Can Theo Epstein be any more blatant, any more predictable? Has anyone ever exposed himself more as a liar than Epstein has?
Epstein is the president of baseball operations for the Chicago Cubs. In that position, he controlled the future of the team’s No. 1 prospect, Kris Bryant. By controlling Bryant’s future, he also, to an extent, controlled the future of the Cubs, whose masochistic fans apparently suffer from too many years of brainwashing to know it would have been appropriate for them to storm the Wrigley Field gates in the past two weeks and demand that Epstein call up Bryant immediately and stop this silly game of manipulating Bryant’s major league service time.
That’s what this whole thing is about, no matter what Epstein and his colleagues say – service time. The Epsteins of the baseball world won’t admit it; they’d rather lie.
On one hand, they will tell you what they do is legal, that they have the right to determine when a player should be summoned to the majors; on the other, they won’t admit why they’re doing it because they think they can fool their fans.
They also, sad for me to say, fool the writers. Until recently, when the practice became too obvious to ignore, some writers were gullible enough to buy the general managers’ line about how so-and-so needed more work defensively before he would be major-league ready.
Several years ago, after I included Buster Posey in my list of delayed call-ups, I actually received an e-mail from a Giants’ beat writer telling me I was wrong and parroting the Giants’ reason for not calling up Posey sooner.
In case you have missed my previous explanations of the game clubs play with the call-up system, here’s how it works.
A season, from first day to last, is 183 days. However, a player gets credit for a full season, if he has 172 days in the majors. He needs six seasons, achieved in full seasons or partial seasons, to become eligible for free agency.
If a club keeps a player in the minors for 12 days at any time during the season, the first 12 days or 12 days at any other time, the most days he can have in a year is 171, leaving him one day short of a full season. He would then have to serve seven seasons in the majors before becoming eligible for free agency.
That’s what the Cubs have done with Bryant, the organization’s highly-touted third baseman. The Cubs left him in the minors for the start of the season, with Epstein saying he needed more work before he could be considered ready for Wrigley. By this time, I hope no one believed him. I didn’t, and there was no reason for anyone to believe that malarkey.
But then Epstein compounded his fabrication, taking his faux explanation to an even more absurd level. The 12 missing days the Cubs needed to deprive Bryant of a year of service meant they could add him to their roster last Friday. That’s exactly what they did, but Epstein explained that day that it was an injury to Mike Olt that prompted him to call up Bryant that day.
Olt suffered a fractured wrist when he was hit by a pitch in the fourth game of the season, and his replacements at third base (Jonathan Herrera and Arismendy Alcantara) had managed 2 hits in 10 at-bats without driving in a run. Without the injury to Olt, would you have brought up Bryant today, Epstein was asked before Bryant’s first game?
Epstein replied:
“No, no, we wouldn’t have done it today. You know, you script things out for a player’s development, try to figure out, you know, exactly what the last steps are in his development, when the exact right time is to debut.
“We like to do it on the road, you know, for prominent players who are going to get a lot of attention, who have enough to deal with, so we would have done it a little bit later. But you can’t script everything out in baseball. You know, we had a couple of third basemen entering the season with La Stella and Olt sharing the job, and Tommy, unfortunately, ended up suffering the pulled muscle in his side, and Olt, it turns out, has a hairline fracture in his wrist, which we got diagnosed by a specialist yesterday.
“That opened up the spot for Kris, and with the obvious need in the big leagues for a third baseman, him performing well and really close, we felt it was definitely the right move to make. We’re excited for Kris and his family and for the organization. It’s a great day. We hope it’s the start of something special.”
Not only is Epstein asking everyone to believe that Olt’s injury triggered Bryant’s recall on the exact day the Cubs had been expected to make the move based on service time but also that they would have kept Bryant in the minors even longer so he could join them on the road.
Cubs’ fans had heard about the service time issue throughout spring training so they might already have accepted it. But wait even longer until the Cubs were on the road? Under those circumstances, Epstein might have invited physical mayhem.
As it turns out, though, the schedule had the Cubs on the road in Pittsburgh for the series after the one in which Bryant made his initial major league appearance. Of course, Epstein didn’t say that series would have been the one. Maybe it would have been the one after that in Cincinnati.
I will continue to be skeptical, however, about what Epstein said about Bryant’s call-up being linked to the Olt injury and not service time. In reply to another question, Epstein said the Cubs were “very comfortable with his defensive abilities.” So what was he working on when he was left in the minors? Was he having trouble getting his socks right?
This was another Epstein comment at the news conference:
“I’m actually glad that we were able to call him up today instead of yesterday, because he had kind of a rough day at the plate a couple of days ago, didn’t look like himself, and then watched his at-bats yesterday and they were really good.”
