Major League Baseball announced that former Mets general manager Billy Eppler has been placed on the ineligible list, beginning immediately and through the conclusion of the 2024 World Series. Per the announcement, Eppler violated rules regarding “improper use of Injured List placements, including the deliberate fabrication of injuries; and the associated submission of documentation for the purposes of securing multiple improper Injured List placements during the 2022 and 2023 seasons.” The league added that the investigation “concluded that the pattern of conduct was at Mr. Eppler’s sole direction and without any involvement of Club ownership or superiors. MLB considers the matter closed and will have no further comment.”
The Mets also released a statement on the matter: “The Mets have been informed of the conclusion of Major League Baseball’s investigation. With Billy Eppler’s resignation on October 5, 2023, and with David Stearns leading the Baseball Operations team, the Mets consider the matter closed and will have no further comment.”
Eppler himself provided comment to Joel Sherman of The New York Post: “I cooperated fully and transparently with MLB’s investigation, and I accept their decision.”
Eppler, 48, was hired to be the general manager of the Mets in November of 2021. The club hired David Stearns to be president of baseball operations in September of 2023, with the plan reportedly being for Eppler to stay on GM, working under Stearns. But on October 5, he resigned and it was reported that same day that the league was investigating him for improper use of the injured list.
It’s still not clear which specific players were involved or what the details of the transgressions were. A “phantom IL” placement has been sort of an open secret in baseball for years. If a player is struggling but cannot be sent to the minors due to being out of options or having more than five years of service time, then a club may place him on the injured list with some sort of nebulous injury such as “neck stiffness” or “back tightness”, then send him on a rehab assignment to get some work in the minors and try to get things back on track.
Deesha Thosar of Fox Sports relays that she spoke to various players about the issue who agreed that “every team does it” and expressed confusion as to why Eppler was being singled out. To this point, it’s unclear if the practice was taken to some unprecedented level or if this is the start of the league planning a bigger crackdown on the practice league-wide.
Per Joel Sherman and Dan Martin of The New York Post, the league was tipped off to the practice with the Mets via an anonymous letter, so it’s possible that the club simply got caught in a way that the league felt had to be addressed. Commissioner Rob Manfred discussed the investigation back in October, saying he wanted the department of investigations to “figure out whether we have a bigger problem” regarding injured list usage.
Time will tell whether this becomes a larger issue or if it goes down as an isolated incident. For now, it seems like no other members of the Mets will receive any punishment. By being on the ineligible list for the remainder of the 2024 season, Eppler won’t be able to get a job with any other MLB club until then.
Does he still get paid for the year off?
Still feel they made an example out of him. He isn’t the only gm in baseball who done that.
Highly unlikely he was the only person who knew this within the Mets. He fell on the sword to protect others.
He definitely fell on his sword and, based on his stance, will probably be rewarded a job as soon as his suspension ends.
Only gm in baseball? This is literally done by every team. No team could get through a season without bending these rules. Manfred creating the fake aura of policing the game
They had to follow up because Scherzer is the source. Other teams didn’t have a rat. Scherzer decided to throw trash when he got traded.
You get enjoyment from making up lies, mate?
Wampum —
It wasn’t a rat. It was a raccoon.
I’ve said too much.
Eppler resigned with back tightness
Actually someone sent MLB a letter saying he did that so in reality someone did rat him out.
Why even imply it was the person who reported it who was in the wrong by calling them a “rat”. Eppler wronged someone. If they weren’t injured, and didn’t want to spend time on the IL, they were wronged. This is solely on Epler, and is not the fault of the person reporting it. Its the people who don’t report the violations that allow this to become the norm.
It’s an extension of the Astros propaganda. Everybody cheats the exact same amount. The harassment of female reporters was just a “couple of bad apples”.
Ha, thanks for that!
People mischaracterize having good ethics as something negatve like being a “rat”. If someone notified MLB of wrongdoing, good for them for having the courage to tell the truth and risk retaliation.
Why is that?
They might see something
“It’s the people who don’t report the violations that allow this to become the norm.“ – BINGO!
