Season Predictions

It has been a long time since I last posted. I am hoping to get back into some regular posts as the baseball season gets going. A majority of them will be about baseball, but I also want to expand my thoughts to cover additional interests. 

For now, I wanted to get some quick predictions down for the baseball season along with a few other thoughts that have popped up. Most of these are Giants specific, but not all.

1) It is going to be a long season for the Giants. It feels like a team that is going to lose 90+ games. Currently sitting at 6-11 and having lost six out of eight vs the Royals, Tigers and Marlins, I am not sure how it gets easier for this team, especially with the strength of the NL West. They are an offense that relies on the long ball too much and the swing and miss issues will continue to be a problem. The pitching is solid, but it is a groundball staff with a below average infield defense, which is never a good combination. 

2) The Giants will finish fourth in the NL West. 1) Dodgers 2) Padres 3) Diamondbacks 4) Giants 5) Rockies.

3) The Farm system will see some successes this year. I believe Matos will establish himself as a top 100 prospect again. Schmitt will debut in the Majors and show plus defense but struggle with the bat. Harrison will also debut but will struggle with command and will end the season in the pen (not his long term role, but a good spot for him to get his feet wet). 

4) I'll stick with this prediction I made to a few friends - Joey Bart will not be a Giant on August 1st. He might be a RiverCat, but most likely, I believe he will be traded and Gary Sanchez will be up (or possibly Bailey). 

5) Michael Conforto will lead the position players in WAR, but Estrada will be a close second and I wouldn't be surprised if he ended up being the best for the Giants.

6) Haniger will miss more than 50% of the games this year. You sign a player with an extensive injury history, be prepared for the player to be injured. 

7) A large portion of the bullpen will be available and most likely traded at the deadline. Camilo Doval will be the big name out there, but Tyler Rogers will be the toughest one to see traded. 

8) Farhan and Kapler will get another year in 2024, but there will be shake ups on the ML staff and the front office staff. The off-season (and the pursuit of Ohtani) will define the vibes going into 2024. 

I will follow up in a few weeks with some thoughts on ML development choices, the long awaited Posey signing story (still working on it) and outside of baseball, some thoughts on my beloved Portland Trail Blazers and my experiences coaching youth baseball this Spring season.

Quick Notes and a Tip of the Cap to a Close Friend

Short post this week as we recover from a nasty stomach bug that swept through our house these past two weeks. I wanted to post some quick/random thoughts that have been on my mind.

-The future game rosters were announced! The game itself is always a joy to watch and MLB does a great job creating a professional/fun environment for the players and staff involved. I do wish it was nine innings instead of seven. From a PD perspective, it isn't the best event to send players since it messes with their routine and takes away PA/IP, but in the end, the overall impact on development is minimal and the players always have a great time attending.

-A huge congrats to David Villar being added to the 40 man roster and making his MLB debut. Debuts are always special. From a PD perspective, they give you excitement about the work you are putting in to help a player achieve their dream. My favorite part of debuts are always the pictures/videos of the family. The sacrifices they have made helping the player reach the majors cannot be understated and watching them soak it all in is extremely uplifting.

-In case you missed it, I went on the "There R Giants" podcast with Roger Munter. Roger does an amazing job covering the Giants minor league system and is a must follow for any Giants fans. We discussed my time inside Baseball Operations/Player Development and went over a few players I like within the system.

-Finally, a big congrats to my close friend (and former colleague) Josh Warstler on his last day with the Giants after 12 years as he transitions to a new job outside of baseball. Josh, his wife and their pups were my second family during Spring Training when they allowed me to crash in their guest room. Spring training is 50+ days of being away from your family and working from 7am - 10pm. It can get lonely and depressing. Being able to stay at their house and have a "family" to come home to in the evening certainly made those days easier.

Josh was the Director of Arizona Field operations and one of the numerous unsung employees that played a role in any success the Player Development department has had over the past decade. The past few years he was beyond integral to the construction and completion of Papago Park. It isn't a stretch to say the new facility in Arizona may not be open at this time if it wasn't for Josh and his continued leadership on the project. There were a lot of internal voices, egos and snags throughout the construction process and Josh handled everything as a professional. Best of luck on your next adventure!

Goodbye to Dick Tidrow

The call was a normal one, a colleague with the Giants since my first day, was buzzing my phone on a weekday while I was in Arizona. I answered expecting a few work questions but was instead hit with a ton of bricks - "Dick Tidrow had unexpectedly passed away."

Dick Tidrow was a special man who deserves as much credit as anybody for the Giants three World Championships. He was an intimidating presence with his one in a kind mustache, gumby length legs and constant black and white wardrobe. I heard from some players that they got more nervous when Dick was watching their pen than pitching in front of a sold out crowd. Despite the intimidating presence, once you got to know him, he was a kind, gentle soul who genuinely cared about you and your family.

