How many games will K-Rod finish next season?

[Guest attgig]

since krod became a permanent closer, he's averaged finishing 59 games including only finishing 46 games last year. It would take a trade or an injury for him not to get to 55.

My vote was that he gets traded to yankees but now that they signed soriano.... he'll get traded to a contender that has an established closer. we'll send 3.5 million dollars along with him in order to get a middle of the road prospect.

games finished for the mets... 33 - on pace for 56 games.

once he gets traded.... 5 games finished.

[batmagadanleadoff]

How will the Mets handle Francisco Rodriguez this season?

Excerpt:

While last season was the first time since 2005 that Rodriguez didn�t finish 55 games, he almost certainly would have gotten there if it wasn�t for the incident with his father-in-law and subsequent season-ending thumb surgery. With a 2.20 ERA and his best strikeout rate since 2007, K-Rod was pitching quite well at the time. He was at 46 games finished when he played his last game on August 14. *** I�m not sure if Rodriguez�s contract situation will affect the way the Mets use him this season, but Sandy Alderson doesn�t seem like the type of general manager who would want a $17.5 million closer on his payroll in the first place. This could open the door for the Mets to possibly use him in unconventional ways, perhaps as a �relief ace,� as opposed to your atypical closer, but they will have to be careful. With the Mets on shaky financial ground, you can bet that the MLBPA will be on the lookout for any funny business.

OE: How do you center text here? I tried framing the desired text in "

[Ceetar]

Given that the usage of a player is not in the contract, I have yet to hear anything about how the players association would have a leg to stand on, were the Mets to decide to use him abnormally.

They can bitch and moan, sure, but they don't have any legal ground.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Make him a starter.

[Frayed Knot]

Ceetar wrote: Given that the usage of a player is not in the contract, I have yet to hear anything about how the players association would have a leg to stand on, were the Mets to decide to use him abnormally. They can bitch and moan, sure, but they don't have any legal ground.

Given the way he's been used for both his entire career and to-date in his time with the NYM, to suddenly use him in a manner which looks solely designed so as to avoid a contract clause reached in good faith I'd say they would have a leg on which to stand.
I'd also say that given the track record of the owners vs players in legal matters that they'd have more than a good chance at winning that argument.

[Ceetar]

Frayed Knot wrote: Ceetar wrote: Given that the usage of a player is not in the contract, I have yet to hear anything about how the players association would have a leg to stand on, were the Mets to decide to use him abnormally. They can bitch and moan, sure, but they don't have any legal ground. Given the way he's been used for both his entire career and to-date in his time with the NYM, to suddenly use him in a manner which looks solely designed so as to avoid a contract clause reached in good faith I'd say they would have a leg on which to stand. I'd also say that given the track record of the owners vs players in legal matters that they'd have more than a good chance at winning that argument.

Any precedent? Does Beltran have a leg to stand on if they move him to Right? Perez if/when they made him a reliever? Posada because they made him a DH?

They won't win that argument. The Mets simply say "We used our players in a way that gave us the best chance to win" they can site rest days, or work for other pitchers, or keeping him fresh for a 'big' series. But contracts do not stipulate role. (I'd like if 'games finished/started' weren't part of the equation either. ) The language does not stipulate (as far as I know anyway, but I'm pretty sure this is the case) "Francisco will be used as the primary game finisher, being the first choice of the Mets in at least 90% of the opportunities"

[Frayed Knot]

Moving Beltran to RF, or Ollie to the pen, or most other moves aren't ones designed specifically and solely to get out from triggering a contract clause the way this one clearly would be.
And I'd hate to be on the side trotting out the argument in front of an arbitration judge that, even though for three-plus seasons they believed the best way to use Frankie was as a closer, this move is NOW being done because they suddenly decided it's in the best interest of the team on the field and the fact that it's occurring as a contract-vesting clause is drawing near is merely a coincidence.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Frayed Knot wrote: Ceetar wrote: Given that the usage of a player is not in the contract, I have yet to hear anything about how the players association would have a leg to stand on, were the Mets to decide to use him abnormally. They can bitch and moan, sure, but they don't have any legal ground. Given the way he's been used for both his entire career and to-date in his time with the NYM, to suddenly use him in a manner which looks solely designed so as to avoid a contract clause reached in good faith I'd say they would have a leg on which to stand.