The use of the term “rat” is a deflection for people who have their own highly questionable habits. It takes a decent human being to stand up and expose wrongdoings so those practices come to an end. That’s why Altuve will rightfully always be blamed as part of the astros cheating scheme.
An extension of hypocrisy actually. Let’s treat some that bend the rules one way and others another. IL manipulation? Everyone does it. Service time manipulation? Everyone does it. Sign stealing? CHEATER!
See? Hypocrisy
Or was it a brain cramp?
In the Astros case, the players will be chill but people from the front office might come and chant at you about how glad they are that they traded for a domestic abuser.
Stearns wanted to bring in his own GM and used this as an excuse to get rid of Eppler.
The same Stearns that was hired after Eppler resigned?
I was wondering how many games Patrick Corbin would lose after he lost his 19th in 2022. Next thing I knew he was on the injured list with a supposed back injury. He didn’t pitch again that season. I think Mike Rizzo didn’t want a National to be known as the starter to lose 20.
Like hall of famer Phil Niekro.
Agreed this is a stupid violation.
Astros, you’re team knows all about bending rules.
They know about falling on the sword for the league, too.
That appears to be very true jjd. We know the Yankees did it and a player on the Cubs who shall remain nameless told me the Dodgers were doing it and it led to Bellinger’s mvp season. Not the only reason, of course. But knowing what pitch is coming does help some players. The Red Sox did it too and I’m sure there were others. I’m not saying that the Astros didn’t deserve punishment but I do feel like mlb turned a blind eye to the whole thing.
Agreed. 100% they deserved the punishment they got because they got caught (kind of), but I know how this league operates. They made Houston the fall guys. Too many players change teams for the three teams that were caught to be the only ones doing it. What’s really funny about the Astros stuff is all the stars continue to be stars today. But some other players on some other teams (namely a former Dodger and a current Brewers player) had some rough years when the league cracked down on electronic sign stealing (and only came back to above average when the league banned the shift).
This is literally done by every team.
========================
I’m willing to bet it was the depth of the charges. Probably submitting doctored paperwork to the league.
That and the fact that he is unemployed anyway makes him a good target.
exactly. they all do it and Eppler was turned over as th goat. GM’s are paying his rent right now.
Nope. He resigned which means he forfeits any salary he might have been owed.
Per AP report:”Eppler will not lose any salary as a result of the suspension. The Mets paid the remainder of his contract, which was set to run through the 2025 season, after he resigned last fall the same day MLB’s investigation became public.”
I’m sure billionaire Steve Cohen can find a way to compensate Eppler for taking one for the team
I am sure it was a forced resignation to avoid embarrassment. He wasn’t getting Dombrowski money. The Mets probably offered to honor his contract if he resigns. I feel so bad for Eppler. Stuck under Cashman fir all of those years. Finally gets a shot with the Angels and is not allowed to be a true GM. Then finally seems to get a shot with the Mets only to be replaced by Stearns and put back to where he was with the Yankees. Guy can’t catch a break…
Let’s not get crazy, the guy has clearly caught more breaks than most dream of…..
Eppler made the example out of himself by abruptly quitting *before* the story broke about the accusations. He conceded guilt before any investigation ever was announced
Proof that other GMs do this or just assumption? Buck Showalter was recently complaining about “load management” coming from the top. Likely related.
@VonPurpleHayes Eh, maybe. Or it might just be Buck being a grumpy old guy.
The Mets were among the worst teams in the league during the Wilpon era in playing especially old players into the ground, and playing injured players into more serious injuries (as always with the Wilpons, see the report in GoodFundies for a long, long list of this kind of thing). It wasn’t as if ‘the good old days’ did the players including David Wright any good.
As for the 2023 Mets, an average number of players spent an average number of days on the IL. They were also happy to send regulars 28 and older out there for 152, 154, 158, and 160 games. They seemed content to hustle Alonso back from a fractured wrist.
Whose ‘load’ did Buck think the Mets FO was (mis)managing? There don’t seem to be any actual candidates.