Dick did it all when I first started with the Giants - Farm Director, Scouting Director, Pro Scout, Pitching coach. If a player was joining the Giants, Dick was involved. If a player in the minors was being transferred or needed a development tweak, Dick was involved. He was the first scouting director who had area scouts hit the road with video recorders. He wanted to make sure he had seen the player on tape before drafting them. I honestly couldn't tell you one job title that Dick held, but it didn't really matter, he was right alongside Sabean in the hierarchy of the Giants Baseball Operations department and he was incredible at his job. For as incredible as he was in those roles, he was a better mentor/friend.

Players nicknamed Dick "the ninja" because they never knew where he would pop up. He would be in the dugout one inning, then in the bullpen the next and then appear in the stands a few minutes later. His appearances in SF were also of ninja quality, but you always knew he would be in the office during the draft meetings and the trade deadline. These were the times he and I had time to connect.

The running conversation we always had involved him turning in his expenses. He was perpetually late in turning them in (late as in 8-14 months after he incurred the expense). However, every time we interacted he would tell me "they are on the way." Sure enough, once a year (usually in the off-season) I would receive a thick envelope containing all of his expenses for over a year. The amazing part - Dick was so organized, not a single receipt was missing and everything was in perfect order. A task that could have taken me a few days to organize, took me 20 minutes. Those expenses always encapsulated how he was able to wear so many different hats, his brain was able to keep everything organized in one-of-a-kind fashion. I always told him how easy he made it on me, but he still felt it was an overwhelming task and would always gift me a bottle of Justin Wine Isosceles "for my troubles." His selfless attitude was a breath of fresh air.

Death sucks. There is no other way to put it. The sudden nature of it smacks you in the face and leaves you with thoughts of "I never got to say goodbye. I never thanked that person for how much they meant to me." I don't even remember the last time I spoke with Dick - the pandemic robbed us of being in person for two years before he passed. I went to check my last text exchanges with Dick to see what we last discussed. The last message from him "expenses are on the way..." As Sabean told me, the man upstairs got a great one. I hope they are enjoying a bottle of red.

Improving Leverage for Baseball Ops Employees

With news breaking this week that a settlement has been reached in the Senne lawsuit (still waiting on the details, which will be fascinating), I wanted to focus this post on the tough/strange road you have as a baseball ops employee.

There is a strange dynamic when you get hired in sports, especially in a coveted department like Baseball Operations. For most applicants looking to get into a baseball ops position (analytics, player development, scouting, administration...etc), landing a job is a dream come true that has been in the works for numerous years through internships, volunteering and networking. It is a life changing moment that quickly becomes a frustrating experience when you learn "how the game works."

What's the first frustrating experience you get when hired? Your salary offer. There is a mindset from organizations that they can offer the absolute minimum because "a thousand people want your job, you are lucky to have it." To me, that mindset is completely unacceptable. When you get hired, in theory, you just beat out those "thousand" of people. You are a coveted hire, your salary offer should reflect that dynamic. When I was first hired full time by the Giants in 2008, my salary was $41,000 (this was after earning $500 a month while I was an intern with the Giants in 2007 and $500 every three months while I was an intern with the A's in 2006). My salary steadily grew over the years, but when you start at such a low figure, the standard 3% - 3.5% raise doesn't go as far. The problem is, as an employee you have no leverage. Getting a full time offer in baseball ops is hard enough, if you try to negotiate a higher salary you run the risk of the organization turning you down and hiring somebody else. Is the risk of losing a lifelong dream worth it over an extra $5k - $10k in salary? For most people, that answer is no.

So now you have landed a dream job, with a low starting salary. What happens next? Not much, the organization has complete control over you. You want to send your resume around to other organizations to try to get a better job? You risk looking unloyal to your current org and getting fired (or in fancier terms, having your contract not renewed). Maybe you absolutely kill it at your position and get noticed by other organizations. In order for an outside team to hire you, they have to request permission from your current org to interview you. Most of the time your current org will say yes, but they do not have to grant permission. In fact, they could deny permission and never tell you about the request (this rarely happens, but it isn't impossible for this scenario to play out). They can also set limits. "You want to interview our ML Assistant hitting coach, that is fine. we will grant you permission. However, if you hire him you cannot select any of our players in the rule 5 draft and you cannot request permission to interview additional employees in our ORG for two years." How is that allowed? There are only 30 teams. Players in your organization just lost the chance to reach the ML as a rule 5 player for one team plus employees now have one less team that can pursue them.

What typically happens is an organization will only grant permission for an employee to interview if the job the outside team wants to hire you for is "seen as a promotion." But what exactly is a promotion? Sometimes it is obvious (Assistant GM is higher than any Director position. A Scouting Director/Farm Director position is higher than any entry level position, ie - coordinator, manager, associate...etc). What if the Pickles have a AA Pitching coach making $75,000 a year and the Tomato's want to hire that person as their Lo-A pitching coach, but pay them $85,000. Is that a promotion? It is a lower level, but the pay is $10K more. That's a promotion in my eyes. What if a AAA coach is located on the East Coach for the season but has two young kids back home in AZ where an outside organization wants to hire for the AZ rookie team 10 minutes from home where the opportunity to be home every night is a possibility. The pay is the same, shouldn't the coach have the chance to pursue that opportunity without being called unloyal?

