Kris Bryant Being Called Up!

[George Hayduke]

there's no way they delay his call-up

 

Theo's even being amusingly circuitous with his roster management:

"oh man, our bullpen is just so taxed right now"

 

(cut to Friday)

"wow, i just noticed we have no healthy third basemen..."

 

he dgaf, nor should he, really

Maybe, but it seems like he's taken a lot of effort to create a bunch of justifications for not bringing him up yet. Seems like at this point he would hold off an extra two or three games just to make his position as unreproachable as possible to the MLBPA.

[Guest]

There is nothing the MLBPA can do about it, so I don't see what the point would be to wait.

[George Hayduke]

They could file a grievance that he was held down solely for service time reasons.

[Guest]

They could file a grievance that he was held down solely for service time reasons.

 

And they would lose. The precedent is long established. No one will even care. He will be up with the major league team, which is exactly what everyone wants. Problem solved.

[biittner77]

"We wanted to keep him down until he was ready but the injuries forced our hand" is all he'd have to say.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

They could file a grievance that he was held down solely for service time reasons.

 

And they would lose. The precedent is long established. No one will even care. He will be up with the major league team, which is exactly what everyone wants. Problem solved.

 

There is no precedent because it has never been challenged, and teams are careful to maintain plausible deniability.

 

I think the owners would be overwhelming favorites in such a grievance, but I don't think they can take it for 100% granted. All it takes is one arbitrator to see it differently.

[George Hayduke]

They would very probably lose, but nothing is a guarantee. Given that the best evidence the MLBPA would have in its favor is how soon after the 12th service day he is actually called up, he may hedge his bets and wait a couple extra days. Or not. Like I said, you could be right, but I wouldn't be at all shocked if it's not Friday.

[Guest]

Where is this particular rule and what part of this rule gives the MLBPA authority to challenge it if a team did purposely hold the player down to gain that extra year before free agency?

 

To me, it doesn't even matter, because Theo has already done everything that needs to be done in order to avoid losing a grievance by the MLBPA by stating he has NEVER started a rookie on opening day, excluding foreign professional players. As long as he were to stick to that story, there is nothing else he needs to do in order to protect the team from a frivolous lawsuit.

 

If the MLBPA is mad about this, then at the next time the collective bargaining agreement comes up, they should fight to disallow this behavior by MLB owners. As it stands, MLB owners are stupid to not use this tool, and the MLBPA knows it. It's their own fault this rule works this way.

[Guest]

If Olt hadn't played yesterday and doesn't hurt himself again today(and maybe even still), their case would be pretty airtight. Between the 'we want to get prospects acclimated in low pressure environment' to 'we called him up when we did because we had to put 2 infielders on the DL', it would take some discovery like an email from Theo saying Bryant is explicitly in AAA for service time. It would likely take that anyway, but the circumstances of this April make it easier to do it on the date, rather than harder.

[Guest]

There is no grievance to file as Bryant isn't a member of the union. They can't file a grievance when he's up. Right now he has no standing with the union as he's not on the 40 man.

[Guest]

There is no grievance to file as Bryant isn't a member of the union. They can't file a grievance when he's up. Right now he has no standing with the union as he's not on the 40 man.

 

They can absolutely file a grievance after he is called up.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Where is this particular rule and what part of this rule gives the MLBPA authority to challenge it if a team did purposely hold the player down to gain that extra year before free agency?

 

Labor law is a bit more complicated than just the literal interpretation of the CBA. IANAlaborlawyer, but there appear to be all kinds of grey areas about employers treating employees with good faith and reasonableness and other vaguely defined terms like that. And the teams are certainly acting like that's a factor.

 

To me, it doesn't even matter, because Theo has already done everything that needs to be done in order to avoid losing a grievance by the MLBPA by stating he has NEVER started a rookie on opening day, excluding foreign professional players. As long as he were to stick to that story, there is nothing else he needs to do in order to protect the team from a frivolous lawsuit.

 

When there are dozens of millions of dollars on the line, how sure do you need to be that the one arbitrator involved would see it the same way you do. 95%? 98%? 99.999%?

 

All it takes is one kooky opinion in the right hands. That's what got Ryan Braun off when MLB was completely sure they had him dead to rights.

[Tracer Bullet]

I can't believe the Cubs are making decisions based on the off chance that they would get a moron arbitrator. You don't make decisions b/c you have a 0.001% chance of losing the lottery in decision makers.

[ConstableRabbit]

What would the penalty be if the arbiter ruled in favor of the MLBPA? How severe is the downside?

[Hairyducked Idiot]

I can't believe the Cubs are making decisions based on the off chance that they would get a moron arbitrator. You don't make decisions b/c you have a 0.001% chance of losing the lottery in decision makers.

 

So I guess the logical conclusion is that they think it's higher than 0.001%. It's not nearly as clear-cut as some fans want to believe.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

What would the penalty be if the arbiter ruled in favor of the MLBPA? How severe is the downside?

 

They could award him the missing service time, effectively making him a free-agent a year earlier.

