The filing deadline for Alex Rodriguez’s potential grievance against the Yankees has been put on hold by agreement between MLB and the player’s union, the Associated Press reports (via the New York Times). Presumably, the deal was struck to avoid a major sideshow and to allow the sides more time to work out an agreement regarding the disputed milestone marketing bonuses contemplated in A-Rod’s contract. One of those bonuses was triggered recently when Rodriguez tied Willie Mays on the all-time home run list with his 660th long ball. The team has offered to settle the issue by making a charitable payment (of less than the $6MM provided in the deal) in Rodriguez’s name, per the report.
- The Red Sox bet on bats, says WEEI.com’s Rob Bradford, and they haven’t come through to the extent necessary to overcome the team’s other deficiencies. Bradford argues that is is due not only to the talent on the current roster, but the club’s need for “a flat-out bigger dose of player-driven accountability.” In an appearance on WEEI radio today (via Jason Mastrodonato of the Boston Herald, on Twitter), manager John Farrell said that effort is not a problem, at least currently, though he acknowledged that “there have been times where we’ve had incidents with [effort] that had to be addressed.”
- Looking forward, Dave Cameron of Fangraphs argues that the Red Sox may need to figure out a way to move forward with only one of David Ortiz and Hanley Ramirez on next year’s roster. That could be a tall order (and a potentially painful one) given Ortiz’s rather iconic standing and apparent intention to play next year, combined with HanRam’s big contract and current lack of productivity on defense.
- Orioles lefty Wei-Yin Chen was recently optioned despite his excellent results this year, with the team citing fatigue, as Eduardo Encina of the Baltimore Sun explains. Of course, moving Chen down for ten days also allows the club to skip his upcoming start against the lefty-mashing Blue Jays while freeing a roster spot that the club used to add Chris Parmelee (and prevent him from exercising his opt-out clause). Chen’s agent, Scott Boras, called it a “grossly irregular” move that disrupted the starter’s routine. Ultimately, Baltimore had the right to utilize one of Chen’s options, of course, and service time does not appear to be an issue. But it is a rather interesting and unusual move to demote an established starter, even for an organization that has taken full advantage of the chance to shuttle players between the minors and active roster in recent years.
Something must be wrong with this new comment system, an article about the Red Sox and Arod has 0 comments.
A lot of people haven’t attempt to get new accounts yet, I would assume. I find this a lot different then the old system, and this is my first comment since the change, lol.
Yours was one of the names I was thinking of when I made my comment below
It seems like many of the previous posters had either taken a “wait and see” approach (due to the lack of so many posting niceties) or have moved on to other sites that use Discus. I think the number of comments will drop drastically unless there is better notification, easier account set-up, edit button etc. I temp “new commenting FAQ” link might help some.
I agree this systems leaves a lot to be desired, I was big fan of Discus (under WHoKilledTheRallyMonkey, a name which is too long for this system to display properly) however this site still has the best baseball news. I hope they fix this system pronto
I agree. I was very frustrated and a bit ticked to the point that I decided not to create yet another “commenting account” (I have so many I never use because of different password criteria etc and I don’t want the hassle of constantly looking them up) but eventually the quality of the content won out. Without notification other than email and real-time updating the number of comments will certainly drop though.
The Red Sox really need to find a way to get Hanley out of the outfield. He claims that he likes it out there, but his skills haven’t reflected that. The best scenario would be to move him to first after this year, if he is willing (it’d be even better if he’d do it prior in order to get JBJ another look, as right now it looks like another lost year). If he was moved to first, his poor defence would be much more tolerable, as he would have to be atrocious to accumulate negative WAR as he is doing right now. If he isn’t willing to move, then god help us.
First base is a defensive position that doesn’t require a lot of range but that doesn’t make it any easy position to play. It still requires a lot focus and good glove work, two thing Hanley still lacks.
Yeah, that is the unfortunate fact about moving him there. At least by doing so, they would be getting rid of his terrible range in the outfield. I think it is a hard call if he is willing to make the switch, but one that would be quite beneficial to the team, as long as he can catch the ball.