The point is, calling something a promotion is very nuanced and employees deserve the opportunity to "shop" around and have a chance to gain some sort of leverage. For me, leverage is the most important aspect for employees to be treated fairly. On my last contract offer in 2021 I was offered a two year deal (2022 and 2023). My "raise" for 2022 was a 4% raise followed by a 0% raise for 2023. My options were; 1) accept the contract. 2) negotiate for a higher wage (maybe get a 6% or 7% raise) or 3) decline the contract and leave. I chose option 3 (to be fair, I left for many other reasons outside of the pay, but it was certainly one of the reasons). I had zero leverage to get a much bigger raise or promotion.

What is the solution? To me, it is a model similar to the college "transfer portal." Employees on expiring contracts (unfortunately if you have a multiple year deal, you are even more "tied" to your current org) should be able to put their name and resume into a MLB employee portal from October 15th to November 15th. Within that portal you can list your ideal location, salary, contract length...etc. Outside organizations can flag you as somebody they want to interview within that time period and offer you a position. If offered a position, an employee will actually have some leverage to negotiate with their current team. If the current team doesn't want to match an offer, the employee can feel secure they at least have another offer in hand and can move on to the new position. There can even be a limit on how many employees one organization can lose in one given off-season if teams are wary of losing too many employees. In the end, I believe a system like this would allow baseball ops employees a chance to gain leverage and possibly improve their quality of life.

Roster Breakdown

I am a little late to the party here, but I wanted to provide some thoughts on the rosters for the Giants affiliates. Melissa Lockard (@melissalockard) and Roger Munter (@rog61) did a much better job of breaking it down and I would highly recommend their work for a more comprehensive breakdown.

San Francisco

Quick breakdown on this roster, as there weren't many surprises. It felt like the 28 spots/injuries allowed the front office to punt a few final decisions. I would assume Beede, Williams, Duggar, Long and Littell were the beneficiaries of the injuries/extra spots. Williams, Duggar, Littell and Long have options left and will most likely be sent down before Beede unless he performs poorly. The front office will stretch every possible decision out as long as possible to keep players on the 40 man roster (IE - see last year when players were regularly placed on the 60 day IL for symptoms after getting a covid shot). It will be interesting to see how the roster will look if all players are healthy (a rare occurrence).

The achilles heel for me with this roster is the SP depth. If one or two starting pitchers go down for an extended amount of time, it will be hard to fill those innings internally.

Sacramento - https://www.milb.com/sacramento/roster

l;;;;;p;;;;;;;Nothing too surprising on the pitching side. A lot of minor league free agents, young 40 man pitchers and "swing" guys that are most likely viewed as multiple inning type pitchers at the ML Level on an emergency basis.

I was very excited to see Joey Marciano make the roster. Him and Plassmeyer are the only pitchers that aren't minor league free agents or on the 40 man roster. He has good stuff from the left side and is an A+ person who retired a few years ago to help his family out and came back to the game after taking care of some personal stuff. I will certainly be pulling for him this year.

Sean Hjelle appears to be one of the starting pitchers for the River Cats at this time. I would presume he would be the first name called up when/if a 6th starter is needed. In the end, I think he finds success at the ML level as a reliever where his velo will be higher and his unique angle will be tough on hitters. Imagine him and Tyler Rogers coming in back to back.I would also imagine there was some internal discussion on Kervin Castro and Greg Santos being stretched out as starters, but I believe keeping them as relievers will be better for them in the long run. Castro needs to find some more consistency and Santos needs to dominate with his slider since his FB regularly gets whacked and doesn't have the profile to be an effective pitch at the ML level, even with the plus velo.

On the position player side, it was great to see Ricardo Genoves make the AAA roster. The Giants never added to the upper level catching depth like many assumed they would during spring training. At this time, I would anticipate Genoves being the 3rd string catcher and the first person called up if an injury happens to Bart or Casali. I thought he might be lost in the Rule 5 draft, so this year gives the Giants an extra year of evaluation and a chance to protect him before the off-season. I have always believed he had a role as back-up C at the ML level who will provide good leadership. solid defense and a little pop.

For the infielders, Villar being included was a great decision. He will most likely push himself onto the 40 man roster this year with a strong AAA performance. Krizan is a very solid baseball player without standout tools. He grows on you the more you watch him play and would be able to hold his own at the ML level.

Bryce Johnson also belongs on a ML roster at some point. He can play all three OF positions at a plus level, is one of the better baserunners in baseball and can provide a solid PA from both sides of the plate.

One additional note, it appears the roster is at 30 for the year, which makes me assume MLB has allowed the AAA teams to have the five man taxi squad again. Essentially, the team will need to designate five players a game (typically all starting pitchers/piggyback relievers) that are not eligible for that specific game. This rule immensely helps the AAA staff manage the game to game requests of the ML staff/front office.