They aren't the same "they." New manager. New front office. No applicable precedent. No?

[Frayed Knot]

I think it will be very difficult for anyone to think that a sudden shift after nearly a decade of All-Star caliber performance in essentially the only role he's ever filled and clearly the one he was signed for wasn't done for any reason other than to intentionally make him fall short of his contract trigger. When confronted by such a move the remedy at the union's disposal is an arbitration process that exists for the purpose of deciding whether such moves violate the spirit of the contract even if not the actual wording.
Absent injury or extended ineffectiveness, if the club suddenly "decides" as he nears the threshold that KRod is no longer the closer, I can't see them winning that argument.

[ashie62]

30 and all by July 31, 2011

[Guest Edgy DC]

Frayed Knot wrote: I think it will be very difficult for anyone to think that a sudden shift after nearly a decade of All-Star caliber performance in essentially the only role he's ever filled and clearly the one he was signed for wasn't done for any reason other than to intentionally make him fall short of his contract trigger. When confronted by such a move the remedy at the union's disposal is an arbitration process that exists for the purpose of deciding whether such moves violate the spirit of the contract even if not the actual wording. Absent injury or extended ineffectiveness, if the club suddenly "decides" as he nears the threshold that KRod is no longer the closer, I can't see them winning that argument.

While I understand that, nobody's responded to the notion that this is almost exactly what they did with Alex Cora --- releasing him not because they had a better player, but clearly to dodge the vest.

[Ceetar]

Edgy DC wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: I think it will be very difficult for anyone to think that a sudden shift after nearly a decade of All-Star caliber performance in essentially the only role he's ever filled and clearly the one he was signed for wasn't done for any reason other than to intentionally make him fall short of his contract trigger. When confronted by such a move the remedy at the union's disposal is an arbitration process that exists for the purpose of deciding whether such moves violate the spirit of the contract even if not the actual wording. Absent injury or extended ineffectiveness, if the club suddenly "decides" as he nears the threshold that KRod is no longer the closer, I can't see them winning that argument. While I understand that, nobody's responded to the notion that this is almost exactly what they did with Alex Cora --- releasing him not because they had a better player, but clearly to dodge the vest.

Also, keeping him out of games (if it's via innings reduction) could affect his type A status and cost the Mets a first round pick.

My hope is the option vests in early August so that if the Mets do fall out of it for real, there's no need to talk about it.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy DC wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: I think it will be very difficult for anyone to think that a sudden shift after nearly a decade of All-Star caliber performance in essentially the only role he's ever filled and clearly the one he was signed for wasn't done for any reason other than to intentionally make him fall short of his contract trigger. When confronted by such a move the remedy at the union's disposal is an arbitration process that exists for the purpose of deciding whether such moves violate the spirit of the contract even if not the actual wording. Absent injury or extended ineffectiveness, if the club suddenly "decides" as he nears the threshold that KRod is no longer the closer, I can't see them winning that argument. While I understand that, nobody's responded to the notion that this is almost exactly what they did with Alex Cora --- releasing him not because they had a better player, but clearly to dodge the vest.

Cora never filed a grievance and so his release by the Mets right before his option would've vested was never challenged. But I think that a team should be allowed to make moves that are motivated primarily --even solely-- to manage payroll. Isn't managing payroll a legitimate team function? Couldn't a team argue credibly that managing payroll wisely correlates to fielding a winning team?

I'm sure we had this K-Rod discussion in another thread. I think that FK's position is putting this issue on a dangerous and slippery slope, and that an arbitrator should never question anything that the team can colorably justify as tactics and strategy. Otherwise .... what next? Will a player win a grievance because he was 10 Plate Appearances short of earning a large performance bonus on the theory that he was always a #3 or clean-up hitter but that his new team batted him fifth all season? Would a player even need a bonus clause in his contract to file a grievance based on how the team used him?

