Everyone Looks Bad In the Brady Aiken Mess
This was supposed to be the year that things started heading in the right direction for the Houston Astros, you know. After bottoming out in 2013 with a third straight 100-loss season, a season-ending 16-game losing streak, 0.0 television ratings, and endless accusations of “not trying to win,” they were expected to at least trend upwards in 2014. Thanks to importing major league players in Dexter Fowler and Scott Feldman, welcoming top prospects George Springer and Jon Singleton, and seeing unexpected steps forward from Jose Altuve and Dallas Keuchel, it largely has. The Astros are still a bad team, but they aren’t even last in their own division, and they’re merely within the range of other bad teams, as opposed to drifting on their own private island of awful.
But despite some on-field positives, it’s still been a tough few weeks for the organization. The leaked Ground Control files were an embarrassment. Stories began to pop up about potential hits to the organization’s reputation thanks to their non-traditional methods. 2012 top pick Carlos Correa had a successful season cut short by a broken leg. 2013 top pick Mark Appel has struggled badly in A-ball. Now, there’s this: Casey Close, the agent for 2014 top overall pick Brady Aiken, is criticizing the Astros for how they’ve handled negotiations with both Aiken and another of his Astros-drafted clients, fifth-round high school pitcher Jacob Nix.
To catch you up for those just joining us:
- On June 7, two days after the draft, Jim Callis reported that the Astros and Aiken had agreed to terms including a $6.5 million bonus, tying Jameson Taillon for the largest bonus ever given to a high school pitcher, but still under the $7,922,710 slot for the 1-1 pick.
- On July 7, Jon Heyman reported that an “elbow ligament” issue had been discovered by the Astros in a pre-deal medical exam, and that since the contract hadn’t been officially finalized, they’d lowered their offer to $5m. (Some reports dispute whether a $5m option was offered, but it no longer seems on the table.)
- Tuesday, Ken Rosenthal had Close’s reaction, expressing his displeasure with how the Astros are “conducting business in this manner with a complete disregard for the rules governing the draft and the 29 other clubs who have followed those same rules,” and noting that a revised offer for $3.16m was extended to make sure Houston would get a compensation pick next year.
Needless to say, it’s getting ugly, and with a Friday afternoon deadline looming to finalize the contract, all sides are in a tough position.
Most of the public opinion seems to be anti-Astros, and it’s not hard to see why. A huge company and a teenager who just graduated high school had a handshake agreement, and the agreement is coming apart not because the teenager changed his mind, but because the huge company is going back on their word. Absent any further facts, most people are going to take the side of the teen — two teens, really, because Nix has gotten caught up in this mess as well. Specific to the Astros, there’s obviously plenty of people in and outside the game who would be all too happy to see their unprecedented “tear it down” strategy fail, and especially to see the self-described nerds in the organization exit the game with their tails between their legs, properly shamed for trying to change the way things are done.
Maybe the Astros really are being underhanded here, as many seem to think, using the flimsiest excuse possible to save a few bucks. It’s certainly a difficult sell to claim that Aiken’s elbow is unhealthy, considering that he struck out 14 and hit 98 mph in his final appearance of the season and never reported any pain. If there was something in the exam that seems unusual, well, find any pitcher of any skill level that won’t have something odd you could point to on a scan. Aiken and his camp are extremely unhappy, and they’re absolutely right to feel that way.
Without knowing the facts, we can’t say for sure. Anyone who isn’t a medical doctor who hasn’t examined Aiken themselves can offer only speculation, and that Aiken’s high school coach and personal trainer both claim he’s healthy doesn’t really add anything to the conversation. Nor does Close’s word carry a lot of weight here, and that has nothing to do with his integrity, as he’s very well-respected. It has everything to do with the fact that his job is to get two of his clients paid, and anything he says that admits a problem with Aiken’s arm goes directly against that goal. Besides, there’s obviously different ways to read arm problems; it may be that the Astros have found something they consider to be a problem in the near future, if not immediately. One source told the Houston Chronicle that “he may have some of the UCL, but not much,” which is absolutely terrifying. It’s interesting to note that Rosenthal’s piece describes Close as saying that Aiken is asymptomatic and ready to pitch, which is not the same thing as refuting the Astros’ supposed findings.
It’s also not as though teams have never dropped agreed-upon offers upon finding issues in exams. Remember Barret Loux? He was the No. 6 overall pick by Arizona in 2010, and the sides agreed to a $2m signing bonus. After finding what they considered severe arm problems in a pre-draft exam, they withdrew the offer, preferring to take a compensation pick the next season instead. (They got Archie Bradley with the compensation pick. That worked out well.) Declared a free agent, Loux pitched three minor league seasons with the Rangers and Cubs, and, as Arizona feared, he blew out his arm and underwent Tommy John surgery in March. In 1996, R.A. Dickey‘s bonus was reduced by more than $700,000 after an exam revealed he had no UCL. Seven years later, Tim Stauffer’s bonus dropped from $2.6m to $750,000 after a report of shoulder weakness. Teams can’t get their doctors to give full examinations until after a player has been drafted, so until there’s more of an NFL combine type of situation, this sort of thing happens.