He resigned. I assume that means he willingly gave up his salary.
This clown was, is and will always be a Grade-A bum.
I’m writing an anonymous letter to the Commissioner’s office about Anthony Rendon’s misuse of the Injured List.
He is a walking injured list. Not to mention a dbag.
Probably the best FA deal Rizzo didn’t make. At least the Nats didn’t have three bad contracts at once.
Rizzo has been pretty good all things considered. The Scherzer contract will go down as one of the best in history.
I agree Von. Rizzo knows what he’s doing.
And you know he’s a drag how…?
Should say dbag. Why doesn’t this site allow editing of comments?
You are right. He learned it somewhere
Are the other 29 general managers getting put on the ineligible list too? This has gone on for years.
Do you have any examples offhand? I’d love to read more.
So Bauer, you think this isn’t common?
Try playing fantasy baseball and you’ll know this happens every month
I’m a grown man and don’t play make believe sports or watch TV shows where people are playing make believe under the guise of acting
But you are a grown man using his computer or telephone to read about a silly mlb incident. Confusing take buddy
You don’t play sports or make believe sports. You watch people play sports and read about it.
Hey Clausen…You sound like a little boy.
Once a year , friends I’ve had for 40+ years travel to LA for to meet, socialize, and build their fantasy baseball teams.
You’ll never understand the joy of that.
You’re clueless.
VinScully’sson.
Hey, I knew one of Vin Scully’s son, Mike. He died in a helicopter crash.
Clausen. Dude. You um… know that playing make believe is literally what actors do right?
But you gossip in chat forums.
It’s more of an open secret where every GM does it, but nobody (including MLB) cares until it gets overly egregious. The Rangers routinely did it with Brad Miller last season because he was a guy everyone liked in the clubhouse, so rather than DFA him they put him on the IL several times.
Any proof? Some injuries do recur.
Why do so many jump on the conspiracy theory band wagon so quickly?
At least one team did it. The Mets. Too soon to say “Every Team does it.”
@stymeedone what about when Derek Holland straight up said he had a “fake injury”
There have been numerous players/coaches throughout history that’ve eluded to such practices, why are so many so quick to just accept what they’re told and be good lil communists when they could capitalize on some knowledge/greater understanding and perhaps idk maybe learn more about themselves/reality while they’re at it, I guess it’s just too scary to question the status quo.. btw not saying you’re a commie, might be a great patriot, but when was the last time it was a good idea to trust anyone with a ton of freaking money about anything? Certainly not when they were telling u to take experimental spike proteins in the keister…..
From what I’ve understood before this incident was that this was a fairly common practice. I don’t think any of us work for MLB or a team, so we won’t know for sure, but safe to say Eppler was not the only one doing this. I’m fine with this if MLB is going to be more vigilant of other teams as a result.
Last season the crew put Tellez on the IL with what some forearm/wrist crap or something out of nowhere when he was reaching new offensive lows, then he mysteriously cut the hell outta his hand shagging some pop ups supposedly so the chicken had apparently came home to roost and I think the crew couldn’t of been happier, I hate to see a guy get legit injured but every day he wasn’t stealing ABs/a roster spot gave the crew that much more hope, and of course they went on a tear and won the division by nine games so thank goodness
The difference is that Eppler got caught. After Watergate, Nixon tried the “everyone does it” defense, but the simple fact is that he was the one who got caught. The next time you get caught cheating on your taxes, try this defense and see what happens.
Does everyone cheat on their taxes?
I don’t. So no.
Most with lots of money…..
Just liberals.
Bauer this seemed to be a thing during the last 2-3 years of the Barry Zito deal, the last year especially any time he had to pitch away from SF he would end up on the IL for a week or two, coming back just as they needed to spell another guy for a few starts, it was almost like they had a 6 man rotation at times.
Dodgers never did this.
* wink wink
I know he isn’t the Mets GM now, but that’s still a huge blow.
Being a Mets fan requires dedication through all this pain.
Why is this a huge blow? What is the impact it has on you or the Mets?
I didn’t know why I put this comment. I can be brain-dead sometimes.