I can’t see moving him to first. Can you imagine Hanley involved in the highest percentage of plays of any defender on the diamond? It would be ugly to say the least
All he has to do is catch the ball, for the most part. It can’t be that hard, can it? I’d say it is better than seeing him run and try to catch a ball in left field.
As a Dodgers’ fan who watched Hanley up close the last few years, I agree. I’ve thought that both Hanley and Matt Kemp would benefit from moving to 1B or DH. They’re both reckless runners, poor fielders, and streaky hitters. I’d give them a 1B’s glove to save their legs and let them focus on the bat. I’m not sure how Hanley feels about moving now but he wasn’t a fan of moving off SS during his contract year in LA.
…And Parmalee went yard twice last night.
I say keep Hanley and let Ortiz walk; go younger. Great, Ortiz has won three World Series in Boston, but you have to start looking at the future. I say it’s a similar situation the White Sox had with Frank Thomas, and they let him go. Sure, he didn’t win any championships or end a curse or anything, but aging star DH who doesn’t have many years left?… Go youth!
* Formerly OmarManiacal and GoFish
The Red would have to do more than just let Ortiz walk to be rid of him. His option vests with 425 PA and a physical at the end of the year so the Sox would have to either bench Ortiz, preventing him from reaching 425 PA, or release him.
Ah, didn’t know about the vesting option. Good points.
The benching wouldn’t be a bad move, considering his 2015 output, but then there’s the backlash. Papi won’t take sitting quietly.
My Tigers could use him as VMART does not seem to be effective hitting lefty with his injury. Also, if VMART (or Big Papi) can play 1st, Miggy can more to 3rd and remove Castellanos.
However, Ortiz’s contract is cost prohibitive and there is emotional baggage there.
You do remember Miggy’s last attempt at third base right? Why would you want to do that again?
He was slightly below average when not injured. He is in his early 30s and currently not injured. Not a huge drop from Castellanos who is also below average. Perhaps as good as Panda?
Miggy has a -10.1 UZR 150 and -58 DRS for his career at third base and that includes when he was younger. As a Tiger he’s been absolutely brutal. So yes to answer your question, he’s a lot worse than Sandoval at third base. Still a much better hitter, but when you make Sandoval look like a good fielder, your best not going back to third base.
The Orioles have done this before, and with Chen. No big deal and Boras, surprise, surprise, is over reacting. It’s what is best for the team, not the player and CERTAINLY not the agent. Again, Boras is sticking his face into a team’s business.
Agreed. He will get a bit of rest and it give the O’s an extended look at Parmalee. I can’t believe this is even a story.
The most puzzling move was trading two effective pieces (Cespedes and Alex Wilson) and a prospect (Speier) for Porcello and then giving him a “hometown PREMIUM” and making a 3.90ERA guy moving from Comerica to Fenway, their highest paid player in AAV.
Tim covers this nicely in his weekly newsletter.
It seems to me that a team could really take advantage of a situation like that of Wei-Yin Chen. Let’s say you have three young starters in AAA that are capable of being your #5 starter. Why couldn’t you (for the first three years anyway) keep shuttling them back and forth to AAA to avoid service time. You can option a player unlimited times in the same season and only use up one of his three yearly options. At the end of those three years, each of these three starters would have only accrued a total of around one year of service time each and they would have three seasons of experience. Then you could decide which to keep (or keep all three) and have 5 years of control remaining for each player. It seems a tad disingenuous and maybe a bit sleazy, but I bet it would work. At least until the next collective bargaining contract.
Such a blatant strategy to limit a players service time would certainly result a grievance.
There are plenty of blatant strategies that teams use such as claiming players on waivers and immediately outrighting them is unethical in my mind, but it gets done quite a bit.
That’s assuming that there are 3 players good enough that you want to play that shuffling game. I’m assuming that would be a scenario that almost every team would love to have. The O’s have been shuffling 3 pitchers (Gaussman, Wright and Wilson) this year but it’s been more for roster reasons rather than messing with service time.