2013: A study of service time manipulation

[Frobby]

The Eight Players Who Debuted Between May 8 and June 8, 2013

 As explained, the Super Two date is not known until the end of the season two years after a player’s debut.    But based on experience in other years, in 2013 the likely cutoff date would have been in the May 8 – June 8 window.    Generally speaking, the later the debut date in this window, the more reason to think the team was probably trying to game the Super Two date.    But in each case you have to look at the circumstances.

Derek Dietrich, May 8:  A second round pick by Tampa in 2010, Dietrich split 2012 between Hi A and AA and posted an .811 and .753 OPS at those stops.   He had never been ranked in the BA top 100.   He got off to a hot start in 2013, posting a .913 OPS in 28 AA games, and got his call-up.  He had a .679 OPS in the majors in 56 games before being returned to AA, where he finished out the MiL season with an .869 OPS the rest of the way and did not get a September call-up.   He’s bounced between the majors and minors a few times.    He actually became a Super Two after the 2016 season, as the result of the accumulation of a couple partial seasons worth of service time.

Verdict: No manipulation.

Kevin Gausman, May 23: I won’t belabor this one because you are all familiar with him.    The no. 4 overall pick in 2012, he was ranked no. 26 by BA going into 2013.   He made his major league debut after making 8 AA starts in which he posted a 3.11 ERA.   From there, he bounced  back and forth between the majors and minors numerous times in 2013-15.   He eventually became a full time major leaguer in 2016 and was a Super Two after that season, like Dietrich, based on the accumulation of a few partial seasons.   After being traded to Atlanta in his Arb-2 season, he was released in his Arb-3 season.

Verdict: No manipulation

Cesar Hernandez, May 29:  An international signee unranked by BA, Hernandez spent most if 2012 in AA and spent the last 30 games in AAA, OPSing .781 and .567.  He had an .811 OPS in 50 AAA games in 2013 before his call-up.   He only spent 10 days with the Phillies before going back to the minors, and then returned to the majors during September call-ups.   Spent a good bit of 2014 in the minors as well and ended up as a Super Two after the 2016 season based on several partial seasons.    Got released  before his Arb 4 season after making $7.75 mm in Arb 3, and signed with Cleveland for $6.25 mm this season and had a great year, winning a Gold Glove and being worth 1.8 rWAR in the short season.    He’s a free agent now.

Verdict: No manipulation.

Alex Wood, May 30: A second round pick in 2012, Wood got no higher than low A that summer and was not ranked by BA going into 2013.   In hindsight, he should have been.   He skipped high A, made 10 AA starts with a 1.26 ERA, got promoted to the majors, where he was used in relief.   Though he was highly effective in his first 16 appearances, he was sent to AAA where he made one start and then returned to the majors as a starter.   He finished the year with 123 days of service which ended up being one week short of what he would have needed to qualify as a Super Two.

Verdict: Certainly no manipulation to delay free agency.   You can argue that the Braves could have called him up sooner but waited for May 30 for Super Two reasons.    But honestly, he was a second round pick who made it to the majors less than a year after he was drafted – are you really going to argue his debut was delayed for service time reasons?

Michael Wacha, May 30: Drafted no. 19 in 2012 and ranked no. 76 by BA going into 2013, like Wood and Gausman from that class he made it to the majors in less than a year.   In 2012 he only pitched 8 innings but the Cardinals tested him in rookie league, high A and AA in those innings.   He went straight to AAA to begin 2013, and was called up after making nine starts to a 2.05 ERA in the hitter-friendly PCL.   He made three starts, with two very good starts sandwiching one poor outing, and got sent back to the minors for a month before returning to the majors for the rest of the season.   He ended up accruing 62 days of service time that year, nowhere close to on track for Super Two.  

Verdict: Like Wood, you could argue that he could have been called up a week or two earlier, but it’s really hard to argue that his debut was delayed artificially and the Cards didn’t keep him in the majors all year anyway.   I’d say no manipulation.

Alex Colome, May 30:   An international signee, Colome had been ranked no. 68 by BA before the 2010 season but was unranked the next four years.   In 2012 he spent most of the year as a starter in AA and started 3 games at AAA at the end of the year.    He made ten AAA starts in 2013, to a 2.60 ERA, and got his call-up, but only for one start.    He had an excellent game (5.2 IP, 5 H, 0 ER) but was sent back to the minors for five more starts, returning on June 22.   He got hurt after two starts and missed the rest of the year.  He began 2014 on the DL, and ended up pitching only five major league games in 2014.

