batmagadanleadoff

Edgy DC wrote: I think it's different, certainly. I think what the Cora case is illustrative of is to suggest that a team doesn't have an obligation to deliver a player oppurtunities to meet his vesting level, something that I think hasn't been established. That's how I see it. Otherwise, what's the point of making the bonus conditional in the first place? I think that the "if" in the contract ("if" K-Rod finishes x number of games) should also encompass the opportunity --- "if" K-Rod finishes X number of games and "if" the team affords K-Rod the opportunity to finish X number of games, which may be given solely at the team's discretion. The team has to have full autonomy, free of interference and influence from its players and free of worry and risk of incurring monetary damages when it determines lineups, playing time and strategies. It's one thing for Jeff Francoeur to politic for more playing time behind the scenes, but his gripes should never amount to a valid legal cause of action or grievance against his team, no matter how logical his case for playing time might be. Otherwise, you'll eventually have a player filing a grievance because he was asked to sac bunt on his last AB and missed his HR bonus by one HR.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Where does one buy baseball cards these days? I have a collection of Mets cards and here's how I maintain my collection: Once or twice a year, I'll go an an ebay binge where I search out all the new sets for Mets cards. Sellers commonly break up their cards into team sets. I can figure out what cards are in the sets by comparing listings -- many sets for offer aren't complete even though they're listed as such. I see the cards for sale in many stores, especially Duane Reade and Rite Aid. Last week, I noticed cards for sale in that chain store that sells DVD's and CD's and electronic supplies -- but I forget the store's name metsguyinmichigan wrote: Anyway, I bought a couple packs. I'm underwhelmed. The foil makes the cards nearly impossible to read. I did pull RA Dickey, and one of those sparkly cards. I don't know why the card companies continue to make foil cards. Nobody, I mean nobody likes 'em. Upper Deck used to make the largest sets, and had some of the coolest photographs. You could count on UD to include, for example, Pedro Feliciano in its set. But that foil they used year in and year outi was impossible to read. You have to manipulate the cards to catch the light at just the right angle to read the face of those cards. I know that you know what I'm talking about. I thought that the '72 Seaver In Action was your #1. You'd once written that it was your favorite card.

The trustee already has testimony and documented evidence that some of the younger Katz's and Stamos were deeply suspicious of Madoff. Under the NY Partnership Law, that knowledge can be imputed to the other partners -- e.g., Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz. I've been working my way through the massive complaint a little at a time, and I'm beginning to believe that Sterling had to have known that Madoff was running a scam.

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.

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.

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.

May and Morales

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.

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.

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.

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?

That's Jason Tyner, front and center with a baseball in his hands. Is Jason back with the Mets again?

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 "

An inauspicious, mostly forgettable September debut. Off the field, Lutz is the sympathetic central figure in a minor scandal when $200 worth of Lutz's lottery tickets for that week's $400 million jackpot mysteriously disappear from his locker. The security tapes, leaked to the NY Post by Mets security, show that Fred Wilpon, the tabloids' only suspect (Locker Shocker! Lutz Looted! Wilpon Deluded! Who Dood It? Naked City: Hu is Hung! No-Hand No-Han: Santana to undergo season ending hand surgery!) was the last person in the locker room just before Lutz's lottery tickets went missing, The security tapes are otherwise inconclusive. To deflect any further suspicion, Wilpon offers a $10,000.00 reward to the person with information leading to the return of Lutz's missing tickets. The scandal quietly fades away after the lottery commission confirms that there were no winners for that week's drawing, One week later, Fred Wilpon discovers the missing tickets stuck to the top of Lutz's locker and claims the reward money from partner Saul Katz.

