Otto von Ballpark

I actually thought the innings progression was fair with Santana. Maybe they were about a month late making the change in 2003. In 2002, he was fairly still fairly wild yet, so I suppose you could justify putting him in the pen for the playoffs (and the guy he would have replaced on performance, Joe Mays, did pretty well that postseason). Although as history shows us, when you have a chance to deploy a dynamic SP in the playoffs, it's probably not worth passing up.

To be fair, these kinds of articles will probably dry up once Ortiz is officially retired, so we've got to get them in while the getting is good! Also, baseball arguments are timeless (meaning, it sometimes seems they'll never end ).

Oh, no doubt. I have nothing against Nunez. But a bench guy nearing free agency who's already been DFA'd once is the kind of guy who is always on the bubble if your club finds another modest opportunity for his roster spot or his salary. A guy coming off Ortiz's second half in 2002, paired on a roster with such luminaries as Doug Mientkiewicz and Matt LeCroy, not so much.

You do see why this is an impossible request, right? There is no positive benefit, and large negative consequences, to any player or staff member to complain publicly about Drake LaRoche. A boycott didn't happen. I think that's all the evidence I need that most of the players weren't in favor of a boycott, at least not remotely as much as Sale. Robin Ventura is not a good enough orator to dissuade 25+ members of the most powerful union on earth. I'm not suggesting a majority of players were annoyed by LaRoche's kid. Maybe only a couple took the step of complaining to Williams. But I'd guess that the vast majority of players probably endorse the explicit or implied limits on child access that exist for every single other professional sports team, and thus don't care if those isolated complaints re-established that status quo and prompted the retirement of a 78 OPS+ DH with a bad back.

Chris Sale tried to get into the Royals clubhouse to fight after he was ejected in an on-field brawl last April. I really wouldn't read too much into his statements except that he's a bit combative, he's trying to support a friend, and he doesn't have anything to lose by being critical of others. Obviously none of us know the exact terms of the verbal assurance the White Sox made to LaRoche before signing, but again, if it wasn't written (and was probably forbidden from being written by the MLBPA), that suggests that all parties knew a later modification was a possible outcome. They bungled the PR and damage control, but I can't see that they did anything untrustworthy or dishonorable, at least no more than LaRoche if he initially ignored Williams' request this spring, and then let his friends lead a witch-hunt to try finding the source of the complaints.

If a team violated a written contract clause, I suspect the MLBPA would pursue it regardless of what the player wanted. The issue would be a lot larger than LaRoche's preferences at that point. The MLBPA doesn't even let players lower their agreed-upon salaries to change teams (remember A-Rod to the Red Sox?), there's no way they'd let a team blatantly violate a written contract.

As I said, a written contract clause relating to this is not only unlikely to be revealed now, but such a clause (in any form that would justify LaRoche's "100%" claims) would never have been approved by the MLBPA. They aren't in the habit of bargaining away members' workplace rights/expectations without member input.

Not quite. The MLBPA is "monitoring" the situation. Maybe it's semantics, but at this point they don't even know whether they have grounds for a grievance, much less whether they will "pursue" one. The fact that several days have passed without further information suggests that they don't indeed have grounds for a grievance (a written contract clause would almost certainly have been revealed by now -- why would LaRoche and his agent omit that from his prepared statement on the matter?).

Two things: 1) The team didn't actually boycott 2) Sale suggesting that the team boycott is essentially an attempt to expose the dissenters. The players probably felt they had no choice but to go along lest they be labeled as non-supportive of LaRoche and Sale. Many were probably relieved when Ventura stopped the boycott idea.

It's possible that it wasn't brought to Williams' attention until after last season. The fact that it apparently had the team's blessing probably made dissenting players or staff members hold back for quite a while. Or perhaps it was brought to Williams' attention, but he was able to "put out the fire" so to speak without involving LaRoche, but by this spring it became too much. That's fine if LaRoche elevated that to a condition of employment, and if wants to retire over it, that's fine too. I don't care. But it was likely naive of him and his agent to expect the verbal assurance to be any more binding or ironclad than my example "conditions of employment" like a meat-free clubhouse buffet or a silent locker room. Hence why it was rather pointless to apparently get indignant about a request to revise the policy, and rather inappropriate to let Sale and Eaton complain so vocally on his behalf and apparently engage in a bit of a witch-hunt to find out who was dissatisfied by the kid's presence.

No, arbitration has always been based on service time. There was an argument for controlling Johan's innings, based on his Rule 5 bullpen duty in 2000 and his injury shortened 2001. But nothing service-time based.

