Murray Chass Thinks Baseball Has An Integrity Problem, Then Takes Activia Challenge

I have set up a Yahoo Fantasy Football League and those of you who have already expressed interest can feel free to join. Anyone else who wants to join can feel free to do so as well. I am planning on having a 12 team league and I have set up the league like last year's Yahoo league, but am open to any changes. The ID is 269298 and the password is "eckstein."

I wanted to go with something meaner in the title today, like "Murray Chass Thinks Baseball Lacks Integrity, Also Believes He Just Wet Himself," or "Murray Chass Talks About Baseball's Integrity Problem, Also Wants Kids To Get Off His Lawn." Actually, that last one isn't mean but probably true. Either way, Murray thinks baseball has an integrity problem and it doesn't deal with steroids. It deals with how teams manage their rosters.

Much like how an NFL team will put a player on IR for the season because they have an "injury" and don't want to cut that player and try to get the player through waivers on to the practice squad, MLB teams keep their players in the minors to save time on the arbitration clock. Yeah, it sucks for the players, but it is also the team's business to do this. Fans can hate it, the players can hate it, and Murray Chass can hate it but that's just the way it is. How an organization wants to manage its roster should be up to them, as long as it is within baseball's rules.

Baseball’s integrity was on my mind because I suspect that teams like the San Francisco Giants have undermined it. These teams just don’t seem like they’re trying to win, or at least doing everything they can to win.

San Francisco currently has one of the best records in baseball at 62-45. They have the second best record in the National League. Clearly, they have thrown this season away and don't give two shits about winning.

That’s a pretty damaging charge, I admit,

And also a completely wrong charge. Please admit that too.

But when a team doesn’t use the best players available to it, you have to question its motives and its integrity.

No you don't. You question the intelligence of the team in not using their best players. The Giants aren't cheating in any way by not playing their best players, other than cheating the fans in some ways. If they don't want to play certain players it's their choice. It is not a matter of integrity, but a matter of future and present fiscal responsibility.

I have a problem questioning the competitive motives of a team that as of Wednesday afternoon had a record of 62-45.

Teams don’t have to spend outrageous millions on free agents, but they have no excuse ignoring whatever means are already available to them. In the Giants’ case, I would say that means calling up catcher Buster Posey before they did.

Murray may just have been having a bad day when he wrote this, so that explains why he is grump, but the Giants already had Bengie Molina on the roster and were on the hook for his $4.5 million salary. He's not a great catcher, but he has not been completely terrible in the past. The Giants somehow (sarcasm) managed to survive without Posey and then when he was ready to start everyday they traded Molina for Chris Ray, who has a 2.53 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, and 174 ERA+ with the Giants. It was a good move by the Giants to keep Molina on the roster until they had Posey ready and could trade Molina.

The Giants delayed Posey’s callup by almost two months, and the delay effectively delayed by a year his eligibility for salary arbitration and free agency.

Which I have no problem with a team doing. It's not like the Giants needed Posey and bringing him up would give them one less year of control over him. Besides, Posey will probably sign a long-term contract buying out his arbitration years if he continues at this rate, so the arbitration clock is a moot point if that ends up being the case.

The Giants have played much better with Posey in the lineup, but it certainly isn't just because of him. The other players on the roster, like Pat Burrell, have contributed to the Giants hot streak as well.

That’s part of the manipulation of major league service time in which the owners engage. It’s a game I’ve written about before, most recently last month. Unlike collusion, it’s perfectly legal, and the clubs take full advantage of it.

It absolutely should be legal. A MLB team should not be forced to call-up a player to the majors because a third party thinks that player is "ready." Teams should have full control over their roster, which means they can call-up players when they want to. Does it suck for the player? Yes, it does. Unfortunately, I can't think of a reason or way to force teams to call-up a player who is deemed "ready."

Should the Braves call up Freddie Freeman to play first base because he is tearing up Triple-A and Troy Glaus is struggling? All signs point to Freeman being ready, so should MLB force the Braves to call him up? How in the hell would this be fair? He's ready, but a team shouldn't be forced to make roster moves in this manner.

What about other teams who have prospects ready in the minors? Should they be forced to call-up a player to take up a valuable roster spot.

The players whose service time is manipulated are forced to wait an additional year for salary arbitration and then free agency, and the fans are deprived of players who might help their team win.

