The Posey time of the baseball year is upon us. It’s almost time for teams to call up their good prospects whom they have left in the minor leagues to deprive them of the major league service time they will need to be eligible for salary arbitration and free agency.
I have named it Posey time because Buster Posey was the most significant player affected by the service manipulation but was brought to the majors in time to lead the San Francisco Giants to the World Series championship.
If the commissioner’s office were going to file a grievance against the Players Association, you’d think 27 months would be enough time to get it together and submit it. If there were “a growing rift between the commissioner’s office and the union,” you wouldn’t think the two sides would be turning out one unforced agreement after another.
Contrary to the growing hostility The New York Times reported in February 2009, the commissioner’s office and the union have been engaged in a veritable love fest.
R. A. Dickey was one last year. Bruce Chen was also one last year and the year before that and several years before that. A perennial reclamation project, you might call him.
That’s my name for pitchers who have eliminated themselves from teams’ starting rotations through repeated injuries or chronic ineffectiveness and who become part of a pool from which teams seeking starters cast a rod and hope they catch a big fish.
Reclamation projects do not qualify by any statistical criteria. You just know them when you see them.