Richmond - https://www.milb.com/richmond/roster

You can start to see the beginning of the next "wave" of prospects for the ML team on this roster.

The pitching has some interesting relievers who are most likely solid minor league arms, but with a few years of strong performance/small tweaks to their arsenal could be a ML option in a year or two.

Tristan Beck has always had good stuff., but has struggled to stay healthy. Hopefully he is able to put together a full year of health and show he can be an effective starter.

Kai-Wei Teng could take a big leap this year. He had a rough 2020/2021, mostly due to some interesting development decisions/needing to adapt to a new organization and small injuries, but showed good stuff at the end of 2021 that hopefully translates to a strong 2022.

Dabovich, Ruotolo and Wright all have a chance to put themselves into position to be ML relievers this year or next with a strong season.

On the position player side, Auerbach is a manager's dream who will become a fan favorite in San Francisco once he reaches the major leagues. He isn't just a "token" emergency catcher and can fill at an average level at six additional positions (SS and CF are a bit of a stretch). He will be a fun one to watch this year. I would bet with even a small amount of success that the ML staff pushes for him on the roster at some point.

Roby and Wilson have make or break years in AA this year. Both have the potential to be ML players, but will need to make adjustments and show they can handle AA pitchers. In the end, if they reach their ceiling, Wilson could be a solid ML UTIL player and Roby can be a platoon corner bat with some serious pop.

I thought Rincones would be an early pick in the Rule 5 draft and be able to stick with a ML team all year. His progress will be interesting to watch. If he has success he will force himself onto the 40 man roster by the end of the year. Labour most likely got pushed to AA to give PA to other OF's in Hi-A. Hopefully he is able to adjust on plus velo and tap into his power.

Eugene - https://www.milb.com/eugene/roster

Man, what a roster. You can legitimately argue there are nine potential future ML position players on the roster, plus six pitchers. I would recommend planning a trip to Eugene in September to watch this team attempt to defend their Northwest League title. You will also have the benefit of watching a Duck football game!

Corry made some strides at the end of last year after spending some time recalibrating in Arizona. He is an A+ worker and person with plus stuff. He will just need to find the strike zone with his pitches to have success.

Berroa almost pitched his way onto the 40 man roster in 2021. With another strong year in 2022, he could be a valuable trade piece at the deadline or an arm that will need to be protected in the off-season.

Swiney overmatched Lo-a hitters when healthy in 2021 (as any polished college SP should do). I would expect him to be bumped up to AA quickly if he has early success with Eugene.Randy Rodriguez will most likely pitch 2-3 innings at a time (personally, even if you know a young pitching prospect is going to be a reliever for you at the ML level, it is almost always beneficial to stretch them out in the low minors unless their stuff only holds for 1 inning or they express desire to not be extended). He should be an emergency ML option this year.Harrison is the headliner after a dominating run at San Jose. His walks got overlooked slightly last year because the rest of the numbers were so dominating. I would imagine his #1 PD goal this year is to cut down on those free baserunners because the rest of his stuff is close to ML ready.

Waites overpowers with his FB but needs to be consistent with the command of it and also show a workable breaking ball so hitters cannot cheat to the FB.

The position player side is stacked, what a fun team to watch. I'll be quick with the notes on them.

Bailey looked like a future all-star at instructs in 2020, struggled a lot in 2021 but came on strong at the end of the year and had a solid AFL. Hopefully a year of struggles helped him and he will quickly ascend to AA this season.

Luciano is the real deal. He needs to continue to refine his K zone awareness, but that should come with time. For me, I have always had him as a future 3B, but I will not be surprised if he breaks into the ML at SS and moves off after a couple of years.

Schmitt, Santos and Toribio all have ML potential. Schmitt has the best chance to be a ML regular due to his plus defense. Santos could potentially be able to play 7-8 positions as ML super utility guy. He is one of the better baserunners in the ORG and can add value in a lot of places outside of his bat. Toribio has a plus approach with pop and could work into a platoon corner bat.

Matos is a top 10 prospect in baseball for me and I am happy to die on that hill. His one weakness is swinging outside the zone (and even when he does, he tends to square the ball up). If he can lower his out of zone swing percentage and only attack strikes, he will take off.

Pomares surprised a lot of people last year with his power. However, the K/BB ratio needs to improve drastically before he can be considered a viable ML option.It is nice to see Bishop healthy. He has all of the tools in the world. Hopefully he can stay healthy and get 350+ PA this season.

San Jose - https://www.milb.com/san-jose/rosterThis pitching staff should dominate in Lo-A. It isn't surprising to see this many quality college arms start here as Farhan has always sent college pitchers to Lo-a to begin the season. It will be interesting to see who rises to the top first and gets the promotion to Eugene after 4-6 weeks.