I sort of get your point. But the two situations really aren't a fair match. Ortiz's situation circa 2002 is nothing like Nunez's circa 2016. As a slugger compared to the league, just using standard stats like SLG, XBH, HR, AB/HR, etc., Ortiz in the second half of 2002 was actually a pretty good performance match for Miguel Sano in the second half of 2015. Not saying that Ortiz and Sano were in similar situations either -- but that's clearly not a performance you release in favor of a longshot Rule 5 pick, or to save a couple bucks, etc. If you don't believe in the performance going forward, you can try to trade high, but under no circumstances do you give that player his outright release at that moment in time. No need to bring OPS or advanced stats into it, really. A bench player like Nunez, on the other hand, you can always make a decent argument for jettisoning.

Thanks for sharing. I doubt many guys see themselves as AAA ballplayers, particularly one who has only played one month of AAA ball in the past 8 years. But it appears Sweeney didn't secure anything more than the standard June 1st opt out. He actually had a March 28th opt out back in his 2013 minor league deal with Boston. His bargaining power was apparently less this year. (And even after he exercised that opt out in 2013, he still had to settle for another minor league deal, resulting in the aforementioned month at AAA with the Cubs.) The Twins might do him a solid and release him at the end of camp, but otherwise, if he doesn't make the Twins roster, his choices will be to become a AAA ballplayer for up to 3 months at our discretion, or retire and sit out another season.

That's not really fair at all, unless you think OPS trumps sample size, age, underlying component stats, etc.

1999 was rather inexcusable. The offense of that 1999 team was terrible, we invested a ton of playing time at 1B/DH in scuffling soon-to-depart FA's in Cordova and Coomer, a struggling infielder in Walker, and the epically bad rookie Mientkiewicz. Not to mention issues at other spots, like starting a low-upside OF in Chad Allen (who took a spot that could have gone to Cordova if the team deemed him a priority), etc. Ortiz only got to start 4 times in 21 games after his September recall, even -- journeyman Midre Cummings got 8 starts during the same time frame. I know Ortiz was coming off an injury in 1998 and apparently started slow at spring training in 1999, so some minor league time to get his stroke back was probably warranted, but there was no other prospect of his age/performance who was left to accumulate that many AB in AAA that season. I'd guess whatever suspect justifications were used in 1999 were relied upon again in the decision to release him in 2002.

I don't know if it's that clear. Molitor's comments were before spring training started, and could have been geared to calm Duffey for the competition. And this is from the Rob Antony interview at Twinkie Town the other day: In the same interview, Jesse Lund said TR all but confirmed Milone will be the 5th starter during a recent TV broadcast. So if there is still any kind of legit rotation competition going on, it's between Nolasco and Duffey. Maybe they are just delaying the inevitable with Nolasco, in case another starter gets injured in the next week or two, but I don't think Duffey's performance and track record have his spot safe quite yet.

Interestingly, though, Seth's projected line for Suzuki is heavy on AVG/OBP but light on SLG. Relative to league average, Seth's predicted batting average and OBP for Suzuki would be the second and third highest marks of his career, respectively, but Seth has it coupled with a career-low ISO. That's definitely not what the projection systems are saying.

I don't know, the Ortiz gaffe was pretty epic. Unlike a lot of "ones that got away" where it took a lot more tinkering and adjustments to improve the player (i.e. Johan Santana), statistically Ortiz in 2003 was basically the exact same hitter he was with the Twins in the second half of 2002. True, his total time in Minnesota was underwhelming overall, but coming off that very successful second half is an incredibly odd time to draw a firm line over ~$1.8 mil, even for a frugal franchise at the time. (The same frugal franchise had just guaranteed a comparable amount to a mediocre middle reliever in Bob Wells for 2002, and to a replacement level utility infielder in Denny Hocking for 2002-2003.)

Some of these arguments are overrated. Yes, Ortiz was unsigned for a month, but that month included the Christmas and New Year's holidays, and was Ortiz even stateside during that offseason? It's quite possible he had to make arrangements to return to the country just to meet with other teams. He signed well before spring training was set to begin, so I doubt he was in a desperate position. Also, while he signed for less than his projected arbitration award, it wasn't by much -- given the numbers of his comparable Jeremy Giambi, I estimate he would have received about $1.8 mil in arbitration for 2003. As it was, Boston did give him a guaranteed deal for $1.25 million, which was still a $300k raise over his 2002 salary. The Twins meanwhile gave Mientkiewicz $1.75 mil in arbitration that same winter, had just paid Bob Wells $1.7 million for 2002, and committed $1 mil for each of 2002 and 2003 for Denny Hocking. MLB average salary was $2.5 mil for 2003. Also, had the Twins signed Ortiz via arbitration for $1.8 mil, we would have had 3 more months to trade him or find a spot for him on our roster, and still could have released him by March 15 and only had to pay him $300k termination pay (roughly one month's pay, equivalent to the MLB full season minimum salary at the time). And Ortiz signed with an excellent franchise in Boston, where their projected DH (the aforementioned Jeremy Giambi) had his own injury history and was hardly locked into the position long-term. It's possible Ortiz had quicker and slightly higher offers from worse teams too, but chose to take his time to sift out the best one. No doubt all of baseball likely missed on Ortiz -- it's hard to imagine a left handed hitter, controlled for 2 more seasons, coming off a 120 OPS+, and furthermore coming off a 2nd half in 2002 where he was ~15th in MLB in ISO/SLG, and 24th in OPS (roughly equivalent to Miguel Sano's ranks in the 2nd half of 2015), would not have a significantly stronger market than a one year deal for half the MLB average salary. But clearly the Twins missed far more than all others -- they had some future rights to his services for as little as $300k.

