didn't have their time manipulated, bitch in retrospect when it comes time for free agency. "They couldn't have kept him down for two more weeks in a lost season? We needed him this year!"
Take this with the appropriate grain of salt as I have zero marketing background - and this would not apply to me as I already pre-ordered - but what about some promotional tie in for whoever’s pre-order gives you the record back? Like maybe a signed/inscribed picture of you popping the champagne sent to the person along with their copy of the book?
Of course, that would have the people who haven't ordered yet wait until the last minute (and some would forget). I don't think that would be a benefit.
Trout doesn't steal because he's cautious about injuries. His sprint speed has held up remarkably well and he's still a monster going down the line, hence the continued lack of GIDP.
In no way being yin to your yang - but I thought bigger bases were supposed to alleviate stolen base inflicted injuries. Now there is talk of eliminating middle infielders from blocking the bag. next there will be ghost runners instead of real people - oh wait...
wish i could afford the book (and even if i could, don't have a bank acct, let alone any way to do online transactions), but i'm sure your other loyal readers will rise to the challenge; can't let Mike beat you & toast your shortfall...
that said, my Giants have actually scrambled to around .500, giving me a small glimmer of hope
With regard to Team Joe, I would submit Smoky Joe Williams as SP over Jose Fernandez, Joe Cronin over Sewell at SS.
Regarding the rankings, perhaps you should be a little patient before making definitive statements about teams when they've played about 50 games of a 162 game season. Give it a little more "as of now."
I thought Steve Yeager played the Yankees closer in the movie?
Just letting you know that someone out here appreciated the Joe Shlabotnick reference. Good grief. :)
The man's been a butt of enough jokes, and maybe he isn't even alive any more, but it seems Willie Mays the councilman was a perpetual teenager trying to distance himself from his name. In search of his own identity.
That clubs flaunted the "control" they had over players, that they outright tried to screw them over, did seem outrageous at the time, but now that certain scores basically automatically trigger position players pitching, I'm numb to it. It seems like small potatoes.
Could we see a division winner with a sub-.500 record this year? I know we’ve had sub-.500 playoff teams but I bet no division winners. The balanced schedule this year could make it happen in the AL Central!
2005 Cardinals were 82-80 during the regular season. By the time the playoffs were over they were 82-83.
Depending on how you want to look at it, they may or may not be the only division winners to finish the season with a losing record.
BTW, if you're thinking regular season, the Brewers, the NL Central leaders, have a worse record than the Twins so it could happen in either or both divisions.
Just to complicate things, aren’t Miguel Cabrera and Al Pujols actually named Jose?
Yeah I came to say this too. Albert “Joey” Belle over Jose Alberto Pujols? No way!
Also, I believe "Pepe" is considered to translate as "Joe".
My understanding is that we're way past the cutoff for gaining a year of control, and that after the end of April (more or less), teams are waiting to pass the (approximate) Super Two deadline.
Did the dates change in the latest CBA, or is Joe just conflating the two things?
I just hope he’s not called up before June 7th. I’m going to see him in Columbus.
Joe, what if we want an ebook?
Noted with interest Joe's reference to George Springer turning the early dough down, and immediately thought of Jon Singleton, who signed a 10 million dollar contract and then played 114 games in the majors, hitting .171.
So the rule of thumb appears to be: bet on yourself when dealing with MLB (unless you're a pothead, in which case, sign that sucker and get yourself some SNAX.)
Service time "manipulation" makes it sound underhanded and shady. It's not. There are rules. Everyone agreed to the rules. Everybody is following the rules. And teams will go right up to the edge of the rules, if that's what they see as their best interest. There's no basis for complaint.
If the rules said that 5 games on a minor league roster is all it took to deny a player a full year of major league service time, then teams would keep their prospects down for exactly 5 games. If the rules said it took 30 games, then some team would keep its prospects down for exactly 30 games. No matter where you draw the line, someone will walk right up to it, if that's to their advantage.
Is it "manipulation" to intentionally walk Barry Bonds with the bases loaded? No. Is it "manipulation" to trade all your stars for position players and tank for a few years as you rebuild? No. Is it "manipulation" to play three infielders to one side of second base? Didn't used to be. Then they changed the rule. And now you see middle infielders playing as close to second base as the rules allow. It's legal. Get over it.
In any contractual relationship it is assumed that the parties are dealing with each other in good faith (the legal term is “the implied covenant in good faith and fair dealing”). In this context the assumption is that the team will decide when to call up a player based on his merit, and not for purely financial reasons. Only a willful contrarian would so narrowly construe this rule as to think service time manipulation is within the spirit of the agreement.