I will not be surprised if Lonsway or Black end up having more successful careers than Bednar (that isn't a knock on Bednar, more about excitement on the stuff Lonsway and Black can flash). Those are the three names plus Mikulski I would expect to be the first moved up once the time is right.

It is great to see Winn back in full season. He will be handled carefully this year, but I wouldn't be surprised if he was quickly in AA pitching out of the pen. Him and Jake Wong went through TJ and rehab on pretty much the same schedule and it will be interesting to see how they look in 2022. Rehab is a brutal, monotonous energy drain, but it can be very beneficial. It allows players a long amount of time to focus on their body/strength and weaknesses (including areas that were not part of the injury) and come back even better than before.

Silva, Mercedes, Vinicio and McDonald are the younger arms with upside that will probably be in SJ all year and will be interesting to watch.

The hitting group is the opposite of the pitching group and mostly consists of young, unproven hitters. Sugastey is a stud. A potential future top 100 prospect with above average defense and a solid bat. I wouldn't be surprised if his name begins popping up with scouts as the year progresses.

Arteaga is also a potential future top 100 prospect who can stay at SS and provide a solid offensive profile. It will be fun to watch him and Sugastey push each other this year.

Frechette will benefit from regular playing time, hopefully he is able to refine his K zone awareness. Rosario and Layer should be able to provide above average defense at multiple positions throughout the year.

McCray and Suarez both have high potential and will benefit from getting to play everyday. If it clicks for one of them, they could take off in a hurry .

Overall, the Giants minor league system continues to improve and put exciting prospects at all levels. It will be fun to see the adjustments and improvements made this year.

How to Improve Life for Minor League Players

My birthday is today. I do not mention that for attention, but to highlight how bittersweet this day has been for me the past decade. Outside of 2020, this is the first year I have been home with my family for my birthday since 2011.

March 31st was always a fun day for me in minor league camp, but not because it was my birthday. It was a fun day because it meant camp was almost over. What it also meant was rosters were about to be released.

In the next few days, minor league rosters will be posted. There will be overreactions and grand conclusions made. Do not read too much into them. There will be changes to rosters before the first game. There will be hundreds of changes during the year, some due to shortages, others due to performance. It is an exciting time because it means baseball is about to begin!

I wanted to highlight in my post this week the challenges minor league players are about to face as non-union members and my suggestions on how MLB and ML organizations can improve the lifestyle for non-40 man players.

One note before I get into these details - I believe strongly that a majority of the changes MLB made when they condensed the minor leagues will help the players out. Requiring two buses on long trips (or if the trip is over a certain mileage threshold, requiring a flight), raising the quality of visiting hotels, setting minimum square footage requirements in the clubhouse, dining area, training room and weight room, increasing roster sizes and improving the lighting in the ballparks are some of the changes made in the restructuring of the minor leagues. Unfortunately, the cost of these changes were put onto the affiliates. It is time for the ML Organizations to step up and incur the costs for these proposed changes.

Pay Raises

In 2021, MLB instituted pay raises across the board. It wasn't enough. Players in the minor leagues are unbelievably talented, the top 1% of the top 1% of individuals that have played baseball in their life. At this time, they are lucky to take home more than $12,000 in pay for the 2022 season. A billion dollar industry is paying these unbelievable talents a non-living wage.

Solution - What minor league players need is a livable salary paid during the season. My proposal would be the California minimum salary for exempt employees (for companies with over 25 employees). In 2022, this salary is $62,400. In addition, players asked to attend camps/workouts between the dates of 9/15 - 2/10 should receive a bonus of $200 per day when attending these camps/workouts.

Is that an earth shattering salary? Not even close. But it certainly helps players and their families compared to the current wages they receive.

Housing

2022 will be the first year where the ML club is responsible for the cost of housing for minor league players. This is a great step and will take a lot of stress out of the player's lives. However, they need to do more.

Solution - In season and during off-season camps, players should be given their own rooms in their home city in team funded housing and on the road, players should receive their own hotel rooms. The one exception is during ST (mostly because of a supply issue), where players should be prepared to have a roommate.

These are adults who have families/spouses/kids, they have earned privacy. Can you imagine being a 23 year old business professional required to be on the road for 75+ days a year and your company requires you to have a roommate?

Smaller (but still helpful) Suggestions

Car Shipment Allowance - Provide players a stipend for shipping their car to their affiliate at the beginning of the season.

In Season Taxi Money - For players that do not use the car shipment allowance, provide them with $15 a day in ride share money to help alleviate the cost of getting from their residence to the ballpark and home each home game.

Meal Money - Raise the meal money allowance per day in ST and when the team is on the road from $25 to $45.

Meals Provided Amount - Require clubs to spend a minimum of $1,400 a day on catering for games. This would cover a pre-game meal and post-game meal + snacks. The amount seems high, but you are providing a meal for roughly 45 - 50 people (players, coaches, clubhouse staff, rovers, umpires.....etc). At $1,400 per day and 50 people, you are looking at a cost of $28 per person for two meals + clubhouse snacks.