Now in those situations, there seemed to be less conflict about the accuracy of the medical report, making them not fully applicable here. (To use a non-draft scenario, look at Baltimore backing out of a deal with Grant Balfour last winter over medical concerns that the pitcher disagreed with; Balfour landed in Tampa Bay, where his velocity has been down and he’s been awful.) But if the Astros truly believe that there’s a problem, then what they’re doing is not unprecedented — and if Aiken’s camp believes he’s fully healthy, then they should rightfully be infuriated by the sudden decrease of millions of dollars after an agreement was reached. None of us know the truth about the medical exams, so we can’t speculate. Here’s what we can do, though: point yet another accusatory finger at the broken system that has brought us here.
* * *
Think about why the Astros would drop their offer and potentially damage their relationship with a player who hopefully should be a big part of their organization for years to come. When you hear terms like “lowball,” as this San Diego Union-Tribune article from last week says multiple times with apparently no understanding of how baseball negotiating works or that Nix was offered a deal nearly five times above slot, you think they’re being cheap. You think they’re trying to pocket the money, as so many have accused them of doing over the past few years rather than spending on big league talent.
Now think about just how little $1.5m — the difference between the agreed-upon deal and the reported discounted offer — or even $3.4m, which is the difference between the first deal and the reported $3.1m offer, is. In baseball terms, it’s absolutely nothing. It’s a half-season of a backup outfielder. Even within the context of a 17-year-old who has a long way to go before he’s a big leaguer, it’s very, very little. Unless they were convinced that Aiken was so injured that he could not be a productive asset, there’s no reason for the Astros to not just stick to the agreement and avoid all the terrible PR this is bringing. A few million isn’t nothing, but it’s not worth this, either.
Of course, that not how this works. It’s not about taking money from the hands of a teenager and putting it back into the owner’s pockets, as seems to be insinuated in some of these stories. It’s about allocating the limited dollars they have available, because as we can very clearly see in Rosenthal’s article, the effects that the Aiken disagreement is having on Nix is part of what’s making Close and the player’s union unhappy:
Close and the union are particularly upset that the Astros have tied the signing of Aiken to the signing of Nix, who remains in limbo despite passing his physical.
If we can all agree on anything, it’s that this stinks for Nix, who agreed to sign and now can’t, pending the resolution of something that has nothing to do with him. That’s going to be a theme, because this is also due in no small part to a system that he had no say in shaping, but that is considerably affecting his ability to enter the professional ranks.
When the new CBA was agreed to following the 2011 season, baseball fans celebrated the fact that the game would continue uninterrupted, but perhaps not enough understood just how much it restricted the freedom to spend on the draft. Teams now had to stick to draft pools for their top-10 selections, with severe penalties should they go over. For the Astros this year, that number for 10 players is a total of $13,362,200, with the No.1 slot valued at $7.9 million. When you hear that a team “lowballed” a top pick by not offering him the full slot, it’s actually a strategy to be able to spend that money elsewhere — say, for example, giving a later-round player an above-slot deal to convince him to forgo college. (It’s also why the conversation about how much more Aiken would make as a free agent seems misguided, because this system artificially depresses the free market, meaning while that’s true for Aiken, it’s also true for dozens of other highly-regarded draftees.)
At the time, Dave Cameron summed up how awful it looked like it would be:
These penalties are so severe that they essentially eliminate any benefit a team would get from signing a player for more than the slot recommendation, so they equate to de facto hard slotting. Teams no longer have the ability to spend heavily to convince players who were strongly committed to colleges (or other sports) to forego those options and begin a career as a professional.
More or less, that’s what’s happened. With the institution of the draft pools, teams have to consider how some deals affect other deals. Despite Close’s assertion that “if every player was contingent on another player, we would have no draft, we would have no draft pool, we would have no signings,” we see it all the time. Just last week, the White Sox signed No. 2 pick Carlos Rodon for an over-slot $6.5m bonus, basically using up their draft pool elsewhere and saying “that’s what’s left.” (Reportedly, it was just $585 under what the Sox could pay without going over and being penalized.) If baseball and the union don’t like that every draftee can’t negotiate with absolutely no impact from other draftees, perhaps they shouldn’t have agreed to a system where there’s a single pool of money for multiple players.
