Re: 2015 MLB Season - Can the Cubs FINALLY win the World Series? (No.)
Timby, didn't you point out the players signed a CBA that included this particular loophole? I mean, they probably wanted something themselves in the CBA, so they let this one go because it probably wouldn't happen very often anyway.
Well, it's only a loophole because the union didn't even think of it really being an issue during the last round of negotiations. (The current CBA was absolutely a case of veterans completely selling younger and mid-tier players down the creek, but that's a whole other discussion.)
It's only in the last few years that certain teams (Astros, Mets, Cubs and a few other bottom-feeders), more obsessed with "process" and profits than, you know, winning baseball games, and their lawyers realized they could save some coin by messing around with their young players' service time. The Astros did it with George Springer, the Mets have done it with a shitload of guys like Syndergaard, d'Arnaud and Wheeler, and there have been other examples all over the league, but the Bryant case is unique in that he wasn't just ready in spring training this year, but he was ready
last year -- and that's where the Cubs' protestations to the contrary rang hollow.
"We don't want him to have the pressure of Opening Day." Cool, call him up last September during garbage time and let him get a month against major league pitching. Except they didn't, because of that sweet, sweet extra year of cost control.
The other wrinkle here is the potential grievance. MLB does not have a history, generally speaking, of winning major labor decisions in front of arbitrators and given Tony Clark's rhetoric as of late, it would not surprise me if the union is very strongly considering filing a charge that sending a guy to the minors explicitly for service time reasons is against the rules. (If it
were clearly legal, the Cubs wouldn't have been making up all the excuses about his defense.) But we may never know about Bryant filing a grievance unless he wins. It isn't a public process; sometimes it leaks, but not always. For example, Springer gave notice of intent to file a grievance against the Astros last year about their service time fuckery, and it didn't leak out until just this past spring that the Astros settled rather than letting it get in front of an arbitrator. (And given their ownership's close relationship with the commissioner's office, that should tell you exactly how tenuous MLB thinks its position would be in any potential case.)
Don't get me wrong, as a business decision it's fine. But there are times when business decisions and the point of running a baseball team -- which is, you know, to
win some fuckin' games -- are mutually exclusive. And we clearly know which side the Ricketts-owned Cubs are on.