Draft Bonus Minimum - The minimum signing bonus for a player drafted should be set to $100,000. If a teams covets a player enough to draft them, the bonus amount should be high enough to set the player up with a decent pay day to begin their playing career.

These quality of life upgrades would make a huge impact on the mental health and daily well being of players and allow them to focus on baseball.

Next week I plan on writing some quick reactions to the Giants minor league rosters and will also have an additional post about ways to improve the quality of life/job cycle for minor league coaches and staff.

The Reserve List Submission, with Seconds to Spare

The submission of a Major League teams reserve list always receives some off-season press, most notably which players got added to the 40 man roster (or perhaps, which players didn't get added to the 40 man roster, leaving them exposed to selection in the ML phase of the Rule 5 draft).

Internally, for ML Front Offices, it is a long process that involves a lot of discussions, arguments and decisions that tend to get made at the last possible minute.

The 40 man additions are generally made by the heads of the Baseball Ops Department (President of Baseball Ops/GM/Asst. GM...etc), with input from the Player Development Staff and Analytics department. There are a lot of details to account for when adding a player. How far away from the ML's is he? Will he exhaust his minor league options before he is ML ready? If required, which player is being taken off the 40 man roster to make room for the new player? Where does the new addition rank on our 40 (if you sign future MLB free agents, is this new addition going to be one of the first players taken off the 40 man)? All of those considerations (plus many more) have to be discussed and weighed before a player is added to the 40 man roster.

Additionally, tough decisions have to be made for which players belong on the AAA roster and which players belong on the AA roster. The distinction is huge. Players on the AAA roster must be selected in the ML phase of the rule 5 draft. Players on the AA roster can be selected in the AAA phase of the draft (essentially meaning an organization loses that player for a small fee). Baseball America has a good primer here - https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/explaining-the-rule-5-draft/

Although players taken off the AA roster rarely make an impact in the ML, it is never fun to lose a player that a PD staff has worked with for 4+ years. I can promise you, regardless of how poor the player has performed, there is a PD staff member somewhere who believes that player can be a ML player.

My personal experience with the reserve list submission has certainly caused some grey hairs, most notably our 2021 submission. As is common, final decisions on the 40 man additions plus the AAA/AA decisions were made about 30 minutes before the deadline. The administration requirement from MLB for a clubs reserve list submission is all moves must be entered in the MLB internal transaction system (which is called EBIS). Those moves are then approved by a MLB front office official. Once they are approved, you print off all of your minor league rosters, sign and date them and email them as a PDF to a designated email address. That email must be delivered before the deadline or it will not be recognized as official.

In 2021, with 30 minutes to go before the 1pm deadline, I received the final rosters. I quickly went into EBIS, entered all of the moves and waited for MLB to approve them. Usually MLB approves these transactions quickly, especially when it is near a deadline. However, for whatever reason, these transactions were not getting approved quickly. Five minutes passed, then ten and then 15. We were now about 12 minutes away from the deadline and I started to get nervous. I sent a group text that included a few MLB officials and a Giants employee asking "can our moves be approved?" The reply from MLB? "System isn't responding correctly, you will need to enter each move by hand on your roster."

Now it was time to panic. We did not have a printer set-up at this time in our home office so I had to print all rosters to a PDF, use a PDF editing software and manually cross out players that were on the wrong roster and add them to the correct roster. There were about a dozen moves that had to be handled this way (including the official addition of Ramos and Rodriguez to the 40 man roster). The process was time consuming and the clock was ticking. I got all of the moves entered, signed and dated and emailed them off. The time on the clock? 12:59 and 42 seconds. The rosters were submitted 18 seconds before the deadline. What would have happened if they were late? I have no idea and I am glad we didn't find out. I would assume the moves would not have been recognized as official by MLB. In hindsight, with the rule 5 draft being cancelled this year, it would have caused a lot of restless nights for no reason.

Deadlines tend to spur action. In this case, the action came down to the last second.

Labor Agreement Breakdown

It was a huge relief to see the MLBPA and the owners finally reach a deal on a new Labor Agreement. Overall, I believe the players did a very good job with this deal, particularly with some of the smaller "lifestyle" upgrades they were able to secure for a large majority of the union. Unfortunately, I get the sense we will have to sit through these "deadline" deals every five years. Here are some of my thoughts on certain components of the deal (it should be noted, any writings/thoughts of mine are independent of my past employer).

CBT Levels

Major League Baseball doesn't want to call this a cap, but it essentially works like one for teams. The penalties once you go over the established thresholds are significant enough that clubs strongly prefer to avoid them. If a team is in a Championship window, it behooves them to get the right player for their team, even if it means incurring a penalty (banners fly forever), but I would assume those teams would work very hard to get back under the thresholds the following year and "reset" the penalties.