The fans are deprived for two months of the season. For a starting pitcher, taking away two months of the season allows that starter to potentially not have to miss starts down the stretch (assuming he didn't pitch too many innings in the minors, which may be a big assumption), when games feel more important to a contending team. A pitcher would have to miss starts so his innings can be controlled. If a starter misses two months of the season and that pitcher had a controlled inning count count in the minors, this worry goes away.

In regard to a position player, I don't see how two months of minor league baseball will hurt his development over the long-term. Keeping a player in the minors to be sure he is ready is the safe move.

“Eligibility has nothing to do with it; that’s a moot point,” Sabean said. “The biggest factor was he hadn’t played much professional baseball. He was learning the catching position. We wanted to make sure he was comfortable at the plate.”

Joe Morgan is wondering why any catcher would have to learn the position. Veteran pitchers call their own games after all. It's such an easy position to learn to play.

Brian Sabean is lying when he says this...or at least not being completely truthful. I think we all know that. He shouldn't lie, he should just say it makes financial sense to keep Posey in the minors. Maybe Posey did need more experience at the professional level, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because as long as a team isn't breaking any rules they should be able to do whatever they want to do with the roster.

Then, talking about Aubrey Huff, Sabean said, “An opening came when Huff was moved to the outfield. That opened first base and gave us a chance to call him up and get him comfortable in the big leagues. We didn’t feel he would be ready at the beginning of the season.”

Maybe this is true, maybe it isn't true. My point is that it doesn't and shouldn't matter. Roster moves are the sole decision of a franchise and not a universal question to be debated among the masses. It's fine to second-guess the decision to keep Posey in the minors from the standpoint of how good of a player he could become, but the move to keep him in the minors doesn't lack integrity.

But let’s look at Posey. Called up May 29, he missed the first 47 games of the season. When he arrived, he hit the ground hitting and hasn’t stopped.

That's not true. Posey hit .259/.289/.341 in the month of June. He had 85 at-bats during that month and had one home run. This is compared to his July, where he hit .417/.466/.699 and seven home runs in 103 at-bats. Posey didn't hit the ground running really.

There’s no guarantee what Posey would have done had the Giants called him up earlier, but there’s no reason to think he could not have hit at a similar level for another 10 or 20 games.

It may have been a similar level, but I don't think Posey would be OPSing 1.165 for April and May if he had been called up. Pitchers have a learning curve to catch up with a talented player, and once pitchers figure out how to pitch to a batter, then the batter has to adjust. So Posey may have hit at the same level he did in July or he may not have.

If you doubt that the Giants’ strategy stems from economic motives, consider this. If the Giants legitimately believed that Posey needed more time in the minors, they could have kept him there for a month and a half and still brought him up earlier than they did.

Yes, they could. At that point, why not wait a few more days and get another year of service out of him? I don't see the problem with this from the standpoint of a franchise. They are playing within the rules set out, not circumventing the rules.

But if they had recalled him only 11 days earlier, May 18 – what could he have learned in those 11 days? – those 11 days would have given him enough time to have a full year of major league service (he was in the majors for 33 days last season).

I think we all know it is a financially motivated move. What I don't know is why Murray Chass says this move lacks integrity.

Stephen Strasburg, the year’s most dynamic rookie, will also need seven years. Unlike Posey, he will also need an extra year to be eligible for salary arbitration. When his four-year contract expires after the 2012 season, he will have two years and 118 days of major league service, falling about 20 to 22 days short of arbitration eligibility. An earlier callup – he was added to the Nationals’ roster June 8 – would have altered that status.

Right, it would have altered his status. Again, we know the real reason why the Nationals kept Strasburg in the minors, but I don't know why this lacks integrity...unless the lie by the GM for why the player is kept down is what concerns Murray. If this is the case, he should know GM's lie all the time about a lot of things, including trade rumors and many other things. This doesn't seem to concern Murray.

“I know the Nationals felt that Strasburg needed to be in the minors,” Selig said in a telephone interview. “They handled him very carefully and in my opinion very intelligently. How do you know if he’s ready if you don’t see him pitch in the minors? I’ve seen a lot of guys ruined who were rushed, moved too fast. Baseball people have to make those decisions.”

This is a dumb quote. What Selig should have said is,

"I am not going to tell an organization how they should go about their business as long as it is within the rules. Forcing teams to call-up players others deem as 'ready' is not any business of MLB. How an organization chooses to allocate personnel and progress players through their system is up to that organization."

As Selig pointed out, neither of us is Branch Rickey, but I doubt that it took a Branch Rickey to know that Strasburg was ready for prime time before the Nationals said he was. What was magic about June 8? Nothing except it was a safe salary arbitration date.