Yeah that’s a requirement for most Met fans as well.
They’re adding (fake) insult to (fake) injury
@Clofreesz Speaking of which, I don’t know when I stopped being a Mets fan after more than 50 years, and became more a “Mets observer” who used the Mets as a primary lens for looking at baseball.
The ground for that was surely the Wilpon years, but then Cohen’s first, ridiculous year at the helm was so disgraceful, so absurd, that the connection I felt into the 1980s and which persisted even through two decades of the Wilpons playing old players into the ground, cheating players of bonuses, wrecking David Wright, deceiving wrt medicals (see the extensive Good Fundies report for much, much more on this) was finally stretched past reasonable limits. Being a fan involved too much of the ludicrous, and I drifted into being an observer of the team rather than a fan. Perhaps it’s like a marriage where after a few good years here and there the behavior of the other relentlessly drains love from the relationship, after which they spend the next 20 years drinking heavily and you’re just there for the sake of developmentally disabled children, or somesuch analogy. Fill in the blanks as you like.
I sincerely doubt dedication is the primary characteristic involved in remaining a fan of the team. No offense.
Yes: Drinking heavily.
trolling?
Has there been any reporting on which players were the subject of fake IL placements?
Without looking it up, Corey Kluber last year lmfao 7.something ERA and not doing anything some random AAA guy that wasn’t making $10 million couldn’t do
Even so, it would still be a foolish financial move. Plaing Kluber on the IL and calling up someone else means you are still paying Kluber AND paying an additional minimum salary for that same production.
And the young player gets service time.
I don’t think that would really matter because if the young pitcher’s ERA is around 7.00 in the bigs I doubt he would ever get past pre-Arb salaries.
Hitflew, you are thinking about arbitration. It’s a lot more than that. It’s pension, and insurance.
The first kick in goes in at 43 days. And days count. You don’t have to get to years.
Players still get service time on the Major League IL.
I know it is more than that to the player. But I was talking about it being a foolish financial maneuver FOR THE TEAM. Pension and insurance and anything like that was irrelevant to what I was talking about.
Just so happens Kluber retired an hour ago.
Hitflew, It may be irrelevant to what you are talking about but it’s not irrelevant to what I’m talking about.
Who is getting harmed? Everyone does it, nobody cares. Seems like the sentence does not fit the crime. Feel free to disagree.
No offense intended, but you did respond to me. So forgive me if I considered my topic before yours.
Hitflew, Oh. Now I see the confusion.
I really do hate the way you never know who a reply directed to. You would think they could correct that with a small programming change.
No worries. And it is Hiflew, not Hitflew.
Hiflew, Wait to you get to be my age. You’ll need a magnifying glass to read.
I moved to LA before the Angels did.
@Halo11Fan True, but in compensation all commenters need to do is “at _____ _____”.
I am already there man. Maybe not to your age yet, but already at the point where learning how to zoom in on my computer screen is now necessary knowledge instead of a cute trick.
not if there is insurance
Ever considered being Charlie777?
So which is worse, Astros or Mets doing bad things?
It matters?
Astros. Mets haven’t won anything since the Second World War.
Do you really think the Second World war came after 1969 and 1986? I only ask because I am never surprised about someone’s lack of knowledge of history. I won’t even get into the fact that the Mets did not even exist until almost 20 years after WW2 concluded.
a majority of high school students cannot name who fought in WW2. nothing surprises me anymore
In 2024 you can just make history whatever you want it to be. IIRC the Mets last won a title in 3200 BC, Moses was the starting CF and most of the audience were dinosaurs from the Mesozoic era
I thought Moses was on the Yankees. They always collected the big names.
Jerry Moses. Catcher. Played for the Yanks in ‘73.
@hiflew Congrats. You know how to use Google. Maybe you wanna look up the word sarcasm next
he refused to shave his beard and the deal fell apart
Do you really think I need to use Google to know when WWII happened? Or when the Mets won the World Series? That knowledge was locked in when google was nothing but a really big number. But that fact will probably be lost on you as well.
