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Dr. D wonders how much trouble he'd get in for adopting a Euro soccer style headline trend. You know, "TOM BRADY TO SEAHAWKS?" and article text starts with "There may not be much to suggest this, but here's why I feel it could be a good idea." Traffic that is disgusted with you is still traffic...
Actually our little joke might be forgiven by some, since James (speaking here as Red Sox brass) addresses the issue of: does an org owe it to its players to deploy them as they wish to be deployed?
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Bill: Nowhere did you actually take Strasburg's own desires into the equation [with Bill's earlier response that the Nats didn't owe it to Strasburg to ask him what he thought - jjc]. What if Stras himself would have preferred to risk it all for a chance at glory in 2012? Your answer suggests either that he's a property of the Nats and they have to protect their investment (which in all candor is the way non-fans see the relationship) or that Stras himself doesn't know what's good for him.
Asked by: tangotiger
Answered: 10/12/2012
My answer absolutely did not suggest this. THE QUESTION implied that this was an absolute truth, that Strasburg was the property of the Nats and that what should be done with him was whatever was in the Nats' interest. My answer was that this is untrue, that the player's interest IS the Nats' interest.
It is a debatable proposition that a team can do what the player wants to do. It is the normal rule of sports that teams are unable to use players based on how those players want to be used. A major league team has 15 players who would like to be the closer next year, because that is what they perceive as being in their own best interest. The team HAS to tell 14 of them "No". A football team has a lot of people who would like to be the starting quarterback. It is simply not possible to make these decisions, as a rule, based on what the player wants to do.
SOMETIMES we can do what the player wants to do. A year ago, Daniel Bard wanted to move to the starting rotation. The Red Sox took his desires into consideration. Didn't work out. We have other players who would like to start. We take that into consideration, but we absolutely cannot make decisions based on what the players want to do. The players understand this. It's implied in the social contract between a player and his team.
On a more troubling level and a more present level (more relevant to the debate), players WILL risk their health in order to excel. Players who abused steroids in order to earn million-dollar paychecks (more notably in the NFL than in baseball) were risking their health for a short term payoff. Was it the right thing to do, to allow them to do that?
The New Orleans "bounty scandal" is relevant to this discussion. The concussion lawsuit in the NFL is relevant. In the 1970s, just after the zenith of Evil Knievel, there was some jackass who was offering a thousand-dollar prize or something for kids who could jump an automobile over some series of obstacles. In the space of a few weeks two or three kids were killed trying to do this, but the promoter refused to shut down the "entertainment". The county sheriff moved in and padlocked the place, saying, in essence, "I don't know what the law is, but I am not allowing this to go on. We'll figure out the law later."
If we allow others to make bad, self-destructive decisions on our behalf, on our property, that becomes our responsibility. It is NOT an option to turn off our own discretion there, and say that whatever the young man wants to do works for us. It doesn't. The social contract that binds the players together requires each of them to make the maximum possible effort to help the team succeed. It becomes, then, the responsibility of the TEAM to draw a line, and say that "the maximum possible effort to help the team succeed" does NOT mean playing with a concussion, does not mean pitching with a sore arm, does not mean playing through pain at the risk of an injury.
Twenty years ago, I suggested to Marvin Miller that perhaps the players should be in charge of the Disabled List; in other words, the player should be responsible for placing HIMSELF on the Disabled List when HE thought it was appropriate. This was after Marvin had left the Union; we were just at lunch or something, talking. Marvin's immediate response was "No, that won't work. The players are always going to want to play. There's too much pressure to play for that to work."
I'm not CERTAIN he was right. I still think it MIGHT work better to put the players in charge of the Disabled List.
But I'm not certain that he was wrong, either. I think it's a dicey proposition, to start messing with the social contract that binds the players and team into one unit. I think we need to be really careful about advocating that.
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This answer actually did turn around some of my thinking on the issue. My own thinking had been similar to Tom's: players and owners are partners, and as the stakes get higher and higher, really the business relationship becomes a type of collaboration. Along the lines of Spec and Gordon writing a book, and me advertising it, or somesuch.
But now it occurs to me that in Fortune 500, employees serve at the sole discretion of the company, and this includes upper management. The company offers employment, and you are free to accept or decline. The company sets the terms and makes the offer. This casts Ichiro's privileges -- I play unless I take myself out of the lineup, I hit first in the order, etc -- in a new light.
Now, if a superstar negotiates a contract with a given understanding -- "Hey, Prince is looking for a place where he'll play first base" -- well, that's the name of the game. But Carter Capps doesn't have a 38-inch inseam to stand on, as it pertains to the way he'll be used.
James makes a telling point: 15 pitchers want to close next year. The ballclub cannot -- can NOT -- say "yes" to players' wishes as a routine business policy. This had never really dawned on me before. When a ballclub grants a player's request it is operating outside NECESSARY business policy.
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Also the point about the DL is so decisive as to put "PAID" to the discussion, right there by itself. The soldier might want to charge up the hill; that's him being a soldier. There has to be a colonel to his rear, on higher ground, yanking on the leash when that yank is the right thing to do.
For Strasburg, that colonel brigade includes not only the Nationals, but also Scott Boras. The fact that Strasburg indicated that he wanted to pitch? Originally I figured Stras was being disingenuous, since his own agent was fighting to keep him off the field. But now you wonder whether he wasn't just a soldier caught up in the smell of the napalm in the morning.
Still doesn't mean that IP-per-calendar-year is a good metric for this purpose. Personally, I don't think that it is, and I wonder why Scott Boras would buy in to such a superficial approach. Usually Boras is ahead of the curve on stats analysis.
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Chris Sale went 17-8, 3.05 for the White Sox this year, racking up 4.9 WAR out of a clear blue sky. His average fastball dropped from 95-96 down to 92 in the rotation, and his HR/Fly rate has always been pretty high. But his sidearm delivery, his natural velocity, his tight-spin slider and his +1.85 runs changeup carried him through.
Don't you wish that somebody in the Mariners' org would do a Risk-Reward analysis on Capps' conversion to the rotation? What is the downside? And how does it compare to the upside?
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