Verdict:    More of a borderline case than some of the others.    It could have been possible to start Colome in the majors after three AAA starts the year before, but the case wasn’t compelling.   The fact that, once he got called up on May 30, they sent him right back for five more starts, suggests that his debut had not been timed with Super Two in mind.    But, I can’t say for sure.

Yasiel Puig, June 3:  Puig already had signed a major league contract in 2012 with salaries that extended all the way through 2018.   After signing on June 29, he played a month of minor league ball in 2012 getting as high as A+.    He played AA in 2013 for 40 games before his call-up.    

Verdict:  This is a unique case.    The Dodgers already had Puig signed for 2012-2018.  Would they really have delayed his call-up to gain an extra year of service?   If so, his Super Two status would be completely irrelevant since he was under contract for all but his Arb 4 season.    So, if they thought he was ready for the majors, they could have called him up in late April and gotten the extra year, but they chose to wait until early June to call him up.    I can only conclude that service time issues were not a factor in when Puig got called up.

Scooter Gennett, June 3:  A 16^th round pick in 2009, Gennett played 2012 in AA and posted a .714 OPS.   He was unranked by BA.   He posted a .719 OPS in the PCL in 50 games before his call-up.   He spent three weeks in the majors, posted a .607 OPS in that time and was returned to the minors.    He was called up again at the end of July and spent the rest of the year in the majors.   He stayed in the majors throughout 2014 but bounced back and forth a bit in 2015.

Verdict: No manipulation.

That concludes the players who debuted during the period where Super Two status was uncertain.   Only Cesar Hernandez and Alex Colome had played any AAA ball going into 2013, and each case they had spent less than a month there.   In the end, only Alex Wood came close to attaining Super Two status, falling a week short, and it’s a bit hard to say his debut was deferred for that reason given his little MiL experience and unranked status going into 2013.   In my opinion, while it is possible that service time issues played some role in decisions for a couple of these players, there is no obvious case of service time manipulation in any of these.

I will have one more long post looking at the 7 players who were called up from June 9-30, which would have been considered “safe” from a Super Two perspective.    I probably won’t get to that before the weekend, because it takes some time to put these together.    But I’ll tease it by saying I do think there’s at least one pretty clear case of service time manipulation in that group, and maybe more.

[Frobby]

The seven players who debuted June 11-30, 2013

 By June 11, MLB was well past the latest date when anyone ever qualified as a Super Two.    These are players who debuted shortly after the “uncertain” period expired.

Gerrit Cole, June 11:   The no. 1 pick of the 2011 draft, Cole didn’t pitch that year.   BA ranked him 12^th going into the 2012 season and he split his time between high A (13 starts, 2.55 ERA) and AA (12 starts, 2.90 ERA) and made one AAA start.   BA ranked him 7^th going into 2013.   Cole made 12 AAA starts, to a 3.04 ERA, before his June 11 major league debut.   He threw 19 starts to a 3.30 ERA as a major leaguer that year, and accrued 111 days of major league service, falling short of what eventually was needed for Super Two status.   He has never looked back.

Verdict:   You can debate whether the Pirates held off putting Cole on the Opening Day roster purely to avoid him getting a full year of service time, but as he really hadn’t pitched AAA perhaps it was justifiable.    However, Cole quickly showed he was dominating AAA, and there is a strong case to be made that the Pirates held him back until June 11 to be sure they were past the Super Two date.

Mike Zunino, June 12:   The no. 3 pick in the 2012 draft, Zunino played 29 games of short season A (1.210 OPS) and jumped to 15 games of AA (.974 OPS) the year he was drafted.   BA ranked him 17^th going into 2013.   Zunino moved up to AAA to begin 2013, and posted and .806 OPS in the PCL before his call-up, spending the rest of the year in the majors with a .620 OPS and earning 111 days of service.    He struggled mightily the next two years, and ended up back in the minors at the end of 2015 and half of 2016.

Verdict:   Given that he was only drafted in 2012 and hadn’t played AAA, I would not say that Zunino started 2013 in AAA due to service time manipulation.     You could argue that he was held back until June 12 to avoid Super Two, but an .806 OPS in the PCL is good not great, and his major league performance shows he may not have been ready.    So, I’ll say it’s a weak case for manipulation.

