Random Baseball Musings

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Jocephus
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Re: Random Baseball Musings

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AWvsCBsteeeerike3
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Re: Random Baseball Musings

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Kevin Mather (CEO?) of the Mariners front office kind of like went all out and admitted to a lot of things that we generally surmise about, perhaps most notably from a contractual perspective was service time manipulation.

He also talks about underpaying free agents, disses his own players ability to speak english, and just a lot of generally not good things. But, I'll just quote the part about service time. Obviously, everyone should probably go ahead and read everything he had to say. There's a 45 minute video of the entire call available on youtube, as of this morning, at least. I'm sure they're trying to get everything scrubbed from the internets, but good luck....

https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/mari ... -in-video/
Over the last few years there has been a growing distrust between MLB and the MLB Players Association. The players union does not like that teams are tanking, scaling back on their free-agent spending, and manipulating the service time of their top prospects, among other things. The collective bargaining agreement expires in December and negotiations are expected to be contentious.

Service-time manipulation is widespread but damn near impossible to prove. Kris Bryant filed a grievance against the Cubs for manipulating his service time in 2015, and lost the case because he lacked evidence. It's an open secret teams manipulate service time (i.e. keep their prospects in the minors long enough to delay free agency). Good luck proving it though.

The best evidence is candid comments made by the other side and Seattle Mariners president Kevin Mather appears to have provided those comments earlier this month. During an event with the Bellevue Breakfast Rotary Club, Mather indicated the club was not going to call up their top prospects last season for service-time reasons no matter what. A video from the Feb. 5 event was posted on YouTube on Friday, but has since been removed. A full transcript is available at Lookout Landing.

"If our major-league team had a COVID outbreak or injuries and we had to call people up from the taxi squad, we were a little short on players, because there was no chance you were going to see these young players at T-Mobile Park," Mather said. "We weren't going to put them on the 40-man roster, we weren't going to start the service-time clock. There were all kinds of reasons. If we would've had an injury problem or COVID outbreak, you might've seen my big tummy out there in left field. You would not have seen our young players, our prospects, playing at T-Mobile Park."

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Jocephus
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Re: Random Baseball Musings

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Kevin Mather has resigned from his role as the Mariners' team president.

This felt like an inevitable outcome once Mather's comments to the Bellevue Rotary Club came to light. He outlined a plan of service-time suppression for some of the club's top prospects and also made callous remarks about some of the organization's foreign-born players. "There is no excuse for what was said, and I won’t try to make one," Mariners chairman John Stanton wrote in a statement Monday. "I offer my sincere apology on behalf of the club and my partners to our players and fans. We must be, and do, better. We have a lot of work to do to make amends." Stanton added that he will step into the job that Mather held on an interim basis.
Source: Ryan Divish on Twitter
Feb 22, 2021, 4:00 PM ET

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CardsofSTL
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Re: Random Baseball Musings

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He's a POS

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MrCrowesGarden
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Jocephus
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Mariners OF prospect Jarred Kelenic told USA Today's Bob Nightengale that he is the victim of service time manipulation.

That's obvious to anyone following the story of former Mariners president Kevin Mather and his callous comments earlier this month to the Bellevue Rotary Club, but Kelenic is now going on the record with his agent Brodie Scoffield. Kelenic got offered a six-year pre-debut contract extension last spring that would erase any service time concerns, but he declined it and now feels he's being punished. "It was communicated to Jarred that had he signed that contract, he would have debuted last year," said Scoffield. "It was made crystal clear to Jarred -- then and now -- that his decision not to call him up is based on service time. There’s no question that if he signed that contract, he would have been in the big leagues." Scoffield and Kelenic could be laying the groundwork here for the filing of a grievance at some point in the future.
Source: USA Today
Feb 24, 2021, 9:24 AM ET

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InvincibleCakeEater
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Re: Random Baseball Musings

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Royce Lewis tore his ACL and is out for the year.

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CardsofSTL
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White Sox left fielder Eloy Jimenez exited yesterday’s Cactus League game with an apparent injury to his left arm after he attempted to rob a home run, and it looks as though the Sox have been dealt a substantial blow before the season even begins. Dan Bernstein of 670 The Score tweets that it’s a “serious” injury that will cause Jimenez to miss considerable time, and Jim Duquette of MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM tweets that Jimenez has sustained a torn pectoral muscle that could sideline him for as long as five to six months.

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Jocephus
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Rangers manager Chris Woodward would not confirm that Rougned Odor will be a part of the Opening Day roster.

I can't definitively say that," Woodward said when asked about Odor's status. Wow. The 27-year-old second baseman is still owed $12 million this year, $12 million in 2022 and at least three million in a buyout for 2023 with a $13.5 million club option. At one time Odor looked like a future star, but his contact issues have seen him hit just .197 over the last two years in 183 games. It's also likely that the market will be limited if the Rangers do decide to move on from Odor. Things change quick.
Source: Levi Weaver on Twitter
Mar 28, 2021, 6:47 PM ET
Jazz Chisholm has been awarded the Marlins second base job according to general manager Kim Ng.

Isan Diaz will start the season in Triple-A as a result. Chisholm is 11-for-41 (.268) with three home runs and four stolen bases in Grapefruit League play. The 23-year-old is ranked as the Marlins fourth-best prospect and the sixty-sixth best in baseball according to MLB Pipeline. Chisholm is viewed as the shortstop of the future in Miami but will occupy the keystone this upcoming season.

Source: Craig Mish on Twitter
Mar 28, 2021, 3:48 PM ET

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