Did he mean that if Bryant hadn’t had a rough day the Cubs would have promoted him in time for him to gain a year of service? If that strikes you as contradictory or disingenuous, take your pick and you’d be right either way.
Then there was Epstein’s answer to another question. “How quickly do you think he’ll get past the service time issue?” the executive was asked.
“There is no service time issue,” Epstein replied.
There was more to Epstein’s response but not specifically on the issue. What there wasn’t was a follow-up question from even one reporter in the room full of reporters among the supposedly hard-edged Chicago news corps. They accepted Epstein’s answer and went on listening meekly to the rest of it.
“He’s here, ready to play baseball and a major league team had a need,” Epstein said. “He’s a really good player, he’s ready to go. Just talked to him, big smile on his face, ready to be a Cub for a long time.”
But when he denied there was a service time issue, why didn’t a reporter worth the label say, “Excuse me, Theo, you’ve cheated him out of a year of service time. Do you think he’s going to forget that? Do you think his agent” – the combative Scott Boras – will let him forget that?”
The question, or one like it, went unasked and therefore unanswered.
In many, if not most, similar instances, service time would be irrelevant. The way signing practices have developed in recent years, if a player with Bryant’s credentials lives up to those credentials, his team most likely signs him to a lucrative, long-term contract before he can think about free agency.
Boras, however, prefers that his clients become free agents because he feels they fare better financially.
Epstein ignored Boras during spring training when the agent was vocal about the Cubs’ plan to have Bryant start the season in the minors. Bryant gave Boras even more reason to criticize Epstein when he posted a .425 exhibition batting average and led everyone in Arizona and Florida with 9 home runs.
Spring statistics usually don’t mean much, but with Bryant, it gave the Cubs the final reason to start the season with him at third base and gave the fans legitimate reason to expect to see him in the opening-day lineup.
They were right and Epstein wrong with all of his phony excuses. In addition, for all of his talk about wanting to defuse the spotlight on Bryant, he only intensified it with all of his nonsense.
When he finally got a chance to play in a major league game, Bryant struck out in his first three times at bat and was 0-for-4. He improved quickly. In his second game he didn’t strike out in six plate appearances but walked three times and singled twice, driving in a run in the Cubs’ 11-inning 7-6 win over San Diego.
REPLAY REVIEWERS REVIEW WRONG PLAY
Dee Gordon had 5 hits for the Miami Marlins against the New York Mets Saturday night, and two of his four singles resulted in challenges, both of which the Marlins won. They should have lost the first, but the replay reviewers, based on television replays, seem to have looked at the wrong part of the play.
Gordon was initially called out on his bunt, but the replay reviewers ruled that he beat the throw to first. However, a careful viewing of the television replays seemed to show that Gordon, upon approaching first base, ran outside the lane in which runners are required to run.
The runners’ lane, three feet wide, is on the foul side of the first base line and begins halfway to first. If a player runs on the fair side of the line, he can be called out for interference.
In the Gordon incident, the throw to first appeared to deflect off his butt but was nevertheless caught. The reason the ball hit him was he had at least one foot outside the running lane in fair territory. The Mets apparently did not question that aspect of Gordon’s dash to first, and the replay reviewers did not focus on it.
Gordon was called safe but a minute later was called out trying to steal second as Christian Yelich struck out.
YANKS SCORN THEIR BEST HITTER
The New York Yankees have only themselves to blame for their fans’ extremely positive and boisterous reaction to Alex Rodriguez, the player club executives detest.
General manager Brian Cashman has put together such a poor and boring team that Rodriguez’ unexpected strong start has made him the fan favorite. The Yankees’ hierarchy does not share the fans’ enthusiasm.
With four home runs already, Rodriguez is only two home runs from attaining the first level of his five-level $30 million bonus linked to the Yankees’ marketing of his career home run total.
Claiming that Rodriguez’ admitted use of steroids, his lying about his use and his lawsuits against the Yankees and Major League Baseball have destroyed their ability to market A-Rod’s feats successfully, the Yankees do not plan to give Rodriguez any of the bonuses. I was told as late as Saturday evening they have not changed their plan.
If Rodriguez reaches any of the home run levels and wants to collect his bonuses, the Yankees continue to hold to their position that he will have to file a grievance and convince arbitrator Frederic Horowitz to order the Yankees to pay up.
The Yankees are so confident in their position that they believe Rodriguez wouldn’t even file a grievance because he would have to testify at a hearing. Rodriguez isn’t talking about the matter. For now, his bat is talking loud enough. Entering Sunday’s game, Rodriguez led the Yankees in hitting (.314), on-base percentage (.429) and slugging percentage (.714).