How would the hypothetical K-Rod grievance play out in FK's courtroom? The arbitrator might ask the Mets why, for example, Parnell and not K-Rod pitched the 9th inning on such and such a date. And the Mets might respond that Parnell had better stuff on that date. Then what? Do you really want the arbitrator to be second-guessing that decision? Will teams be burdened with the responsibility to maintain contemporaneous notes of the playing conditions in anticipation of these types of future litigations? Should a player have any right to determine how the team uses him?

[Frayed Knot]

Cora was an aging player and the 25th man (or close to it) on the roster; guys like that get released all the time. And while he certainly could have taken his case to a grievance I suspect he was quite possibly advised that the odds on that one were long.

What does NOT happen all the time is when a pitcher in his prime (29) and pitching well (assuming, for the purposes of this argument, that he is) who's been a closer for virtually all of his ten years in the majors suddenly gets demoted from full-time closing to middle-inning mop-up or set-up for no obvious reason other than that he's coming up on the verge of a contract trigger. Comparing this scenario to one where an arbitrator "should never question" team decisions, or one where he reaches conclusions by micro-analyzing individual managerial decisions, or one where a player might retroactively claim that a different spot in the lineup may have allowed him to reach his incentive, is a jump of Beamon-esque proportions.

And keep in mind here that I'm not claiming that I want this option to kick in, I just don't think that the simplistic remedy that's being tossed about here: well if he gets too close then the team should just stop letting him finish games, is as fool-proof as some are making it out to be. I believe that if the Mets try that the player would take a complaint to the grievance process and that he'd win.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Vest or no, it actually behooves teams-- if not players and agents-- to use their best guys in high-leverage spots, rather than managing "to the save." Especially considering the fact that he's by far their best reliever... doesn't it make more sense to use him where he's more impactful?

And that's a defense right there-- using him in high-leverage spots in the eighth AND bases-loaded situations in the seventh AND in closing tight games makes more actual baseball sense. It's defensible strategically, and there are mounds of numerical evidence to support it (including the fact that his second-most valuable year came in the same "fireman" role). Use him more variantly, and smarter, and you meet a couple of different targets, including avoiding the vest. If he doesn't like it, he can go kick his sister-in-law.

[batmagadanleadoff]

The Mets don't have to resort to the drastic remedy of using an effective K-Rod as a mop-up man in order to scuttle the vesting option. That's an extreme and unrealistic scenario. The other question you raise though, is whether a player with a performance based bonus clause suddenly inherits the right to question --in a courtroom-- how his team used him.

[ashie62]

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: Vest or no, it actually behooves teams-- if not players and agents-- to use their best guys in high-leverage spots, rather than managing "to the save." That's a defense right there-- using him in high-leverage spots in the eighth makes more actual baseball sense. If he doesn't like it, he can go kick his sister-in-law.

Krod will not be working in the 8th inning for the Mets often if at all.

If he does on a consistent basis and doesn't vest I'm confident the union can has a strong case on Arod's behalf.

[ashie62]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: The Mets don't have to resort to the drastic remedy of using an effective K-Rod as a mop-up man in order to scuttle the vesting option. That's an extreme and unrealistic scenario. The other question you raise though, is whether a player with a performance based bonus clause suddenly inherits the right to question --in a courtroom-- how his team used him.

You can question anything in a courtroom.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Strong? Sure. I'm certain they can.

Winning? Not necessarily.

[batmagadanleadoff]

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: Vest or no, it actually behooves teams-- if not players and agents-- to use their best guys in high-leverage spots, rather than managing "to the save." Especially considering the fact that he's by far their best reliever... doesn't it make more sense to use him where he's more impactful? And that's a defense right there-- using him in high-leverage spots in the eighth AND bases-loaded situations in the seventh AND in closing tight games makes more actual baseball sense. It's defensible strategically, and there are mounds of numerical evidence to support it (including the fact that his second-most valuable year came in the same "fireman" role). Use him more variantly, and smarter, and you meet a couple of different targets, including avoiding the vest. If he doesn't like it, he can go kick his sister-in-law.