So sure, the Astros could simply pay Aiken full price, keep a player with a potential injury problem, and maybe miss out on Nix. Or, they could pay him full price, get Nix and 21st-rounder Mac Marshall (another player with a tough college commitment), and be penalized for it. Or, they could cut Aiken down and use that money to sign Nix and Marshall.
Not available to them is the best option: Sign all three at negotiated prices, value pools be damned, without fear of being penalized in next year’s draft.
* * *
I’m not apologizing for the Astros here, because we don’t know what their thinking is, and we can’t say with utmost certainty that they’re acting ethically. It’s not out of the question that they agreed with Aiken, then saw an unexpected chance to sign Nix and Marshall, who many thought couldn’t be bought out of college commitments, and scrambled at the last minute to find a way to knock Aiken down enough to afford all three. With the numbers perhaps working out just a little too well there, it’s easy to think it’s a conspiracy.
But think about how bad this has become. Now, the Astros have a No. 1 pick who has to wonder what’s going on in his arm and may be poisoned towards the idea of ever being an Astro. They have to worry that Aiken could just walk away and take a huge chunk of Houston’s available draft pool with him — remember, if Aiken goes, his $7.9m pool allocation goes with him — and perhaps most importantly, they have to deal with another hit to their reputation, and at least one agent who probably won’t be taking his clients to Houston any time soon. That’s really worth a few million bucks? Of course not, and so it’s hard to see this being done without a very valid concern about Aiken’s health. It’s a bad look, to be sure, and potentially not worth it even if Houston is squeaky-clean in all of this. I just haven’t seen evidence that it’s an unethical path, with the exception of the impact this has on Nix.
Close claims that no other team would act like this, though MLB has confirmed that Houston has broken no rules and GM Jeff Luhnow claims he’s abided both by baseball rules and federal HIPAA regulations. If that’s the case, then perhaps the problem isn’t with the Astros. It’s with the system that seemed like a bad idea from the second it was put into place.
Mike Petriello used to write here, and now he does not. Find him at @mike_petriello or MLB.com.
How exactly is a single agent supposed to represent two players both seeking to maximize their portion of a single pool of money?
Simple: both clients’ interests are aligned. There is no conflict. If Scott Boras or any other agent represented one of these players, how would that change this scenario? Houston would behave in the same manner. There is no conflict of interest. The dispute is entirely dependent upon the behavior of the Houston Astros front office, and all Close, Boras, or any agent can do is cry foul to their lapdogs in the media.
No, top comment is right, and you are mistaken.
Close’s two clients interests are now adverse to each other because there is only so much draft money to go around.
A windfall for Aiken means Nix can’t get paid. They probably waived the conflict, but if this article is accurate, one of them probably should have switched by now.
Aiken and Nix should both have their own representation seeking to get as much of that $ as possible, the other guy be damned. Close represents them both and cannot take that strategy.
But if Aiken doesn’t sign, there’s less money for Nix anyway. Aiken signing for anything under-slot can only help Nix.
But that’s the conflict. Maybe at this point walking away is what’s best for Aiken, but if Close recommends that he’s adversely affecting Nix. If he tells Aiken to sign a low offer so that Nix can sign he’s screwing Aiken. He can’t do what’s right for both.
That’s not true at all. His two clients interests have very real potential conflicts. If Aiken is actually healthy, it may be in his best interests to turn down the offer and do a year of JUCO. If he did that however, the slot value goes ‘poof’ and the Astros would be unable to pay Nix, whose own agent (advisor?) would have nuked his chance to get what’s best for him. That’s as clear-cut a conflict of interest as there can be
I don’t know what the chances are but it is possible that Aiken is never a number one overall pick again and if he falls to the end of the first round, compensation round 3.4 million is all he will ever see anyway. That could easily happen when he displays his game in college but we will see. I’m not defending the Astros (would like to here Dr. James Andrews take.) but am not ready to condemn them YET. Best wishes to Aiken and Nix. I hope things work out well for both.
By trying to knock down the amount of money that draftees that you aren’t representing get. In this case, that is any pick that Close doesn’t represent.
Close doesn’t sway my opinion on how all of this is unfolding, he’s just gets to pretend to be looking out for his client’s best interests. In reality, he’s looking out for his own best interests. Those aren’t the same thing.
Number one picks flame out at a much lower rate than the average draftee, and while it’s no sure thing – he’s probably going to make it to the bigs barring injury/has a lot of money guaranteed up front if he signs. If he thinks that he’s healthy and waiting a year won’t push back his time to the majors, sure go ahead and reject the Astros’ offer. However, it’s probably more likely that going to independent ball or college pushes back his timeline to starting his major league service clock (service time=big money), and puts stress on his arm that could lead to injury and ultimately a lower payday when drafted. (college players are probably allowed to throw too much) It’s a lot of risk when millions are being offered to you today. But your agent would never tell you that.
