Author Topic: Today's Game - 2021  (Read 43696 times)

Playtwo

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Re: Today's Game - 2021
« Reply #120 on: March 10, 2021, 05:01:49 pm »
Rising.

JR

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Re: Today's Game - 2021
« Reply #121 on: March 10, 2021, 05:10:21 pm »
Rodriguez as fast as 98, according to the Giants broadcasters.
Now Stock at 101.

I take it strike throwing must not be the greatest skill these guys possess?

Deeg

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Re: Today's Game - 2021
« Reply #122 on: March 10, 2021, 05:39:35 pm »

Deeg

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Re: Today's Game - 2021
« Reply #123 on: March 10, 2021, 05:42:16 pm »
Ortega's big-league record is bad, but his minor-league career is .292-.361-.424-.785.  Not too bad.

A guy can change over some time, and perhaps add some strength, so maybe in some ways he's better now than some of his numbers reflect.  The flip is that coming up with a west team, his minor league numbers include stops in the Cal (A+), Texas (AA) and PC (AAA) leagues, all leagues that are rather hitter friendl.  Perhaps .292-.361 in those leagues is more like .250-.320 in the Cubs leagues, beats me. 

Guess I'm thinking that he looks like he might potentially be anti-awful if an injury necessitated him getting some action?


No, he almost certainly would be anti-anti-awful. But it's nice he had his 15 minutes of glory, even if it was in Arizona.

craig

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Re: Today's Game - 2021
« Reply #124 on: March 10, 2021, 05:43:16 pm »
...service manipulation is really bad for the relationship between owners and players and unethical. ...

Reb, that's interesting, I admit I've never perceived it from the ethics standpoint. 
1.  I've always assumed that both sides of the contract understood that parties will work within the constraints of the mutually-agreed-upon contract, and that neither would consider the other party unethical to do so.
2.  I would have figured that actions within the contract would be considered to be acceptable and not unethical? 
3.  The practice has been in play for decades, without the union negotiating that practice away.  Perhaps earlier decades of union leadership didn't previously consider it unethical either?  Or at least not a significant enough issue to prioritize negotiating in provisions to prevent it? 
4.  I imagine the union might think that team usage of the practice is partly constrained by teams' motivation to win. 

*IF* it's really unethical, then it should absolutely NOT be exercised by Cubs. 

I wouldn't think it would be all that hard to perhaps modify the CBA.  Reduce the service time requirement from 6 full years to 5.51 or 5.7 or some number of other.  Obviously owners would prefer status quo with that, but negotiate.  Obviously teams will always see the number and try to get past whatever cutoff it is.  But two weeks in April, is a small sliver of a 162-game season.  If that's 40 or 60 or 80 games, that would be harder for teams who care about winning to keep a player they perceived as superior down. 

Deeg

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Re: Today's Game - 2021
« Reply #125 on: March 10, 2021, 06:16:46 pm »
Craig, this isn't part of the CBA because the players are fine with the owners gaming the service time system to screw them.  It's because union leadership has been largely incompetent and let the owners roger them roundly in the last CBA negotiation.

Bennett

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Re: Today's Game - 2021
« Reply #126 on: March 10, 2021, 06:18:18 pm »
The Cubs used 25 players today, 7 of them pitchers.

davep

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Re: Today's Game - 2021
« Reply #127 on: March 10, 2021, 07:56:32 pm »
Dave is, of course, correct that it's a good thing for the club (and the fans) to have the extra year of control over a player via service time manipulation, as in Cubs are better off having control over Bryant in 2021.  It's just that the service manipulation is really bad for the relationship between owners and players and unethical.

Dave, of course, doesn't actually contend that Bryant was sent to AAA for anything other than service time manipulation--to avoid having 2015 count as a full year of service time.  No serious person would argue that the reason he was sent to Iowa was for any other reason.

Funny thing is that just about everybody knows that the Bryant to AAA had nothing to do with player development while, at the same time, most everybody knew he would lose the service time manipulation grievance.  MLBPA pretty much knew it would lose, as it made no effort to remove the permanent arbitrator after the decision.  Indeed, for the reasons I noted in the earlier post, the arbitrator really had no choice given the absence of direct proof of intent.  Absent that, it would be silly and presumptuous for a non-baseball evaluator like the permanent arbitrator to overrule a Theo Epstein roster decision. 