Yes, I do.
One more thing you just don’t know. You are accumulating quite a pile there.
The Mets weren’t a franchise until 20 years after the 2nd world war.
Wally Backman lost 3 prime years due to his WWII service….
What could have been.
Casey Stengel was a decorated Civil War veteran.
It was an exaggeration for comic effect, I think.
Correct. An astounding amount of dumb commentators on here pretending to be smart, however. Just blows my mind.
What happened to casey Stengel between 1914 and 1915 is the big mystery.
You mean 2nd Gulf War.
Right because no other team ever does things. Right.
Why don’t they ever just say they have no evidence of people higher being involved? Saying they have affirmatively concluded ownership wasn’t in on it sounds super corrupt.
@Ncsaint Particularly since this is not the sort of negative one can be conclusive about.
It sounds like an overbroad interpretation of Eppler saying something like “ownership wasn’t involved,” which isn’t remotely conclusive in any case. It’s just an attestation, if it even occurred.
They probably don’t want to open the door for anyone to say: “You have no evidence, but do you have any suspicion people higher up were involved?”
Because they would rather the case closed instead of making it a bigger deal. See the Astros scandal.
I wonder if the punishment would have been the same if he was still the GM for the Mets and hadn’t resigned last year
I’m sure many other clubs do this. But Eppler use of it was over the top
@10centBeerNight How so—with which player was it blatant?
Jack. Merely referring to penalty handed down. Not a believer that club has been unfairly singled out by Commissioner
Cheers, BeerNight. I’m just genuinely puzzled unless it was a specific complaint by a specfic player, given how ordinary the Mets IL numbers look in the context of all 30 teams.
A rare Mets misstep.
Hahaha!!!
Right? Otherwise a model of efficiency and rectitude.
Mets are gonna Met
I love that we live rent-free in people’s heads!!
I’m not sure you know what the phrase means. Of course people are going to bring up the Mets when the article about the team.
Not bad for a perinnial losing team, right?
How witty! How original! Bravo!
I consider this matter closed and I have no further comment.
“The following statement is true.
The preceding statement was false.”
— George Carlin
LOLmets endures, even on the weekend of a Super Bowl.
Keep trying Buddy.
He was made an Example! A warning to all the other GM’s to stop abusing the system.
I wonder if the player who blew the whistle was Guillorme? I didn’t think the Luis for Wenddle swap made much sense, but if you try to connect the dots…
the team needs to be punished as well – take away a draft pick or international bonus pool money
Not happening. Eppler paid the price. Case closed.
Did the Yankees get punished for winning 4 World Series with teams full of steroid users?
Nope
Who doesn’t do this?
And for a young player, what’s better, getting sent down or going on the I.L. and accumulating big league service time.
This suspension seems like overkill on a practice that’s commonplace.
I don’t.
You never called in sick just
To get the day off of work?
Yeah. I would think that most players do not hate the usage of the IL to be a little lax. Gets more guys service time & money.
glad they nabbed the only GM to ever do this
Lots of people go 80mph on the freeway. Some get caught. You can’t tell the judge “but others do it too and…” Them’s the breaks.
It’s the death sentence for going 80 I object to.
It’s not like he blew a .20 and got into a serious car accident.
poor analogy
Ouch, this hurts, pun inteded.
Google pun real quick
IL make sure to do that…
Horrible GM. Ran the Angels into the ground. (Not hard to do).
Can’t sign free agents. Can’t make smart trades. Now can’t even cheat right.
Will never get another gm job
Some player snitched….
MLB must have some informal threshold for this type of stuff before it gets actionable, because I doubt any of the teams don’t do at least some of it. I wonder of changing the old 15 day to 10 for non-pitchers just accelerated the issue.
Whenever a big salaried player isn’t playing well they get stashed on the IL. That’s happened for many years.
eppler built a pro-scouting department for the yankees that is among the best in the sport. he’s a prime example of someone getting promoted past their level of competence
The matter is closed. No further comments!
