Balta1701

If AJ Preller knew about this, the domestic violence policy forbids him from sharing that information with anyone else in baseball other than the commissioner's office in order to initiate the investigation. He would know not to sign Clevinger, that is an advantage he would have, but he would have violated that rule if he shared any knowledge he had. This one is not on Preller, he couldn't have said anything if he wanted based on the confidentiality rule text.

San Diego was not allowed to share any knowledge of this with any other team or with the press, that's quite explicit in the policy.

According to the report this was known to MLB last summer. When the Padres knew - all we know officially is they knew before today. If MLB was informed directly, they wouldn't legally have been able to inform the Padres or any other team, so the Padres saying they were aware of this implies that the Padres were likely informed directly by the victim. If the Padres were the team informed, they would have known from the initial report and they would have had to get the league involved. That is the only scenario where the Padres being aware of the investigation wouldn't break the rule as written.

The only guy for the White Sox I could legitimately see having a shot at that would be Grandal, if he had a 2021-like year again. Spent time on the IL and was terrible otherwise.

The statement from the Padres says that they were aware of the investigation. It is unclear when they found out, it is possible that the team was informed by the victim at the same time that the victim informed MLB, or that the victim informed the team first and the team shared it with MLB.

I think it's entirely possible you can judge the White Sox for that and for not doing enough of a background check given that this seems to be a risky person, but I think it is important to note that MLB was specifically blocked from sharing their information with the White Sox until the league was ready to announce discipline.

Worth noting, found the rules. MLB is required under a confidentiality clause to not inform the teams until they are actually ready to take actions. They can inform the players club when they are: 1 Announcing discipline or filing of a grievance 2. Establishing a treatment plan 3. Required to notify by a court order MLB itself, if I'm reading this right, could not inform the White Sox of an open investigation unless they were ready to announce discipline. It could be possible for the White Sox to have found out something else if they ran a sufficient background check, but MLB couldn't have commented to them. Section VI: http://content.mlb.com/documents/2/9/2/296982292/Major_League_Player_Joint_DV_SA_CA_Policy_English_2018.pdf

Ah I got it. If they release him today, they have bought out his entire contract. I believe these would be treated as independent actions, you would not get money back.

At this point, domestic violence is a collectively bargained issue. Suspensions and fines cannot be dealt with individually outside of the domestic violence policy, it's strictly forbidden. The team can withhold salary if he's suspended or away pending an investigation. They cannot cancel his contract for domestic violence. http://content.mlb.com/documents/2/9/2/296982292/Major_League_Player_Joint_DV_SA_CA_Policy_English_2018.pdf

What are you asking here? It’s a guaranteed contract and to my knowledge the only thing that is relevant is the CBA agreed upon suspension rules. Getting rid of him today costs $12 million.

Oh. Crap. There are some unverified photos on Twitter now that I won’t link to but you will find if you try searching for more details, be warned.

Yup, and that’s the last thing that ever happened to Esteban Loaiza. Nothing happened after he retired.

It also remains plausible to likely that the $3 million for Mondesi or $4.5 million for Taylor we just saw are more money than the White Sox can currently afford.

They had the second highest swing rate in baseball last year next to Detroit and the second highest swing rate on pitches out of the strike zone, again to Detroit. Regardless of everything else here, “free swingers” is an apt description.

Overall, they could have been smarter the entire time. If I can see points where they are making a mess, they should be able to see it too. 1. 2019 on they started spending like drunken sailors, more than $50 million added on guys like Alonso, Herrera, Colome. This was just plain stupid, they wasted money and players they would need. 2. failure to think long term in those years - failing to invest in scouting and preparation for when it was needed, infamously failing to make use of the international market to the point that they used money from it to bribe the Rangers to take on Nate Jones’s deal. 3. Failing to recognize their own limits the last several years. Drafting a guy and shoving him into the bullpen because we gotta compete right now. Wasting a year of control on Kopech in the bullpen. Trading away a guy for Lynn. Extending Lynn. Signing Grandal. This is the “death by a thousand cuts” item. Even if things make sense in a vacuum, if you don’t do the math in advance, maybe committing 10% of your payroll to Lynn, 10% of your payroll to Grandal, 8% to a closer is a riskier strategy than we acknowledged when each one was considered in a vacuum. The only thought was always “what is best this year”, never how to maintain a roster long term. 4. Spending fully up to their limit before 2022 and committing money for multiple years. Both you and I were genuinely surprised that they went to the payroll we saw, we expected lower numbers because there was obvious risk of overcommitting. They assumed 2022 would be such a success due to their genius that they wouldn’t have to worry about any downside risk on anything they did. 5. Adding salary to their roster at the 2022 trade deadline rather than clearing it. Their team was uncompetitive but they refused to admit it. I could recognize the possibility of a salary cut as of July last year and how useful it would have been to clear payroll, but they did not. Again, this was a setting where they sacrificed the future for the present, they said that they were in such a great spot that they could afford to hurt 2023 to continue on the path for 2022. 6. Acting like a capped out NFL team this offseason. If they had only $17 million to spend, the answer wasn’t to spend $27 million but defer 1/3 of the cost to later years. They continually barreled ahead on the same path and then were stunned when it turned out the highway ended. They could have diverted over and over again, but every time they made the choice to sacrifice future years for right then and to keep doing things their way. Now the bill is due.