So, we have the perverse incentive for baseball decision-makers to undermine the cba to keep up with some of their colleagues who do the same thing.  Theo did this for his entire career in Boston too as to opening day roster decisions, which the arbitrator found actually supported the Cubs decision with Bryant.  Very unfortunate when a stand-up guy like Theo is incentivized to misrepresent his decision-making process. "Oh, no, it was a baseball decision not based on service time."  Give me a break.  Maybe Theo will come clean when he writes his memoirs a few decades from now.

Presumably, this will be addressed in some fashion in the next cba.   

I agree with just about everything you say, other than the second to last paragraph.  You seem to be assuming that the purpose of the CBA was to get the player into the majors as soon as he is ready.  But the CBA, as far as I know, does not contain anything of that sort in it, and as far as I know, it was negotiated at arms length between two parties fairly equal in negotiating power.  And you further seem to assume that keeping the player in the minors until such time as you can maximize his value to the club.  I am not sure that this is a reasonable assumption.  If this was the primary goal of the players union, they should have negotiated this into the final agreement.  I see no reason why something that has NOT been negotiated by the parties should be included by inference.  Nor does it seem that the arbitrator thought so either.  If it was so obvious that the team did something that violates the agreement, he would have found differently.

Reb

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Re: Today's Game - 2021
« Reply #128 on: March 10, 2021, 08:00:50 pm »
As to Craig’s point, service time manipulation is not “within the contract.” If it was, the teams would just say player x is being sent down so we can control the player through 2024 or whenever.

They don’t admit to that because it would breach the contract. Otherwise, they would have no problem saying what Dave said in his posts. But, they come up with unconvincing “baseball-related” reasons. Not a coincidence"

Teams didn’t do this much until about 10 years ago. My hunch is that has to do with all the super-competitive Ivy Leagues types running clubs who simply realize that a cost-benefit analysis tells us that a full year of control is worth one month in AAA.  Even the old school anti-union types of years ago didn’t stoop to this. They thought baseball more than cost/benefit.

Reb

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Re: Today's Game - 2021
« Reply #129 on: March 10, 2021, 08:23:20 pm »
I agree with just about everything you say, other than the second to last paragraph.  You seem to be assuming that the purpose of the CBA was to get the player into the majors as soon as he is ready.  But the CBA, as far as I know, does not contain anything of that sort in it, and as far as I know, it was negotiated at arms length between two parties fairly equal in negotiating power.  And you further seem to assume that keeping the player in the minors until such time as you can maximize his value to the club.  I am not sure that this is a reasonable assumption.  If this was the primary goal of the players union, they should have negotiated this into the final agreement.  I see no reason why something that has NOT been negotiated by the parties should be included by inference.  Nor does it seem that the arbitrator thought so either.  If it was so obvious that the team did something that violates the agreement, he would have found differently.

Dave- this is the issue:  but for service time considerations, would the player make the ballclub opening day?

There are a variety of baseball-related reasons why player x makes or does not make the ballclub. Could be a development matter or whatever. Take your pick. But, if the motivation in 2015 is so the ballclub still has control over Bryant in 2021, that a cba-motivated, non-baseball reason. The reason he doesn’t make the 2015 club is because the cba says we lose him in 2021 if he makes the 2015 club.

As I noted before, EVERY contract has an implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing. Google it. It applies here.

As I’ve noted, if service time reasons are legit under the cba, why don’t the clubs just say that’s what they’re doing???

There a lot of things that we know as humans but can’t prove in litigation. We know that Bryant would have made opening day 2015 but for service time considerations. But, if I was the arbitrator in the Bryant case, I could not just say everybody knows that. There has to be evidence of intent. That’s the rule of law and sometimes you just have to swallow a bad result.



craig

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Re: Today's Game - 2021
« Reply #130 on: March 10, 2021, 09:36:16 pm »
Great discussion, guys.  I really appreciate the thoughts and insights. 