Exactly. Also, the Mets could limit his three run save chances, and use him on a shorter leash in save situations.

[Gwreck]

I think LWFS' strategy for K-Rod usage is both a smart baseball decision and a winning argument should a grievance be filed, should they decide to do so for the entire season. New manager, new GM, new strategy for the year would should -- even if the Mets knew they would be saving bucks by doing so -- that their strategy was a good-faith one designed to win ballgames and not to simply deny a player a chance at an incentive.

---

Cot's contracts specifies that there is also a health clause, that "doctors" must deem Rodriguez "healthy" after the 2011 season for the option to vest.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

So, alternatively, Collins could go passive-aggressive ultra-Manuel on him, and maybe ask him to help tote heavy bags of fertilizer back and forth to/from the bullpen besides.

[Frayed Knot]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: The other question you raise though, is whether a player with a performance based bonus clause suddenly inherits the right to question --in a courtroom-- how his team used him.

Sure he does - at least when the club "decision" is not one that looks to be dictated by on-field results.

Contract clauses like these don't just suddenly rise up out of nowhere, they're the result of negotiations and compromises which, in this case, could have gone something like this:
- player wants four years guaranteed, team is reluctant to give that. So they offer a deal where they effectively say that if said player is still healthy and closing games (which is the role for which they got him) a fourth year will kick in and do so at a price that will effectively raise the per/year value of the deal to something more in line with what the player was asking for in the first place -- $11+mil/yr becomes closer to $13/per is/when the option kicks in.
But if a club suddenly changes his role with no performance decline to indicate it's warranted then it makes it look like the club agreed to the option in bad faith which is exactly what the grievance process is there to address.

And, again, this all different from saying that the arbiter is there to pass judgement on everyday managerial policy. If you want to argue that teams should more often break away from the policy and use the nominal closer in non-closing but still important situations then I'm already ahead of you on that line.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Frayed Knot wrote: Contract clauses like these don't just suddenly rise up out of nowhere, they're the result of negotiations and compromises which, in this case, could have gone something like this: - player wants four years guaranteed, team is reluctant to give that. So they offer [incentive based bonuses]....

I'd have the player assume the entire risk of being able to make his bonuses. I believe that how a team decides to use its players is beyond reproach. I don't know that team sports could function effectively if the players had final say, or any say even, in how they were used. And I would accept as valid, a team's use of a player that was motivated entirely to save money. (Though I wouldn't want to be the team that tested that theory).

Every game that K-Rod finishes is a game that Parnell doesn't finish. Does Parnell have a grievance if he doesn't finish X number of games because the finishes went to K-Rod instead? Parnell doesn't have a bonus in his contract based on the number of games he finishes, but he could argue that more saves might've led to more advertising/sponsorship contracts. Do the Mets owe K-Rod a greater duty tham they owe Parnell ... preferential treatment ... to be the last pitcher standing in a game? (Me -- I'm saying that the team owes the player nothing.)

K-Rod was a free agent. If he didn't like the guaranteed portion of whatever the Mets were offering, he had the option of negotiating elsewhere. If the law was the way you'd like it to be and I owned a team, I'd never offer any player performance based bonuses.

[Frayed Knot]

K-Rod was a free agent. If he didn't like the guaranteed portion of whatever the Mets were offering, he had the option of negotiating elsewhere. If the law was the way you'd like it to be and I owned a team, I'd never offer any player performance based bonuses.

