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Monday, June 07, 2010
Bloggers all over the service-time issue
One of my pet peeves is how the mainstream media doesn’t do its job in highlighting the story of service time handling. Longoria for example would have been declared a free agent after 6 years and 170 days of service (i.e., 7 full seasons), while most players would be declared free agents after 6 years and a late-season callup. Other players are held back to prevent early arbitration because of the Super Two clause. All are legitimate reasons by teams (they give their fans extra years for lower pay) at the expense of the player of course. There’s me, there’s Dave Cameron, and there’s a few other bloggers that point this out on several occasions.
But none of us can match the high-quality reporting of a top-notch blogger: Murray Chass. While the rest of us just spout out whatever comes into our head, Chass talks to the principals involved:
Kasten, the Nationals’ president, grudgingly said that service time was “one of the factors” in their decision to keep Strasburg in the minors this long. Six weeks ago Kasten refused to acknowledge that. “It’s one of the factors,” he said in a telephone interview last Friday. “This is a guy who never spent a day in the minor leagues. There are things our guys felt very strongly about that he needed to experience. Could he have pitched up here opening day? I’m sure he could have. Were there things for him to learn? I’m sure there were.” Speaking of salary arbitration, Kasten said, “I would think the Super Two date passed a long time ago. It was a factor among others but not especially a major one.” Kasten rejected any suggestion of an integrity issue.
“In our case,” he said, “we’re doing the best we can to build a good team for a long time. We felt this was the best way we could have handled Stephen’s development and media access. I’ve never been through this. There wasn’t a manual on how to handle it. I think our decisions have been appropriate and correct.” But what about the Reds’ decision to put Leake in their pitching rotation even though he went directly to the majors without visiting the minors? “It’s an amazing thing,” Kasten said, then reverted to Strasburg. “Could he have pitched in the majors? Probably. But could he benefit from time in the minors? Definitely.”
This Chass kid is doing a great job, and here’s hoping the young blogger keeps it up and one day finds himself working in the mainstream media. Until then, we bloggers will keep claiming him as one of our own discoveries.
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