As to Craig’s point, service time manipulation is not “within the contract.” If it was, the teams would just say player x is being sent down so we can control the player through 2024 or whenever.  They don’t admit to that because it would breach the contract. Otherwise, they would have no problem saying what Dave said in his posts. But, they come up with unconvincing “baseball-related” reasons. Not a coincidence"

That's an interesting argument.  Again, I'd never thought of it like that, so thanks.  I had just assumed everybody knew this was a thing, it was obvious for obvious reasons, and for most of the dozen cba's since FA that union leaderships had accepted it and not considered it worth negotiating away.   Normally when guys get sent down, the team doesn't rationalize why, unless asked in a press conference.  I guess until your explanation, I'd perhaps naively assumed everybody who really cared or thought about things understood this was a thing, and that the occasional verbiage in a press conference was maybe more for unsophisticated fans who didn't realize it was a thing, rather than to deceive the union who obviously understood it was a thing.  But yeah, the idea that it wasn't to actually confuse or deceive anybody, unsophisticated fans or union, but was just to avoid cba violation and legal culpability is an insightful take on it. 

Teams didn’t do this much until about 10 years ago. My hunch is that has to do with all the super-competitive Ivy Leagues types running clubs who simply realize that a cost-benefit analysis tells us that a full year of control is worth one month in AAA.  Even the old school anti-union types of years ago didn’t stoop to this. They thought baseball more than cost/benefit.

That's an interesting observation, reb.  I wonder how true it actually is, though?  Hasn't this been a thing forever? It's maybe just been more talked about now than in past?
-A lifetime ago I lived in Pittsburgh when Barry Bonds, Bobby Bonilla, Andy Van Slyke, Doug Drabek, John Smiley, and Jay Bell were young.  I was young and even more unsophisticated then, so when I heard some friends who were smart sophisticated big Pirates talking about this, I'd never thought of it before.  I assume if they talked about it, management probably had too?  30 years ago.

Last millenium Kerry Wood had a spectacular camp, but went down.  Geramis Gonzalez, Terry Mulholland, Ben Van Ryn, and Amaury Telemaco made the staff, two of them in the rotation.  Wood had a single start for Iowa, then debuted April 12.  Wasn't that all the same thing? 

I guess I'm kinda wondering whether this hasn't been around for ≥30 years, and teams and union both haven't been both fully aware? 

I'm sure the union leadership never liked it, but were they unaware?  Yet for a dozen cbas, the union leadership never negotiated it away.

Reb

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Re: Today's Game - 2021
« Reply #131 on: March 10, 2021, 11:59:05 pm »
When Kerry Wood didn’t make the opening day club in 1998, I remember a manager of another club—who saw him in spring training— say: well, I think the Cubs probably will win the pennant because if they a full rotation better than than this Kerry Wood guy, there’s no stopping them. Of course, the manager was being sarcastic...but I don’t recall the union making a stink about it. Maybe it was because Wood was 20 years old and there was way less public attention given to top prospects back then compared to now. It just wasn’t a practice yet to manipulate service time in an obvious way. And, as I said earlier, we have a different type of GM and top staff running things these days. More bottom line, I think. If there’s an opening, they take it.

craig

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Re: Today's Game - 2021
« Reply #132 on: March 11, 2021, 12:12:35 am »
Yeah, your Wood recall is just like mine.  I assumed then that everybody understood it was a service-time thing.  But you're right, nobody made a fuss about it; it wasn't an issue that the union and the media talked about as is so true today.  We fully agree that the practice wasn't discussed and faulted then the way it is today.  I guess I'm less certain that it wasn't actually practiced about as much, or almost so, but it just didn't get the publicity or complaint? 

Reb

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Re: Today's Game - 2021
« Reply #133 on: March 11, 2021, 12:49:43 am »
Think more noteworthy these days in part because of the obsession with prospects generally. We know a lot more now. In 1998 with guys like Kerry Wood, mostly Baseball America.

Deeg

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Re: Today's Game - 2021
« Reply #134 on: March 11, 2021, 02:46:29 am »
Wood was also a wildman then (even more so than he was later) - 131 BB in 151 IP in 1997 - and a reasonable case could be made that he could use some AAA time to hone his command.