And the Mets were just as free to walk away from the talks too. Except that they didn't, they offered him a 4th year option as a way to compromise between 3 and 4 and, having done that, implied that the player had a reasonable expectation that he'd have a shot to earn that 4th year -- not a guarantee, not veto power over how he's used, but a reasonable shot (lawyers make their rent arguing about terms like "reasonable" "good faith", etc.). And (four about the 4th time now) if the use of KRod suddenly goes from being used to finish games almost every time to never finishing games just as a clause based on finishing games is about to kick in then he has a definite claim to say that the deck was stacked against him even though he continued to do the job just as well as always.

The Parnell and batting order examples you keep throwing in here as analogies are totally unconnected because none of them involve pre-existing and mutually agreed-upon conditions.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Frayed Knot wrote: The Parnell and batting order examples you keep throwing in here as analogies are totally unconnected because none of them involve pre-existing and mutually agreed-upon conditions.

No way. The number of plate appearances a player accumulates correlates both highly and positively to where he bats in the batting order. There is no question but that, all other things being equal, a player who bats fifth will have less plate appearances than a player who bats third or fourth. If you're saying that a player with a plate appearances based bonus wasn't promised a certain number of plate appearances by his team, then couldn't you say, just the same, that the Mets didn't promise K-Rod that he'd finish enough games for his bonus to vest? Besides, if this is all supposed to be a preordained entitlement inuring to K-Rod, than why is the bonus money conditional in the first place? The Mets agreed to pay K-Rod's bonuses only if he met certain conditions. They didn't guarantee to enable K-Rod to meet those conditions.

We're starting to go in circles here, a little bit. I argue that the player should assume the whole risk of making his performance based bonuses and you say that the team bears some of that risk by exposing itself to the possibility of damages if the player fails to make those bonuses.

Frayed Knot wrote: Comparing this scenario to one where an arbitrator "should never question" team decisions, or one where he reaches conclusions by micro-analyzing individual managerial decisions, or one where a player might retroactively claim that a different spot in the lineup may have allowed him to reach his incentive, is a jump of Beamon-esque proportions.

This is no jump at all. If this hypothetical hearing were ever to play out in real life, the Mets would defend their position by making legal arguments, by raising policy issues, and perhaps, most importantly, by making factual arguments to justify their use of K-Rod. Whether he likes it or not, the arbitrator would be forced to analyze the case on a game by game micro level basis because that would be part of the Mets defense. The arbitrator would be placed in the unfortunate (ridiculous, sez me) position of having to second guess and perhaps overrule the teams' in game decisions.

[Frayed Knot]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: The Parnell and batting order examples you keep throwing in here as analogies are totally unconnected because none of them involve pre-existing and mutually agreed-upon conditions. No way. The number of plate appearances a player accumulates correlates both highly and positively to where he bats in the batting order. There is no question but that, all other things being equal, a player who bats fifth will have less plate appearances than a player who bats third or fourth. If you're saying that a player with a plate appearances based bonus wasn't promised a certain number of plate appearances by his team, then couldn't you say, just the same, that the Mets didn't promise K-Rod that he'd finish enough games for his bonus to vest? Besides, if this is all supposed to be a preordained entitlement inuring to K-Rod, than why is the bonus money conditional in the first place? The Mets agreed to pay K-Rod's bonuses only if he met certain conditions. They didn't guarantee to enable K-Rod to meet those conditions.

If a starting and healthy and effective everyday player has a plate appearance clause and the team suddenly benches him right as he's on the verge of meeting the threshold THEN THIS is an equivalent argument because that would (fifth or six time now for this one) BE SEEN AS SOMETHING DONE FOR NO OTHER REASON BUT TO KEEP THE PLAYER FROM REACHING THE CONTRACT TRIGGER. That is VERY DIFFERENT THAN requiring a judge to micro-analyze managerial strategy. A mere lineup change of a couple of spots which may result in a year-long difference of a few dozen PAs is something which an arbiter would be very unlikely to see as strictly a means to slip out of a contract clause and therefore not nearly as likely to be the basis of a grievance. See the difference?

We're starting to go in circles here, a little bit. I argue that the player should assume the whole risk of making his performance based bonuses and you say that the team bears some of that risk by exposing itself to the possibility of damages if the player fails to make those bonuses.