I still dispute that he treats this like a business. As a business it does a terrible job! The so called competitive white Sox have a stadium 1/3 empty in what is supposed to be a competitive year. They don’t invest in things that could have very large returns because of their owners biases - like the international signing market or in advance scouting or in Bryce Harper. They’re a business that hates their customers and believes they’re right and everyone else is wrong. They’d rather lose money than do things someone else’s way. Id have fewer complaints if they actually ran like a business. At least that behavior I can understand. It isn’t always successful, sometimes things I don’t like will happen, but at least I would understand chasing a maximum overall profit.

$4.5 million for Taylor this year.

What’s the difference to him?

I think they will try to rush him back by May. I think the longer you give him the better it is. There are many examples of people like Severino and Syndergaard who have the surgery in spring training of a year and then barely pitch the entire next year - they threw 6 and 2 big league innings a full year after their surgery, respectively. We saw this with Rodon, he had his in May 2019, tried to come back in September 2020 and he was simply useless in a couple of relief innings. This is absolutely the norm for this surgery right now, guys coming back and trying to throw max effort after 14 or 15 months see poor results and a lot of pain. I think simply healing all the way is a 12 to 14 month process maybe longer for some guys. Once that is finished, you need to build your whole body back up into pitching strength, which often takes months or even a full offseason. I think we saw Verlander have success because he had the surgery, had 12-13 months to heal, and then did a full and complete offseason training routine. I think Rodon came back strong in 2021 because he completed a full offseason training routine and had his body fully together and in shape. Just because your elbow is now fine doesn't mean you have strengthened your legs and you have your full mechanics back. I think in reality you shouldn’t count on Crochet for anything this year, you should assume it’s basically a lost season for him. He may well contribute more than that, but pushing him to do so isn’t likely to produce world beating results and may backfire. If you are counting on him to save the bullpen, look at the guys who threw 6 innings before winding up on the IL again and let me know what your plan is if that happens to Crochet. So personally, I’d bury him in Birmingham and bring him back super slowly once he was ready to see live hitting, and I’d just keep him there, I’d burn an option and not try to count on him for the big league bullpen at all. I would take any innings he could give and try to turn them towards long term development, rather than desperately trying to save the big league pen. This is way more consistent with how long the recoveries have been from TJS over the past 5 years. If there was a spot to call him up in September and his body was in good shape, fine, September callup when the rosters expand. I don’t expect the White Sox to do anything other than try to desperately pull every inning out of him that they can for this years’ big league pen.

I have found 0 guys recently who had TJS and reached an active roster in less than 14 months. That means early May would be extremely aggressive with his return.

Worth noting that pre injury he spent 2021 throwing a 96.8 mph average fastball, so he wasn’t blowing people away throwing 100. If we want him to develop a third pitch, we have to put him on a path where he could. When the White Sox put him back in the bullpen that will make the decision for him, and that doesn’t mean he couldn’t - it means the White Sox were too desperate for arms.

If I were in charge of this team, I would absolutely be trying to turn him into a starter, because it’s worth the effort. I looked back at “guys who had TJS, what did they do if they came back 14 or 15 months later” and the results were terrible. A majority of guys were effectively useless, the last time someone had TJS in spring training and came back for a decent second half was Rafael Montero in 2019. Despite a couple dozen guys having TJS early in seasons since then, it’s very rare for guys to be even remotely useful the next year. If guys are useful, it’s once they heal fully after 14 or 15 months then take a full offseason to get into shape, so 20 months or more after the surgery. Many guys come back sooner than that and then struggle with other injuries during that first year, probably because they haven’t had a chance to get their whole body into pitching shape and get the feel back for everything. Given that, if I were in charge, i would take my time with him. When he is ready to come back I would send him to the minors, and burn an option after his rehab stint ends. Maybe even BHam rather than Charlotte. I’d get him on a starter schedule and maybe start with 2-3 innings a game, maybe get to 5 innings on starts by September. If he’s healthy enough, get to 50 or 60 innings total, and use the fact that it’s the minors to reduce the stress on his body. Then, he’s set up to maybe have a shot at throwing 110 or 120 next year - and I would absolutely think about starting him in Charlotte and burning another minor league option to do it. What do I expect the White Sox to do? Especially without Hendriks, they will rush him back to the bullpen as fast as possible and hope for the best. That will leave him in the bullpen permanently because he won’t even start building up innings this year, especially if some other injury or soreness crops up, which is very typical for guys less than 2 years from TJS. I fully expect people to say “how can we have this many injuries no one could have foreseen this we are snakebit again” when he sprains an ankle or something.

I don’t know this guy specifically but it’s interesting to me to see guys with decent local followings pick up that this is a legitimate possibility:

Jermaine Dye was an awful terrible no good defensive RF once he had all the leg injuries.