It is. It is also the time the Nationals chose to pitch Strasburg against a succession of weak teams like the Pirates, Indians, and Royals. That was not a bad streak of games to have Strasburg begin his career facing.

“We can talk about Mike Leake,” he said, “but someone made a decision that he was ready.” And a sound decision it was. The Reds were more interested in winning than in economics. They chose not to cheat their fans.

The Reds, who didn't cheat their fans, currently have a worse record than the Giants, who did cheat their fans according to Murray Chass. I know more goes into a team's record than when Mike Leake or Buster Posey were called up, but I don't think the Giants fan base feels cheated right now.

Another reason the Reds could afford to have Leake start the year on the roster is because they had Aroldis Chapman in the minors ready to take over any starts that Leake misses to keep his innings down. The Giants had an expensive catcher on the roster already and didn't feel the need to call up Posey to play first base, so they kept him in the minors.

If Murray Chass is really worried about teams cheating their fans he should pay more attention to bad signings in free agency and how the worst teams in the league (like the Pirates) are run. There are teams in MLB that are really cheating their fans by the product they put on the field and the personnel moves they make. MLB doesn't regulate this, nor should they, so why regulate when players are called up to the majors? Murray really doesn't give a crap about the fans, he just doesn't get baseball economics and so he thinks any move he doesn't completely understand is stupid.

“I don’t know anything about Posey; maybe he wasn’t ready,” Selig said of the catcher who stroked three hits in each of his first two games and 9 hits in his first 19 times at bat. “I have to rely on their player development people. They did have Molina,” he added, referring to Bengie Molina, whom the Giants traded less than two weeks after they recalled Posey.

I'm pretty sure it is not against MLB rules to keep a player in the minors, so I am not sure why Murray is grilling Bud Selig about the Giants decision to keep Posey in the minors.

Posey played in September of 2009 and he had 2 hits in 17 at-bats, so he got three hits in the first two games this year, not for his career.

And it also wasn’t economic with the Marlins and Mike Stanton (June 9), the Pirates and Jose Tabata (June 9), the Orioles and Jake Arrieta (June 10), the Indians and Carlos Santana (June 11), the Pirates and Pedro Alvarez (June 16), the Astros and Juan Castro (June 22), the Giants and Madison Bumgarner (June 26).

I can't blame teams for making sure they get to keep their young players longer...especially teams like the Pirates, Marlins, Orioles and Indians.

Teams have a right to try to save money but not at the expense of their players and their fans.

The Giants did start the year off slow but there's no guarantee if Posey was on the team in April and May he would have been able to turn this around by himself. The Giants have also benefited from other players performing well in June and July. I fail to see how the Giants fans have been hurt by Posey being under team control for one more year than if he had started the year with the team.

Teams have a right to save money however they see fit.

Baseball officials might not see it as a matter of integrity, but their credibility doesn’t represent the ideal.

Shut up. It's not an integrity issue. It's an economic and team competitive performance issue.

This was the same gang that negotiated a new collective bargaining agreement in August 1985, then only months later violated its terms on free agency.

25 years ago baseball officials colluded against free agents, so we can't trust them today. This is not the same gang that colluded against free agents in the 1980's. There are new baseball officials, GMs, and owners from 25 years ago.

There is a good chance Murray Chass thinks it is 1989.

I suppose it’s difficult for people to care about or recognize how a lack of integrity affects players and fans when they lack integrity themselves.

I would love to know which fans feel cheated they get to keep players like Stephen Strasburg, Mike Stanton, Buster Posey, and Jose Tabata for one additional year. Any long-term thinking fan would be perfectly willing to give up two months of this year for an additional year of control over these players. The Marlins, Pirates, and Nationals aren't going anywhere this year no matter when they called these players up and the Giants have a 62-45 record despite cheating their fans. So the fans shouldn't feel cheated by looking at the long-term ramifications of keeping these players around.

I still don't see the lack of integrity argument being made by Murray Chass. Are teams being financially thrifty? Yes. Are teams holding back players that could be ready for the majors? Possibly. Is holding back players better for the long-term financial success of the team? Probably.

What Chass misses throughout this argument is that if a player like Posey is a good player, he will get a long-term contract or a contract buying out his arbitration years before he would be eligible for free agency. So whether Posey would become a free agent after his sixth or seventh year in the majors wouldn't even come into play most likely.