And the reason we're going around in circles is because, instead of reading what I'm actually saying, you're making up vastly different scenarios and calling them equal. Just because lawsuits can and are used for frivolous purposes isn't a reason to outlaw lawsuits.





I'm done here.

[batmagadanleadoff]

There's no need to get all huffy and snippy about this. Before you create a rule, you should first test the rule to see how it works in other situations. I might wake up on a rainy Wednesday morning, and declare that it rains on Wednesdays only. Somebody else might want to test my rule by observing the weather on other days of the week, no? There's nothing wrong about applying your rules to other examples to see how they would play out.

I gave you a broad example of a grievance based on a missed PA bonus. I never specified whether the player was batting 5th all season, or was permanently benched right before his bonus was to vest.

We're going in circles because I get your point and this is all repetitious, no matter how many different examples we give. We both agree that a team should act in good faith. But my definition of what would constitute good faith here is much broader than yours. I would defer almost entirely to whatever the team does. If I had my way, the player would assume the entire risk of having his performance based bonuses vest. My rule would discourage this kind of litigation, which, I believe, is tedious and burdensome, and would require an arbitrator to delve into matters that he's not qualified to decide and aren't any of his business.

[batmagadanleadoff]

batmagadanleadoff wrote: There's no need to get all huffy and snippy about this. Before you create a rule, you should first test the rule to see how it works in other situations. I might wake up on a rainy Wednesday morning, and declare that it rains on Wednesdays only. Somebody else might want to test my rule by observing the weather on other days of the week, no? There's nothing wrong about applying your rules to other examples to see how they would play out. I gave you a broad example of a grievance based on a missed PA bonus. I never specified whether the player was batting 5th all season, or was permanently benched right before his bonus was to vest. We're going in circles because I get your point and this is all repetitious, no matter how many different examples we give. We both agree that a team should act in good faith. But my definition of what would constitute good faith here is much broader than yours. I would defer almost entirely to whatever the team does. If I had my way, the player would assume the entire risk of having his performance based bonuses vest. My rule would discourage this kind of litigation, which, I believe, is tedious and burdensome, and would require an arbitrator to delve into matters that he's not qualified to decide and aren't any of his business.

BTW, I thought that my Parnell hypothetical was a good way to test your rule. A ruling might become precedent, and after that, you can be sure that the rule will be tested by players who'll want to extend the scope of the rule. The next player that files a grievance in connection with how his team used him will not come to court with the same set of facts and circumstances that the hypothetical K-Rod did.

Frayed Knot wrote: The Parnell [example is] totally unconnected because [it doesn't] involve pre-existing and mutually agreed-upon conditions.

By mutually agreed conditions, do you mean the conditional bonus clause in K-Rod's contract? And if so, does that mean that you would deny Parnell's hypothetical grievance because he had no performance bonus clause in his contract? I don't know what you mean by pre-existing.

[Guest The Second Spitter]

For the record, if Frankie did have a cause of action, it would be on the grounds of "constructive dismissal".

Suspending an employee with full pay (analogous to benching a ball-player) has been held to amount to constructive dismissal. However, using him in a different role is a different question. Ordinarily, the new role must be dramatically different for constructive dismissal to occur. Therefore, using him as a middle-reliever (for arguments sake) would not necessarily amount to this.

But....

Frankie will argue, he was employed as specialist. The denial of the opportunity to finish 55 games is a repudiatory breach of contract by the Mets, designed solely to prevent the option from vesting, especially if his KPI's are on-par with previous years, where he consistently finished 60 plus games, when healthy. He can point to things like being used inconsistently to the previous years of his contract and the fact the Mets tried to convert his contract to non-guaranteed, last year (which was a really dumb thing to do). All of this amounts to a consistent attempt to undermine his employment.

I could easily see this going against the Mets.

As a sidenote, "games finished" is such a ridiculous stat to base a vesting option on. Frankie's actually got incentive to lose tied ballgames in the 9th inning, just so he can "finish" the game.