Wil Myers, June 18:  A third round pick out of high school in 2009, Myers quickly showed he’d been underrated, posting a 1.106 OPS in rookie ball that summer, and then following that up in 2010 with a .906 OPS in low A and  .966 in High A.    That got BA’s attention, and Myers jumped from unranked to 10^th going into 2011.   That year he had a pedestrian .745 OPS in AA, but a sizzling 1.156 in the AFL, slipping to 28 in the pre-2012 rankings.   In 2012 he played 35 games of AA to a 1.146 OPS, followed by 99 games in the PCL at .936.    BA moved him all the way to no. 4 that winter, and was traded to Tampa as the feature piece of a trade involving James Shields and Wade Davis going to KC.    Tampa kept him in AAA to begin 2013, and he posted an .876 in 64 International League games before getting his promotion and posting an .831 OPS the rest of the year, earning 104 days of service.   He has had a solid career from there, but perhaps not as good as his no. 4 prospect status had suggested.

Verdict:   Pretty strong case of service time manipulation here, both as to being kept off the Opening Day roster to avoid earning a full year of service, and as to avoiding Super Two status.   

Zach Wheeler, June 18:   Chosen 6^th in the 2009 draft (directly after Matt Hobgood, to our everlasting chagrin), Wheeler did not pitch in the minors that year and entered 2010 as BA’s no. 49 prospect.  He was ranked each year and by 2012 split the season between AA (19 starts, 3.26 ERA) and AAA (6 starts, 3.27 ERA).   He went into 2013 as the BA no. 11 prospect.   Traded that winter, he threw 13 starts in the PCL before debuting with the Mets on June 18, and from there he made 17 starts to a 3.42 ERA, earning 98 days of service.   He’s gone on to a solid career from there, interrupted by TJ surgery in 2015-16.

Verdict:    There’s a pretty decent argument that Wheeler was ready on Opening Day, and certainly was ready well before June 18.    Pretty good case for service time manipulation on this one.

Corey Dickerson, June 22:  An 8^th round pick in 2010, Dickerson was never ranked by BA at any time.    He played rookie ball in 2010 after a year of Juco, Sally League in 2011 (.986 OPS), and split 2012 between A+ (.980 OPS) and AA (.826), also playing well in the AFL (.883).   He began 2013 in the PCL and posted a 1.046 OPS there in 75 games.   Once promoted to the Rockies, he posted a .775 OPS and earned 101 days of service.

Verdict:  An underrated player in his minor league years, I’d say no manipulation in starting him at AAA in 2013, but a decent case his debut was delayed beyond the early season to avoid Super Two status.   The main argument against this is that the Rockies could have called him up 10-14 days sooner than they did and still would have been very safe from a Super Two standpoint.   The fact that they didn’t suggests that his debut date may not have been influenced by Super Two.

Brad Miller, June 28: A second round choice in 2011 out of college, Miller was never ranked by BA.   He had a short but nice debut in his draft year, posting a .986 OPS in 14 games of low A.    In 2012 he played 90 games in high A (.936 OPS) and 40 at AA (.882).    He returned to AA to being 2013 (.850 OPS in 42 games) got promoted to AAA (1.022 in 26 games) and then debuted in the majors, where he had a .737 OPS the rest of that year, earning 94 days of service.

Verdict:   Given that Miller was not called up until at least three weeks after the “uncertain” period expired, and hadn’t even played AAA until May 25, I do not think service time manipulation was involved here.    It’s just a case of a player who was sort of underrated all along.

Kyle Gibson, June 29:  Drafted 22^nd out of college in 2009, Gibson did not pitch that summer and was ranked no. 61 by BA going into 2010.   A fast mover, Gibson threw 7 high A games (1.87 ERA), 16 AA games (3.77) and three AAA games (1.72), seemingly on a fast track to the majors.   He was ranked no. 34 by BA going into 2011.   But that year, he made 18 starts to  4.81 ERA and was shut down for Tommy John surgery, going unranked pre-2012 and only throwing 51 innings that season between the GCL, A+, AAA and the AFL.   He showed enough at those stops for BA to restore him to no. 68 going into 2013.   He began that year at AAA and had a 3.01 ERA in 15 starts before his major league promotion, struggling in the majors, struggling there (6.53 ERA in 10 starts) and being returned to the minors in mid-August and being shut down after that.   Gibson made the Opening Day rotation the next year and has gone on to have a solid career.

Verdict:  Having lost most of 2012 to TJ surgery rehab, it is not surprising that Gibson started 2013 in the minors.    He did well enough in AAA that you could argue he could have been called to the majors sooner.    However, since he was called up a full three weeks after a “safe” date, I tend to think this was just the Twins being cautious.   I’d say no manipulation here.