For me, this section of the deal is a weird one for the players. A majority of the dissent ends up being between Owners (small market vs large market) and the players get stuck in the middle of that group. Overall, getting the first penalty threshold raised from $210M to $230M was a significant jump from where the negotiation amounts first started and an overall win for the players. There was a story I heard a few years ago where two teams that were up against the CBT limit were discussing the finances of a trade and one Assistant GM said "we are counting every dollar over here." The other team's Assistant GM retorted with "we are counting every penny here."

Expanded Playoffs

Unfortunately, this was bound to happen. I am just happy it is 12 teams and not 14. The appeal of baseball for me has long been the marathon nature of the season. You have to build depth to win over 162 games and secure a playoff spot. Winning in the regular season should be highly incentivized and it appears that was somewhat built into this deal with the two best division winners getting first round byes. Three game series are not ideal, but they will make for great TV. Additionally, you should see more meaningful games in September as .500 teams will most likely still have a shot at securing a playoff spot with one hot streak and the upper echelon teams will be fighting hard for the first round bye. 

Draft Lottery

Meh, who cares? Being subjected to a lottery isn't going to deter teams from attempting to lose (look at my beloved Trail Blazers this season). Tanking still gives you the advantage of having the best odds, so if teams are going to be bad, they might as well get the odds in their favor as well. I do like the limit on how many years in a row a club can be in the lottery. Hopefully, that puts pressure on clubs to get out of the bottom more quickly than under the old system.

Pre-Arb Bonus Pool + ML Minimum

I absolutely loved the creation of the $50M bonus pool for pre-arb players. It was a concept I had never personally heard discussed or thought about and found it very creative. Pre-arb players (0-3 years of service) are the biggest savings for clubs and provide unbelievable value. Even a 1 WAR RP (like Dominic Leone) was worth roughly $6M - $8M in 2021, so hopefully this pool adds in some additional payments to these players. I haven't seen the details on how the pool will be distributed (does a 5 WAR player get the same share of the pool as a 1.5 WAR Player? Will there be tiers?). I would expect this pool to be a point of contention in the next labor negotiation (players will want the overall pool amount raised, owners will not). On a related note, I was very pleased to see the ML minimum raised by such a large percentage ($570,500 in 2021 vs $700,000 beginning in 2022). As mentioned above, pre-arb players generally make the ML minimum and this is a significant jump for them. I still think it is too low. If I were the MLBPA, my goal in the next agreement would be to get the first year minimum to $850,000, the second year minimum to $950,000, increase the overall bonus pool to $75M - $80M and have arbitration start after two full service years (so four years of arbitration eligibility vs the current three). I believe they made that request this year and it was immediately dismissed by the owners. The value clubs gain on a majority of these players in their first 0 - 3 years cannot be overstated.

International Draft

I tweeted about this, but wanted to elaborate - I am pro-draft, especially internationally (in reality, I actually wish it was a free market for domestic and international players, with no cap on spending for teams, but unfortunately that will never happen). In the current international market, there is too much corruption and deceit. Players agree to terms as early as 13 years old. Then, if the player doesn't progress correctly, teams will take away chunks of the agreed upon bonus. Or, vice-versa, if a player exceeds his projected growth, other teams will attempt to 'steal' the player by offering a higher bonus amount. It puts unneeded pressure on young kids and their families.

Initial reports suggest if an International Draft was implemented, the overall bonus pool amount would be greater than the current system. If that is the case, I would expect an International Draft to be implemented in 3-4 years.

I was very surprised to see the MLBPA tie the International draft to the elimination of the qualifying offer. Typically, unions do not protect non-union members. In this case, the MLBPA is choosing between protecting 4-8 of their own members (players who might receive a qualifying offer) vs unsigned International Players, who are at best, four years away from being in the union. As I also posted on twitter, if the MLBPA is going to stand up for non-union members, why not stand up for all minor league players and demand a pay increase for non-40 man players and tie that to the elimination of the qualifying offer? Minor league pay/lifestyle is a very sensitive topic right now and one that I will elaborate on in a post later this month. It will be interesting to see how final negotiation plays out. It appears there is a July 25th deadline to make a deal on the structure of an International Draft.

Smaller (but important) Improvements

The minor league salary for 40 man players (IE - players on option) increased by 22.7%. This is HUGE! Last year, players on their first contract earned $46,600 while on option, this year, it will be $57,200. The amount is still too low, but that is a significant increase and will help young players on option earn a more livable wage. I hope to see this greatly increased in the next agreement.

Options being limited to five is another great improvement. The constant shuttle between AAA and the ML is tough on players (and their families). Do I rent in the ML city? Get a hotel room ($200+ per night), what about my apartment in AAA? Should I keep it? Rent it to a buddy? Ask the club to take it over? Imagine trying to sort out these life decisions while also attempting to establish yourself as a ML player. Being optioned up to five times is still a lot in my eyes, but at least there is a limit now, which should help players.