I remember hearing that Stearns wanted to keep him on the staff, must’ve been the reason will he stepped down. Also I think something happened between him and mad max, he was mad about them trading canha said he needs to talk to the front office and was traded the next day.
Who is the most honest and unscrupulous team in baseball?
Why doesn’t the team get punished with losing picks or international money as the moves benefit the team, even if he directed it. The guy was fired, so not sure what teeth this new declaration has.
Because if Manfred went farther, he would have picked a fight with the biggest bully on the block that he would have lost too.
Total bs. I’m not shedding any tears that Billy moved on as his tenure can best be described as a mixed bag. For this horrible sin never before committed by anyone else he should have been given time served since his resignation in October until now. At least he was willing to take the fall on his own and not implicate his former subordinates or boss.
I just hope that Mr. Clean Manfred investigates and disciplines every other GM including Cashman, Dombrowski, Friedman, Hoyer, etc (just examples) and the other 25 who have all used the system to their advantage every year.
He got caught because someone ratted on him. Either Max or a training/office staff member.
He will sign with the Astros the following season!
Conspiracy theory: Anonymous source = Steve Cohen. Then again, Cohen doesn’t exactly do much anonymously.
I remember remarking to my dad that the Mets always seemed to get an injury to a player just when it was needed. I figured there was something like this going but I thought it was more brinksmanship that out and out cheating..
Wouldn’t a GM need the cooperation, or at least the complacency, of medical staff and the player in order for the ruse to work?
Oh please, what an absolute monstrosity.
Huh. Let’s see… what other enterprise was Cohen involved with that played fast and loose with the rules and got caught and punished?
Eppler was always going to be the fall guy.
The medical staff, FO, and players were all coconspirators in manipulating the system in order to benefit the club. There should have been discipline brought down upon the franchise. It was ‘determined’ that Jim Crane was not at all responsible for the trash can. The team still had punishment leveled against it.
@wallabeechamp I’m not so sure, champ. If it was a case where Eppler pushed a guy hard to go on the IL when he wasn’t hurt, and the guy figures it will cost him at this stage of his career for whatever reason, then no one else needs to have been involved.
Especially if Eppler threatened the player with dire consequences or even only implied same, unless he went along. It wouldn’t surprise me if we eventually learn the Mets quietly settled a lawsuit by Player X.
By the way, despite this and all the other articles about this, where are the examples in print of actual players, and the specific dates when such offenses took place?
Or, failing that, even conjecturally?
Granted no WS was involved, but to date this feels like it would have after the Astros affair, except no one expressed much curiosity about specifics and simply moved on.
If only he would’ve traded Bundy after his ‘20 season. He could’ve gotten 4 prospects back.
That deal looked good for a minute.
MLB should add another year to his suspension for trading Kyle Bradish and 3 other prospects for Dylan Bundy. That will distort the AL landscape for a decade.
Yes, because while Bundy did very well in the Pandemic shortened 2020 season, he was a complete disaster the very next season and he also wasn’t good in his last season, which was with Minnesota.
It’s called the phantom DL – opps, now IL
This is common practice in MLB so I’m very certain he must’ve did something else that was far more shady.
The question is, why teams can’t put the best 26 man team on the field? its ridiculous that players with more than 5 year service or without options can’t put out of the 26 without a IL stint.
Any rule that prevent the manager from putting the best team posible should be banned. Contracts are warrantee, so why should roster spots should also be? they have to be earned.
Must have been a very extreme case to warrant that type of investigation. There is little doubt that MLB teams do this with struggling players who truly do not have medical issues that warrant IL placement. If you follow a any particular team on a daily basis as the season progresses you can see it occurring as players struggle or get tired and has other players need to come up to either give them a chance from AAA or simply to spell a veteran. Obviously, the Mets situation was much more extreme.
@BaseballGuy1 Here’s the thing, the Mets were almost perfectly average in the number of people they put on the IL and the length of time those players spent on the IL.
That suggests it was a player (or perhaps a few players) in particular whom Eppler forced to go on the IL even though he wasn’t injured, and that person reported Eppler to the league office.