More on the Madoff mess from the NYT: Wilpon�s Ownership of Mets Is Threatened Fred Wilpon�s ability to hold onto the Mets was cast into more doubt Friday when a lawsuit filed by the trustee in the Bernard L. Madoff fraud case was unsealed and revealed in vivid detail the depth of Madoff�s involvement in nearly every aspect of Wilpon�s empire, particularly his team. The financial pressure on Wilpon will now continue to mount, and his preference to sell 20 to 25 percent of the Mets to alleviate the strain, a plan that he announced a week ago, may not turn out to be enough of a remedy. Some sports executives and analysts said Friday that they believed Wilpon would most likely have to sell the team in the face of demands by the trustee, Irving H. Picard, to turn over $300 million in what Picard termed �fictitious profits� and perhaps hundreds of millions more for ignoring warnings that Madoff might have been operating a fraud. Wilpon has talked about the team as a family legacy and how he wants to turn it over to his son, Jeff, the chief operating officer. But whether he can still do so is open to question. �It looks like a very messy situation for Fred,� said Fay Vincent, a former commissioner of baseball who is friendly with Wilpon and Picard. �I know Picard and he�s a serious and solid lawyer, and what he�s doing has to be taken seriously.� Vincent said he did not want it to appear as if he were advising Wilpon on what to do, but added, �It�s important for anyone in a situation this treacherous to consider whether he can run his main business and defend himself simultaneously.� Michael Ozanian, the executive editor of Forbes, which valued the Mets at $858 million last year, said, �I think the Mets have been a franchise that for many years relied on borrowed money.� He said Wilpon would have to sell the team and the SNY television network �to get out of this mess.� Robert Boland, who teaches sports law at New York University�s Tisch Center, said that Wilpon, his partners and their families looked more vulnerable than ever and were unlikely to find relief from any substantial improvement in the financial performances of the team or Citi Field. �This may drag on,� Boland said, adding that he thought Wilpon might be better off battling Picard�s suit in court rather than settling. But the problem, he said, is whether � the Wilpons have the resources to fight for a long time.� The team, the stadium and the SNY network have considerable debt � about $1.5 billion in all by some estimates � and two analysts said there might not be enough money available to Wilpon to settle with Picard and make bond payments, including $52 million a year for the stadium. The Mets also have hit their limit on borrowing from Major League Baseball�s credit line. How baseball views the Mets� situation is unclear. Wilpon and Saul Katz, his brother-in-law and business partner, met with Commissioner Bud Selig this week. Selig and Wilpon are close friends, which might lead Selig to work diligently to help him keep the team. But their meeting occurred before Picard�s complaint was unsealed and the full extent of Madoff�s links to the team was shown. They went far beyond his season tickets at Shea Stadium. According to the lawsuit, Wilpon, Katz and their partners withdrew $94 million over the years from the team�s Madoff accounts. Picard also said Wilpon and Katz used their Madoff money to convince lenders of their creditworthiness when they were seeking to refinance the loans that enabled them to buy out Nelson Doubleday in 2002. The suit says that Wilpon and Katz even offered Madoff a chance to take a partial interest in the franchise around that time, the only known instance when Madoff declined an opportunity to invest alongside them. Madoff was the team�s personal banker, making sure that the Mets could withdraw cash, when needed, to fund the team�s day-to-day operations. That ever-ready honey pot helped the team�s owners meet payroll, pay for stadium operations and provide for deferred compensation to players, according to the lawsuit. The Mets owners also seemed to benefit from the consistently high and steady nature of the returns they appeared to be enjoying from Madoff when they refinanced the team�s lending arrangements in 2004. It was then that the owners represented to banks that Madoff provided �a safe alternative to unattractive money market yields� and that over the previous 25-year period, Madoff�s average returns were 18 percent, with a standard deviation of 4 percent. �The direct connection between the Madoff Ponzi scheme and the Mets� revenues is something that was unexpected,� said Marc Ganis, a sports-industry consultant. �Selig could demand that the team be sold because of the team�s connection to one of the biggest Ponzi schemes ever.� Baseball last faced a financial crisis with one of its teams when Thomas Hicks, then the owner of the Texas Rangers, defaulted on $525 million in loans, which pushed the team into bankruptcy. Last summer, the Rangers were sold in a court auction for $593 million to a group led by the Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan and Chuck Greenberg. �What we learned from the Rangers involves an owner who owed a great deal of money and could not pay,� Ganis said. �If Picard is successful, then it�s likely to be the same with Wilpon.� Vince Gennaro, a financial consultant to several major league teams, said Wilpon�s ability to hold onto the Mets �depends on the resources he has from other entities and the liquidity he has.� What was revealed Friday, he said, �makes that challenge tougher.�

duan wrote: I totally buy that. I tell you why - volatility is the speculators friend - if you get it right. Easy example I can give you AIB shares in ireland in 2007 were at something like �24 now, this was a blue chip bank, second biggest/biggest company in ireland. Banking crash etc happened price collapsed to round about �0.20 THEN the next thing was that at the moment where the state guaranteed the banks and a few other bits happened the bank price rose to over �3. then as things got bad again the price collapsed again and effectively the shares are now worthless. Now, I know people who sold @ �24, bought @ �0.20 and sold again �3 they made *a lot* of money, yet if you said to anyone that you'd been investing in bank shares over last 5 years they'd assume you lost your shirt. I don't see the analogy. The AIB shares weren't any kind of a hedge against volatility. They were real shares, volatile in their own right, and the only AIB investors who profited were those that were either lucky or smart enough to sell for more than they paid. There's no hedge there. You got it right when you wrote that it was a speculative stock. All AIB investors could not have profited because as soon as everyone tries to sell at the top, the price of the AIB shares drops. Though the stock peaked at �24, very few investors could get that amount for their shares if everyone tried to sell at �24 simultaneously. The Madoff fund was a Ponzi scheme where Madoff kept the capital and only pretended to invest the money, and where apparently (and allegedly) Sterling/Wilpon/Katz always seemed to "profit". Besides, investments that are designed to hedge against risks are conservative investments by nature: they sacrifice the chances of larger profits (and larger losses) for safety. The idea that Madoff was running a wildly profitable fund that also hedged against risk is oxymoronic.

Edgy DC wrote: This exercise appears to have grown tiresome for you. Not any more.

Nickeas suddenly becomes the most qualified catcher in the Mets post-Madoff universe because he cannot earn more than the major league minimum salary. Games Played: All of them.

BTW, I think that Sterling agreed to unseal the complaint only because the presiding judge tipped his intentions at an earlier conference: the judge told both sides that he was leaning towards deciding the motion to unseal in favor of the NYT and unsealing the complaint. I forget where I read or heard this, though. (I have no first hand personal knowledge of this. I'm just sayin')

Benjamin Grimm wrote: ... if this lawsuit is going to go on for years (as it well might) then I'd prefer to see them sell their entire interest in the Mets. And I hope that Bud Selig (I hate having to count on him for anything) uses the "best interest of the game" to pressue them into doing just that. I agree. But I thought that Selig was named Commissioner of Baseball primarily to act in the best interests of the owners rather than the game.

The complaint is further undercut by another fundamental fact not mentioned by the Trustee: if the Sterling partners had thought Madoff might be engaged in a fraud - a conclusion they never reached - their recourse would have been to go to the SEC, the watchdog that licensed Madoff and that is there to protect customers. This would have been a futile exercise. As we know now, the fraud would not have been uncovered. zing! I'm guessing that the SEC's failure to shut down Madoff earlier, by itself, would not be enough to clear Sterling. One issue here might simply be whether or not Wilpon/Katz reported Madoff to the SEC -- but not how the SEC might have then responded.

When the Mets opt to field an 18 man roster in 2011, Dickey responds by pitching 1,245 innings.

Wilpon, Sterling, agree to unseal Madoff complaint. http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/sports/MetsMadoff-Documents-To-Be-made-Public-115212109.html Lawyers for the owners of the New York Mets are dropping their efforts to keep records sealed in their connection with the Madoff Ponzi scheme, it was revealed today. Karen Wagner, who represents the Wilpons and other Mets owners, told Bankruptcy Court Judge Burton they now "agree that the complaint should be unsealed immediately." Wagner said leaks in the case have made keeping the documents secret no longer practical. NBC-New York and The New York Times had filed motions with Judge Burton, requesting to seek access to the documents. To date, the Court has offered no explanation as to why it was keeping the records sealed. The Mets owners said last week that they were going to try to sell part of the team to cover what could turn out to be hundreds of millions of dollars the team owners owe from profits they took out of Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme. The Mets owners deny wrongdoing or having had any knowledge Madoff was a fraud. The Trustee has alleged the Mets owners should have known or suspected a criminal scheme was underway based on their alleged outsized profits. Details of the allegations in the court document remain secret but could become public soon.

Vic Sage wrote: ...Is removed from the lineup one week later after a red-eye flight for a series in LA. Well, the flight went to LA... he got on the wrong plane and ended up in Guam. His bags ended up in Ontario. see my edit.

Suffers a severe concussion on opening day when Murph lands on his head in the dugout after unsuccessfully trying to pull off an Ike Davis style over the handrail highlight reel catch. Leads off the next inning with a HR but twists his ankle when he rounds second base awkwardly due to dizzy spells from his head knock. The next day, Murph is beaned in the face when he forgets to move out of the way of an errant pitch. Is removed from the lineup one week later. While flying cross country to consult with a concussion doctor, his plane is hijacked.