Kris Bryant challenged the system using that assumption, and lost.
Bryant lost because he could not PROVE bad faith. His underlying legal theory - that the team must act in good faith - is correct. Otherwise, there would be no need for a hearing and four-year grievance process. Nobody disputed when he was called up and when he was eligible for FA.
https://www.si.com/mlb/2020/02/04/chicago-cubs-kris-bryant-service-time
Exactly! There has probably never been a clearer case of a team delaying a call-up for service-time reasons than Bryant: a team clearly ready to contend, with a clear need on its roster, and a star player at AAA clearly ready to fill it. Yet even something that blatant is not considered "bad faith." Ergo, service-time "manipulation" is legal and permissible.
I am reminded of my all-time favorite line from any sitcom ever. On "WKRP in Cincinnati," the titular radio station had sold air time to an advertiser who turned out to be fairly shady. The station manager, Mr. Carlson, met with his lawyer to see if he could break the contract. The lawyer said he had no legal basis to do so. In frustration, Mr. Carlson blurted out, "Are you telling me I can't control what I broadcast on my own radio station?! That can't be right!" The lawyer sighed and said, "Mr. Carlson, we're not talking about what's right; we're talking about the law."
The service-time rules may strike some as unfair, but the rules they are.
In general I agree with this and was planning to comment similarly, although you covered it.
The challenge is the structure of the minor leagues. The teams spend a lot developing players, most of them never making the majors. I often think baseball would work much better if it had a draft where the MLB team choosing the player had to basically put the player on their MLB roster - maybe you would have a taxi squad at AAA, like another 10 players, but they would all get MLB contracts. If you drop a player from your team, he becomes a free agent or maybe goes into waivers, etc. And they could fund the minors by taxing all the MLB teams in some manner.
(I am not holding my breath until this happens.)
None of the minor leaguers affected had any input into setting those rules.
And I had no input into setting the speed limit in the towns I drive through. Yet when I applied for my driver's license, I agreed to obey them.
How would you remedy that, anyway? Have every high school and college player who *might* make the majors during the course of the CBA take part in the negotiations? Wy would the players and owners agree to that? And if they did, would the end result have been any different?
Yeaaaah, but.
None of your examples result in 20-something athletes in their physical primes getting robbed of the otherwise legal right to shop one’s (substantial) talents to the highest bidder.
And remember, those young pups had NO ROLE in negotiating the CBA you refer to as “the rules.”
(And I think we can also agree none of them sat on the SCOTUS when baseball earned its omnibus antitrust exemption.)
They chose to join MLB; they chose to abide by the CBA.
Restore that so-called "right," and it's Yankees-Dodgers in the Series every year for eternity.
You are correct, but I think that what people really don't like is the basic premise that teams "own" a player for longer in baseball than any other sport. This just highlights that fact in a way that people see it more clearly and it leaves the back of their mind and comes to the front. Plus, in many cases, the team is a team doing badly with a bad player in that spot, and they just want the guy up for a short term shot of adrenaline and hope.
Funny thing, though. These same fan bases, when a player is successful and didn't have their time manipulated, bitch in retrospect when it comes time for free agency. "They couldn't have kept him down for two more weeks in a lost season? We needed him this year!"
Wisely-put, as usual.
Take this with the appropriate grain of salt as I have zero marketing background - and this would not apply to me as I already pre-ordered - but what about some promotional tie in for whoever’s pre-order gives you the record back? Like maybe a signed/inscribed picture of you popping the champagne sent to the person along with their copy of the book?
Of course, that would have the people who haven't ordered yet wait until the last minute (and some would forget). I don't think that would be a benefit.
Trout doesn't steal because he's cautious about injuries. His sprint speed has held up remarkably well and he's still a monster going down the line, hence the continued lack of GIDP.
Well in the. 3 prior years - only 208 games because of injury and Covid, he only stole 4 bases. So the lack of him stealing bases is old news.
In no way being yin to your yang - but I thought bigger bases were supposed to alleviate stolen base inflicted injuries. Now there is talk of eliminating middle infielders from blocking the bag. next there will be ghost runners instead of real people - oh wait...
Joe - getting nervous about your Rangers prediction of them falling back to Earth? That why you took 10 wins away from their record at 21-18?
wish i could afford the book (and even if i could, don't have a bank acct, let alone any way to do online transactions), but i'm sure your other loyal readers will rise to the challenge; can't let Mike beat you & toast your shortfall...
that said, my Giants have actually scrambled to around .500, giving me a small glimmer of hope