It couldn’t have been general abuse of the IL since the Mets weren’t guilty of enough of that to warrant Eppler being found guilty as a general matter—it had to be specifics that did him in. Given that, what’s the alternative explanation to a specific complaint by a player that the league reviewed and found to be grounded in fact?
It was initially reported to MLB via anonymous letter. Sounds like someone with an ax to grind with Eppler wanted to cause him harm. I wouldn’t be surprised if this person gave MLB an ultimatum to investigate him or they would be opening a bigger can of worms supported by evidence. That can only explain his quick resignation when the report came out.
They needed someone who was presently unemployed to make a statement.
This has become a rampant practice.
In hindsight putting Steve cohens wallet on the IL was a bad idea,
So now the Mets are the cHeATerS, right trolls?
Impossible. According to many idiot “fans,” only the Astros have ever cheated in baseball. This is just further proof for all of those morons that cheating and baseball are synonymous.
Why is Eppler having to fall on this sword? This is common practice league-wide.
The league learned lessons from the Astros situation. Find a fall guy and don’t waver from that belief. Make it seem like it is a one-off situation, regardless of all of the evidence that points to the situations being league wide. They learned from the sign stealing it is much better to have one team hated over the whole league (like after the strike and the PED era).
I’m a huge lifelong fan of the Dodgers. And they do this every year. Many times.
If one team was doing something they all are. Too many players/officer personnel switch teams. Too many employees/players have friends on other teams for stuff to not spread.
Even the Brits are delighting in this latest act of LOLmets. Eppler’s year-long ban has made BBC Sport and got into The Guardian, one of England’s quality dailies.
Go get em Coppy.
But seriously, If as a reaction to this at the next cba, will mlb implement a 10-14 day assignment? It would work for players like Aaron Hicks or a Chris Davis who need to adjust their swings when consistantly batting below the mendoza line and protect owners on large contracts when the player isnt performing well. The assignment would mean automaticlly called back up to the majors after 10-14 days, NO assignment extensions, only once per season.
InEppler strikes again
Mirroring the messed up American criminal justice system by imposing a brutal punishment just to make an example out of somebody is in poor taste.
MLB’s self regulation seems to work just as well as Wall Street’s. Get enough money and you can just make it up as you go along.
So all this time I’ve been annoyed with Rendon never playing. Now I know he was doing it just to help the Angels. He has been fine the whole time
I pored through their transaction log looking for anything suspicious this last year. I found a few. First I ignored guys with options like Guillorme, as optioning is both cheaper (you don’t pay them MLB rate) and keeps them playing. So that being said:
Starling marte – 2 stints on the IL with migraines and a right groin strain, had a down year
Carrasco- 2 stints, 1 for elbow inflammation one for pinky finger fracture. Also a really down year.
thomas Nido – “dry eye syndrome” was the injury. Later rehabbed in minors, was recalled, dfa’d shortly thereafter for Omar Navaez
Yacabonis – MiLB FA, made team, pitched 3 weeks, injured, rehabs, DFAd, outrighted – maybe a stretch here
lol Mets. And still didn’t win the division.
We called this Dan Haren syndrome when he was a National.
Every team manipulates the IL. It’s beneficial to the player as he keeps his MLB salary.
Also, every team steals signs. It’s different In the AL Central, however. They warn the opposing dugout which pitch is coming.
FWIW – I strong suspect that this is because of the Louis Guillorme
injury. I take it Guillorme didn’t like being sidelined and there is a
complete coverup of the details by the Mets and MLB.
I’m not sure why Eppler is just going along. I suspect he is being
compensated by Cohen somehow. It is not past Cohen to do something like
that and he is famously capable of getting compatriots to take the fall
for criminal matters and buy the silence of others.
This is not a criminal matter, of course. But from the perspective of
the games integrity, the silencing of the circumstances for the
discipline is likely worst than the “crime”.
It seems to me that if MLB is putting someone on the Ineligible list, and because of the public nature of MLB and its legal status, that it would be incumbent to also public its finding and proceedings.
if only the Mets could fake a win.