THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

When is a player (or agent) going to bring a suit against a ball club for these shenanigans.  I’m only OK with this if the club comes out and says that it is in their best long term interests to option the player to AAA.

Just come out and say it.

Should teams like the A’s do this sort of stuff with their young pitchers? Instead of bringing them up later in the season to limit the chance at super2, you end their season early when you know your chances for the postseason are zero. It seems like doing it the opposite way would make much more sense.

If you believe the player is one of your 25 best, then have him on the roster from Opening Day. If you realize in late July that you are out of it, you send him down to limit the service time. If you are still in the thick of things, then you can keep him up.

The Brewers probably have enough cover:

1. He’s hitting .220
2. Their best prospect also plays SS

But I can’t believe that the Brewers made this decision without considering service time.

I’m too lazy to get out the BtBS calculator, but isn’t one additional consideration, given that Escobar is a well-known stud prospect, that the extended club control significantly increases Hardy’s trade value?

Amazingly enough, despite his horrible season with the bat, Hardy has still been slightly above average due to his glove, according to Fangraphs (-12.1 hitting, +8.7 fielding, +4.7 positional = 1.3 RAA).

I’m sorry so many of my posts have to be moderated. Is there something I’m doing wrong when I post them?

oops… didn’t read carefully enough the first time. Rally already mentioned the trade value thing. Sorry (again).

Not sure why you are being moderated.  Usually it’s the inserting of links or excessive use of caps.  No worries…

Dave thinks that if JJ is still stuck as a 4+ player, that this could be the straw that broke the camel’s back:
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/hardy-and-service-time/

I’ve highlighted alot of these service time manipulations (and that is what they are, regardless of what any exec publicly says), and I’m sick of them.

I saw somewhere that if he spends fewer than 20 days in the minors, it will essentially count as a full season and he’ll still have enough service time credit to hit free agency after 2010.  Doug Melvin publicly said the move was not about delaying his free agency.

If that’s true, then I hope he hits about .375 for the next two weeks in AAA.  If that happens, and the Brewers don’t recall him, then it will be obvious what is going on.

That doesn’t sound right Rally.  A baseball season is around 182 or 183 days.  A service year is 172 days.  So, if he spends less than (around) 10 days in the minors, he gets his full year in.  Otherwise, he won’t.

From the basic agreement:
“If a Player is optionally assigned for a total of less than 20 days in one championship season, the Player shall be credited with Major League service during the period of such optional assignment(s).”

Presumably that’s in there to make it less attractive for teams to play games with service time.

Fantastic!

http://www.jsonline.com/sports/brewers/56431322.html

“At first I felt OK. It would give me a chance to relax,” said Hardy, who avoided arbitration this season by signing a one-year, $4.65 million deal in the winter. “But that’s when my agent told me about the 20 days.

“That’s when I was like, ‘Now I understand.’ The more I replay the conversation with Doug, the more I realize there was never a chance for me to be called up before (the 20 days).”

The issue is not so much with the service time manipulation.  It’s the deception. 

“JJ, you are going to hear this from your agent anyway, but I’ll tell you myself: I can’t stand your hitting, and we gave you until the last possible day, until we couldn’t take it anymore...”

- “That’s great skip, no prob.”

“… and that day lets us keep you one extra year and delays your free agency by a year”

- “You SOB”

The GM knew the agent would inform JJ.  Instead of having the real conversation, he had half a conversation.