The new waiver rules (a team that claims a player on waivers goes to the back of the line when/if that player is placed on waivers later that year by a different team) will also help players and their families. Being designated for assignment and waiting for the process to play out is a very rough 7-10 day stretch. I was surprised the MLBPA didn't push for rules on how long a player that is claimed must remain on the 40 man roster (for example, if a team claims Player X, he must remain on the 40 man roster for 30 days with his new club). The prevalent strategy by clubs seems to be to claim a player and quickly put them back through waivers in an attempt to get them off the 40 man roster, but keep them in the organization as ML/AAA depth. That sort of back and forth for players and their families is chaotic and stressful. If there was a limit on how long a player must stay with his new claiming club, it would at least provide some stress relief for a little bit.

I expect additional (smaller) details to come out in the next few weeks. Follow me on twitter - @EricFlemming for additional thoughts. 

Next week I plan on writing about the reserve list submission process and how tight you can run up against a deadline when MLB wide systems falter.

A New Beginning

‘I have to quit my job.’ Those were the only words going through my mind.

It was July 19th, 2021 and I was mad. My seven year old son Jackson was in the back seat crying hysterically. I had just tried to drop him off at baseball camp and he refused to go in. This was an atypical response from him. Like his ‘Papa,’ Jackson loves sports, he cannot get enough of them. And he was refusing to walk in the doors to a camp he had been attending for a week.

The worst part? I was mad at him. Mad because I was taking him home for the day and knew it would be hard to get the pile of work completed with a seven year old by my side.

After the crying stopped and he was able to get words out, I asked him why he didn’t want to go to camp. His next words set in motion the biggest/hardest life decision I ever made - “I don’t want you to leave again.”

I worked in baseball for 16 years. The first year (2006) was as an intern with the Oakland A’s in the Community Relations department, the last 15 have been with the San Francisco Giants in the Baseball Operations department. For the past four years, I have been the Assistant Director of Player Development. I traveled a lot. In non-Covid years, I would be at spring training for 45 -50 days and then attend minor league games 16-20 days a month. That’s roughly 140-150 days a year of missed family dinners/bedtime routines/carpools to school. On this particular July day, I had recently returned from draft meetings in Arizona. Apparently my son had hit his tipping point on his Dad being away.

Working in baseball has been a dream of mine for as long as I can remember. Before I even hit the teenage years, I was doing Baseball Digest fantasy competitions under my Mom’s name. I would phone in my weekly lineup and pour over the boxscores each morning, tallying up how my team did by hand in my “fantasy baseball” notebook. I even won some money a few times. Becoming a baseball GM became my life dream, and I pursued the hell out of it. I’ll never forget where I was when the A’s called to offer me my first internship or when the Giants called to offer me a baseball ops position. You don’t forget moments when your dream starts becoming a reality.

For 16 years I pursued those dreams. There were some unbelievable moments (some of them I will be writing about in later posts).

However, on July 19th, those dreams changed with Jackson’s words. The new dream was being a father and husband who was going to be around as much as possible for my son, wife and daughter (Amelia, who is about to turn 5).

When we got home that day, i didn’t turn on my computer or return text messages. I spent the day with my son. We played catch, watched some shows, played Mario Kart, ate some junk food and messed around with his monster trucks. My wife and daughter were out of town for the week, so when it was bedtime, I laid down with him in our bed until he fell asleep. I then snuck out and spent a handful of hours getting back to people I had ignored all day.

Ending a lifelong dream doesn’t happen overnight. For the next four months I spent countless hours internally sorting through my feelings and having conversations with my wife. In the end, we reached the conclusion that in 20 years I would have more regrets about missing family time than I would about missing opportunities in baseball.

Telling Kyle Haines (the Giants Director of PD and someone I highly respect as a boss and friend), wasn’t easy. There were feelings of guilt that I was letting him, our minor league players and staff down. That group of people had become my second family and I was leaving them. But as Buster Posey said in his retirement press conference “you’re not as important as you think you are.” Somebody will fill my shoes, the work will get done and life will go on.

The first thing I did after hanging up with Kyle was sign up to coach Jackson’s little league team. An opportunity i never would have had working in baseball. Instead of watching live BP’s this spring, I’ll be helping groom the next wave of SF baseball players on the little league diamonds of San Francisco.

Baseball still is and will remain my biggest passion. I hope to use this blog as a way to stay engaged in the game with weekly posts. You can also follow me on Twitter @EricFlemming, where I will be able to become much more active now.

Please feel free to message me any topics you would like to see covered. Some of the topics/stories I hope to write about early include;

-Rule 5 preview, players the Giants are at risk to lose (if there is a rule 5 draft).

-Some inside stories that were incredible to experience (Buster Posey draft signing coming down to the literal last minute. The 2021 reserve list being 25 seconds away from being submitted late. ‘What if’ trade discussions).

-Ways to improve the minor leagues for players and staff (it certainly involves paying them more).

I also hope to touch on the nuts and bolts of player development / baseball ops that are out of the spotlight but play an integral part in a teams success or failure.

I look forward to the baseball conversations this platform will provide!