That opt out date has not been reported anywhere for Sweeney. June 1st is actually the standard opt out date for 6+ year MLB veterans on minor league deals, so I would guess it applies to both him and Quentin. It would be rather silly to give an April 1 opt out to a player who sat out the previous season, but never say never (Bartlett). Either player could threaten to retire, of course, then if the team really wanted to keep the player, they'd have to add them to the MLB roster. I'd probably just call their bluff, though, seeing as how you would still own their rights for 2016 (meaning, they couldn't retire and go play elsewhere).

I think it is far from clear that they agreed to it in the ironclad, 100% guaranteed manner you are suggesting they had to honor at all costs. If it wasn't in the written contract, as is pretty much confirmed - why not? It was a priority for LaRoche, he employs an agent for the primary purpose of managing contracts, and is backed by arguably the most powerful union in the world. But it probably isn't in the written contract because it would never be allowed in a written contract, because its affects go beyond the two parties in the contract, which means that whatever agreement they came to on the issue, whatever promise the White Sox made, all likely understood it was impossible to make it an ironclad, 100% guarantee. You could promise Drake a locker and hotel accomodations, but you can't promise he can be a permanent presence in traditionally team-only times and functions -- the latter could easily be a violation of workplace rules/expectations for other players. Just like you could promise a player that there would be a vegan option in the post game spread, but you can't promise a meatless clubhouse. Or you could promise a player a separate quiet space he could use in the stadium, but you couldn't promise that the team would be silent in the clubhouse for him. Etc. I have no doubt the White Sox handled parts of this poorly, but there is no way to put it completely on them, given what we know.

Or, of course, from a Twins fan perspective, they should have all bungled it even more. Although Sox fans will probably be even more unsufferable if they have a good year and this gets cited as a great challenge they had to overcome...

Also, the reason why it probably wasn't put into the written contract, despite the high priority assigned to it by LaRoche, is that I am guessing the union wouldn't allow such a clause. It is clearly a workplace issue, affecting more than just the parties signing that contract (LaRoche and White Sox management). A more extreme example would be if LaRoche demanded a completely silent workplace 100% of the time. It's not really his or management's right to bargain that away from other employees sharing that workspace. Having his kid thee so often is less extreme than that, but far enough outside the accepted norms of the industry that it also deserves consideration as a likely workplace distraction. Management can say they are cool with it, they don't foresee any problems, they will do what they can to help work around those problems... but I think every party here knew there was no way to make this an ironclad guarantee. (Except perhaps Sale who appears to be a bit on the combative side...) No doubt Williams could have handled it better, but LaRoche probably should have either been more willing to compromise, or he should have called off his attack dog teammates.

That analogy doesn't work. Corner office would mean a corner locker for a MLB player. Doesn't materially effect the work environment of others. Bringing a non-employee to work every day, letting them participate on the field, etc. can materially affect the work environment of others. Imagine if you are a baseball pro, working in professional environments without children for years, then you get to White Sox spring training or a cup of coffee, with a limited chance to impress and hundreds of thousands in potential earnings on the line, and all of a sudden a team's leaders kid is in the mix, right alongside you in spring training drills. And you risk losing concentration on your job as you have to be cautious of this kid, how to deal with kid, how to deal with the father, etc. All the time. Every day. The kid can be an angel but that still doesn't mean his constant presence won't be a distraction to a coworker. Now if the White Sox promised that access to LaRoche, it was probably inappropriate. But we don't know what conditions were attached -- in fact, LaRoche in his statement seemed to understand the situation could cause problems that would have to be addressed, even if he ultimately disagreed in how they were addressed. And the pretty much accepted fact that it wasn't a formal written guarantee of access pretty much backs up the idea that all parties knew it wasn't immutable and could be open for revision under certain conditions.

I don't have a problem with apprenticeship if it's a farmer or some other self-employed / boss situation. This is not that kind of workplace.