Is Bud Selig Going to Allow the Red Sox to Circumvent the Waiver Rules?

[Frobby]

This sounds ridiculous to me. The Red Sox have made a deal with Andrew Miller that for all intents and purposes has a "poison pill" in the event of a waiver claim by another team:

Here’s the basics – Miller signed a minor league contract with the Red Sox, with the plan being for him to begin the year in Triple-A. If he is called up at any point, they will have to pass him through waivers before they can re-assign him to Pawtucket, as he is out of options. If Miller had a good showing in his time in the big leagues, there would be a decent chance that another team would have taken a shot at him, and used the waiver process to grab him for themselves. So, to prevent that from happening, the Red Sox gave Miller a $3 million option for 2012 that vests if he’s claimed on waivers by another team.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/andrew-millers-vesting-option/

I'm sorry, but that's preposterous, and if Selig allows that deal to go through, it's just going to be one more way that the rich teams get richer.

[russ snyder]

This sounds ridiculous to me. The Red Sox have made a deal with Andrew Miller that for all intents and purposes has a "poison pill" in the event of a waiver claim by another team:

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/andrew-millers-vesting-option/

I'm sorry, but that's preposterous, and if Selig allows that deal to go through, it's just going to be one more way that the rich teams get richer.

I agree, It is preposterous. The contract has probably been accepted by MLB. Besides the Sox creatively stockpiling talent, my problem with it is Millers' service time being restricted. It is his choice. (He has three million reasons to make this choice!) However, I think this presents an interesting dilemma for the players union. Guaranteed option money vs. service time on a major league roster.

[waroriole]

Any other commish and I would say "no way is that going through." But, we all know that Selig has no marbles and I just can't see him standing up to the Sox.

[sangar]

If the Sox are allowed to do this there will be nothing stopping every other team from doing the same thing.

Why is this bad?

[Blizzard1090]

Any other commish and I would say "no way is that going through." But, we all know that Selig has no marbles and I just can't see him standing up to the Sox.

Bottom line, for the most part, Selig will do nothing to stand up to the Yankees or Red Sox, the biggest cash cows of MLB.

[twoBshorty]

Bottom line, for the most part, Selig will do nothing to stand up to the Yankees or Red Sox, the biggest cash cows of MLB.

What is stopping anyone else from doing this? Absolutely nothing, except that they didn't think of it. It's pretty clever, and as long as the rules don't change, everyone should feel perfectly free to do the same thing.

[Big Mac]

Andrew Miller has no ML future anyway...

[Mad Mark]

Any other commish and I would say "no way is that going through." But, we all know that Selig has no marbles and I just can't see him standing up to the Sox.

Until Hank $teingrabber calls and throws a tantrum.

[Frobby]

What is stopping anyone else from doing this? Absolutely nothing, except that they didn't think of it. It's pretty clever, and as long as the rules don't change, everyone should feel perfectly free to do the same thing.

It favors the wealthy teams and allows them to stockpile talent. It's the equivalent of increasing the number of scholarships that a college team can hand out, which benefits the elite teams at the expense of everyone else.

[square634]

It favors the wealthy teams and allows them to stockpile talent. It's the equivalent of increasing the number of scholarships that a college team can hand out, which benefits the elite teams at the expense of everyone else.

Agreed. If you can do this, why not put the same type of provision in contracts regarding waivers after July 31... and then you'd have a lot more options after the trade deadline

[BaltimoreTerp]

It favors the wealthy teams and allows them to stockpile talent. It's the equivalent of increasing the number of scholarships that a college team can hand out, which benefits the elite teams at the expense of everyone else.

I would call it similar to the "gray-shirting" that is starting to come to light as a practice among big-college coaches. They convince talented players to enroll at the school without a scholarship with vague promises of eventually joining the team. After a season, they evaluate the team and either drop players who aren't showing promise or they tell the ones waiting "Thanks, but no thanks."

It's disgusting, among all of the other disgusting parts of college sports, but technically it is legal.

[Station 13]

wow all this virtual ink wasted on Andrew freaking Miller.

[BaltimoreTerp]

wow all this virtual ink wasted on Andrew freaking Miller.

I hope you can see the point behind it.

[SteveA]

I would call it similar to the "gray-shirting" that is starting to come to light as a practice among big-college coaches. They convince talented players to enroll at the school without a scholarship with vague promises of eventually joining the team. After a season, they evaluate the team and either drop players who aren't showing promise or they tell the ones waiting "Thanks, but no thanks."

It's disgusting, among all of the other disgusting parts of college sports, but technically it is legal.

Just want to clarify: the term gray-shirting actually specifically means having a guy not enroll in the fall semester, but enroll in the spring semester the next Jan/Feb, so he counts against next year's scholarship allotment and not this year's.

It can be done without abuse: coach tells borderline prospect in a year he is short on scholarships because he is, say, only losing 10 seniors: sign a letter of intent, I promise you a scholarship but I don't want you to enroll until January. Our strength and conditioning coach will give you a weight program to work on in the fall and when you show up next January you WILL be given a scholarship. Player agrees to this in advance. Coach keeps his word and does indeed have a scholarship for the player the next year. Beamer does this at Tech, and I see nothing dishonest or disgusting about it. (And, occasionally, a player will flunk out of school or get kicked off the team for committing some crime or decide to transfer to Div1-AA for more playing time, and Beamer will then go to the greyshirt kid and say you can enroll in the fall after all).

Now what a lot of SEC and other schools are doing is abusing both grey-shirting and the scholarship limitations. They give more scholarships than they have and essentially have tryouts and wind up withdrawing scholarships later. They convince the kid it's in his own best interest to go somewhere else because he'll never see the field at State U. So they effectively can tie up more than the allowed # of prospects and use summer practice as an opportunity to weed out a few. That, I agree, is disgusting. As is telling a kid to greyshirt and then not having the scholarship available for him when January comes along.

[BaltimoreTerp]

Just want to clarify: the term gray-shirting actually specifically means having a guy not enroll in the fall semester, but enroll in the spring semester the next Jan/Feb, so he counts against next year's scholarship allotment and not this year's.

It can be done without abuse: coach tells borderline prospect in a year he is short on scholarships because he is, say, only losing 10 seniors: sign a letter of intent, I promise you a scholarship but I don't want you to enroll until January. Our strength and conditioning coach will give you a weight program to work on in the fall and when you show up next January you WILL be given a scholarship. Player agrees to this in advance. Coach keeps his word and does indeed have a scholarship for the player the next year. Beamer does this at Tech, and I see nothing dishonest or disgusting about it. (And, occasionally, a player will flunk out of school or get kicked off the team for committing some crime or decide to transfer to Div1-AA for more playing time, and Beamer will then go to the greyshirt kid and say you can enroll in the fall after all).

Now what a lot of SEC and other schools are doing is abusing both grey-shirting and the scholarship limitations. They give more scholarships than they have and essentially have tryouts and wind up withdrawing scholarships later. They convince the kid it's in his own best interest to go somewhere else because he'll never see the field at State U. So they effectively can tie up more than the allowed # of prospects and use summer practice as an opportunity to weed out a few. That, I agree, is disgusting. As is telling a kid to greyshirt and then not having the scholarship available for him when January comes along.

Thanks for clearing that up. That's a good point that it can be done in an honest manner. However it still is going around NCAA regulations and, even if legal, still makes me queasy because of the opportunity for abuse.