Well, there’s your list.   I think anyone who wasn’t called up until July clearly wasn’t deferred purely for service time reasons.

I’ll come back later with a few other comments now that the list is complete.

[Just Regular]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

Wil Myers, June 18:  A third round pick out of high school in 2009, Myers quickly showed he’d been underrated, posting a 1.106 OPS in rookie ball that summer, and then following that up in 2010 with a .906 OPS in low A and  .966 in High A.    That got BA’s attention, and Myers jumped from unranked to 10^th going into 2011.   That year he had a pedestrian .745 OPS in AA, but a sizzling 1.156 in the AFL, slipping to 28 in the pre-2012 rankings.  

Rays for the Gold Medal!   

Zunino I think it is fair to say zero manipulation, even un-manipulation, as the Mariners I think hoped he could do 2012 Machado things, and they maybe messed him up.

I grabbed the Myers First Two Years after High School bit as a wildest dreams script for Gunnar Henderson, while we wait to see if a year of practice with the older guys can be anything like a full year of A ball when you're 19 years old.   I suppose Year 1 Mayo too, if he can make Delmarva.

Thanks as always for the interesting stuff!

[Frobby]

OK, so recapping:

- 230 players debuted in 2013.

- Of those, 50 turned out to be 5+ rWAR players (to date).

- Of the 50, 22 debuted during the period where you might suspect service time manipulation either to avoid the player earning a full year of service, or becoming a Super Two, or both.

- But when you drill down, there’s only 1-2 cases where there’s any sign of avoidance of a full year or service, and maybe 4-5 cases where avoidance of Super Two might be suspected.    And in my opinion, none of these cases were blatant.   

Now, at the same time I’ll put out the following qualifiers:

- I only studied one year, and there’s no saying it was typical.   Certainly we know of blatant cases in other years, like Springer (2014) and Bryant (2015).    

- There could be guys who debuted in September and then had their re-debut the next year delayed to avoid a full year of service.    Those are hard to spot and probably rare, and I didn’t try. 

- There could be a couple of players who were highly regarded at the time, had their debut date manipulated, but never reached the 5 rWAR threshold due to injury or just not turning out as well as expected.    But 5 rWAR is a pretty low threshold, so I tend to doubt I missed much.    

Overall, what I take away from this is that service time manipulation happens, but not a lot.   

I reached a similar conclusion previously when I looked at a ten-year window in a less detailed way than I did here.   Here’s a link to that thread, from the end of 2019:

 

[Can_of_corn]

Thanks for all the work.

 

That follows with what I have been saying.  It happens but pretty infrequently.  I think the posters here that want to game everyone's clock need to reign that impulse in.

[Just Regular]

With everyone on the 40, let's hope if Baumann or Diaz can simply outplay the field for jobs the org hopes they take for many years anyway that the opportunity is there.

I do think there's no substitute for MLB reps for acclimating, though I'm sure every club's Sports Science department is working the question.   I am keen for all relevant guy's 2022 Opening Day readiness to be maximized.

I have some faith that on Stewart v. Diaz for DH Bowie gave the club some better sample size to compare with than whatever 50-ish Grapefruit PA's also hint at.

The observation poking around swing-based stats on FG that Stewart and Sisco both had Zone contact rates similar to Davis has me a little bearish on both compared to where I used to be.

[Just Regular]

Bumping Rick's awesome work as we are nearing Wander time, wondering about Adley (and maybe even Grayson and DL?), and because I'm processing this fun one this morning.

Ryan Weathers is listed by Cots with 0.000 service days entering this year, but I believe he made the team Opening Day, which tracks as the Padres decided he was good enough to pitch the playoffs for them last year.

He was the one 18-year-old American high school pitcher 3 drafts ago the Clubs thought was better than Carter Stewart and Grayson Rodriguez.   He's a month younger than Grayson, and in addition to the postseason experience, he has also managed to pitch to a ~2.50 ERA in about 50 innings so far in The Show this year.

Looking forward to hearing Preller's framing, probably going to be workload-related.

Bonus friendly media points to Lin for trying to steer reaction towards bullpen length.

Season IP in games for Weathers and Grayson 2018-2021 that I can see on B-Ref this morning:

Weathers:   18 |  96  |  1  |  47

Grayson:  19  |  94  |  0  |  38

Weathers can miss some time and still earn credit for a full season of service, and you have to imagine the Union has its popcorn ready counting the days.   Good luck to the AAA batters.