[ConstableRabbit]

What would the penalty be if the arbiter ruled in favor of the MLBPA? How severe is the downside?

 

They could award him the missing service time, effectively making him a free-agent a year earlier.

That's it? That penalty doesn't seem that horrible as far as worst-case scenarios go. Especially if it's as unlikely to occur as folks have been speculating.

[jersey cubs fan]

I can't believe the Cubs are making decisions based on the off chance that they would get a moron arbitrator. You don't make decisions b/c you have a 0.001% chance of losing the lottery in decision makers.

 

So I guess the logical conclusion is that they think it's higher than 0.001%. It's not nearly as clear-cut as some fans want to believe.

 

That is only the logical conclusion if the Cubs actually do wait beyond the point where they no longer technically "have to" wait.

[George Hayduke]

What would the penalty be if the arbiter ruled in favor of the MLBPA? How severe is the downside?

 

They could award him the missing service time, effectively making him a free-agent a year earlier.

And the flip side is, there's very little downside to waiting two more days and then being able to say, "well if we were holding him down only for service time reasons, why wouldn't we have brought him up two days ago?"

[Hairyducked Idiot]

I can't believe the Cubs are making decisions based on the off chance that they would get a moron arbitrator. You don't make decisions b/c you have a 0.001% chance of losing the lottery in decision makers.

 

So I guess the logical conclusion is that they think it's higher than 0.001%. It's not nearly as clear-cut as some fans want to believe.

 

That is only the logical conclusion if the Cubs actually do wait beyond the point where they no longer technically "have to" wait.

 

Maybe. I think the fact that they are covering their tracks with their public statements says it pretty well, but I guess if you thought that was purely for PR or something.

[Tracer Bullet]

What would the penalty be if the arbiter ruled in favor of the MLBPA? How severe is the downside?

 

They could award him the missing service time, effectively making him a free-agent a year earlier.

And the flip side is, there's very little downside to waiting two more days and then being able to say, "well if we were holding him down only for service time reasons, why wouldn't we have brought him up two days ago?"

 

But what's the magic number? If the CBA says Day X, and you think bringing him up on Day X risks a crazy arbitration ruling, how long do you have to wait? Is Day X+1 enough time? "If this were only service time related, we would have brought him up yesterday!" If crazy arbitrator isn't buying that on Day X, he's not buying it on Day X+1 either. So is it 2 days? A week? A month? How long do you have to wait before you're certain that bringing him up isn't going to cost you a year of control?

 

It seems like the kind of thing you'd want some clarity on. It's so important, I'd expect the owners and MLBPA might actually want a mutually acceptable time. In fact, they might include it in the CBA! Novel idea. I hope they do that.

[jersey cubs fan]

I can't believe the Cubs are making decisions based on the off chance that they would get a moron arbitrator. You don't make decisions b/c you have a 0.001% chance of losing the lottery in decision makers.

 

So I guess the logical conclusion is that they think it's higher than 0.001%. It's not nearly as clear-cut as some fans want to believe.

 

That is only the logical conclusion if the Cubs actually do wait beyond the point where they no longer technically "have to" wait.

 

Maybe. I think the fact that they are covering their tracks with their public statements says it pretty well, but I guess if you thought that was purely for PR or something.

 

Covering their tracks via public statements is literally the least they can do. It's meaningless.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

The entire point is kind of that there's not supposed to be a magic day. You're supposed to be doing this for baseball reasons, like Theo said he is.

[George Hayduke]

What would the penalty be if the arbiter ruled in favor of the MLBPA? How severe is the downside?

 

They could award him the missing service time, effectively making him a free-agent a year earlier.

And the flip side is, there's very little downside to waiting two more days and then being able to say, "well if we were holding him down only for service time reasons, why wouldn't we have brought him up two days ago?"

 

But what's the magic number? If the CBA says Day X, and you think bringing him up on Day X risks a crazy arbitration ruling, how long do you have to wait? Is Day X+1 enough time? "If this were only service time related, we would have brought him up yesterday!" If crazy arbitrator isn't buying that on Day X, he's not buying it on Day X+1 either. So is it 2 days? A week? A month? How long do you have to wait before you're certain that bringing him up isn't going to cost you a year of control?

 

It seems like the kind of thing you'd want some clarity on. It's so important, I'd expect the owners and MLBPA might actually want a mutually acceptable time. In fact, they might include it in the CBA! Novel idea. I hope they do that.

There's probably a law of diminishing returns on each successive day. Day 1 after is the most valuable in strengthening his case. Waiting until Day 2 strengthens the case more but not as much as Day 1, Day 3 less so than Day 2, and so on. There's no magic number but I think a couple or three days would probably do the trick. Just enough for plausible deniability. I'm sure Theo will combine it with other circumstances as well ("we had injuries, wanted him to start on the road where there's less pressure, he had a really good night in Iowa last night", etc etc).

[abuck1220]

The entire point is kind of that there's not supposed to be a magic day.

 

says who? is this some rule?