The owners created this mess when they tried to hold down draftee salary even more than they already were, and I’m glad fangraphs is pointing this out when newspapers are giving the “hot take” that a teenager is being screwed over. My own hot take: that’s exactly what the owners as a whole intended at the start of this CBA.
The real thing that galls me is that union members are somehow allowed to negotiate away non-union members’ earning power in exchange for increasing their own piece of the pie.
Billionaire owners screwing teenagers out of their money galls me more than union members using the only power they have in this market to screw teenagers out of their money.
That’s a big issue too. We can care about both.
Their money? Have a full ucl and then complain about not getting your fair share.
The problem is the players union. The owners want to depress all salaries, and veterans are willing to suppress rookie salaries for their own gains. Somebody needs to be speaking for these kids. The MLB minimum is 500k and a lot of MiLB players are living in poverty. The MLB players and owners need to start sacrificing to make it worthwhile for kids to pursue their major league dream.
You’ve just bought a shiny new Mercedes. Beautiful car, a real head-turner. When you get it home, you pop the hood and find a 6-cylinder Chevy engine.
You feel like there’s a real problem, that you didn’t get all you paid for.
The Dealer says, “you got a Mercedes! What are you complaining about?”
You are mistaken. Close is not the agent of either player, because they are not allowed to have an agent and retain NCAA eligibility.
He is their adviser.
Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more.
(That’s the most idiotic thing about this situation.)
With free agents there is a possibility of injury clauses like the one that John Lackey had. Not sure if there’s any way to do this here without breaking CBA rules on signing bonuses.
What are Aiken’s options if he doesn’t sign, by the way?
That would be a great solution. Unsure if the CBA would allow it, but either way it wouldn’t help the Astros pool issue, which is annoying.
Aiken can go to indy ball and be back in the draft next year. Or he can go to college (presuming that his association with Close is “adviser,” not “agent,” which is a whole different conversation about shady practices) and not be eligible for three years.
Couldn’t he go JUCO for 1 year and then be draft eligible for 2015?
yes, indy ball or JUCO.
Is there a minor league salary maximum? I know MLB wouldn’t look at all kindly on it, but I wonder if the Astros and Aiken could agree to a deal where he agrees to 3 million, in bonus money, and if he’s healthy next spring the Astros pay him a 3 million dollar salary for the year.
Maybe this topic would be too much “Inside Baseball” to have broad appeal but I’d love to see an examination of the effect of JUCO’s on the introduction of talent into MLB. Bryce Harper seems like the most famous JUCO case, but I’ve known of others as far back as 30 years ago.
I think it’s unlikely for the CBA to allow it and if it doesn’t I don’t see it getting in there anytime soon. I can’t see the Player’s Association wanting to normalize the practice of injury clauses in MLB contracts.
Whatever the actual issue with Aiken’s elbow, the Astros as an organization are quickly gaining a reputation as callous and self-serving. It’s soured me quite a lot on what should be a team I like–analytical, experimental, forward-thinking. PR matters to some extent more than actual fact and so far the Astros look like they’re miserable at it.
PR matters, and so does the ability to have amicable and productive relationships with agents and other front offices, not to mention players. As an outsider, it’s hard to imagine how the FO has not incurred significant damage to its reputation at this point that will have real costs going forward.
Unless this is actually just the Astros FO going full Joaquin Phoenix and seeing what they can get away with?
…you never go full Joaquin Phoenix…
ucl is actually a pretty huge issue. Dickey doesn’t have one in his pitching arm. He’s a knuckleballer now. Otherwise, he wouldn’t even be in the MLB.
It’s not just the UCL injury though. For Nix, they’re backing out of an agreement they had. Legal or not, necessary or not, it’s going to reflect extremely poorly on them in the public and industry spheres.
Beyond that, they’re also the team that tried to leverage service time standards against George Springer in an attempt to get him to sign an ultra-cheap, very-long-term deal (or else they wouldn’t call him up).
who said it was an injury? it is a high risk for injury.
George springer has nothing to do with aiken’s arm.
It’s part of why the Astros are developing a poor reputation
Wtf?? Springer is going to be a super two!! How can you say that they tried to manipulate service time? They opened the season with an outfield alignment, and when it didn’t work, they called up their best prospect. That was two and a half weeks into the season.
Way to twist facts to promote your incorrect narrative, bro.
This makes no sense. Every team plays the service time game.
I don’t think it’s fair to say they’re backing out of the agreement with Nix. Without knowing all the facts (none of us do), I am sure the agreement with Nix was contigent on Aiken signing for $1.5 million below slot.
Are you kidding? You want analytical, experimental, and forward-thinking, but also nice and kind? That’s not how that works. If a team is maximizing use of its limited resources, then they are going to have to be self-serving and calculating and, yes, sometimes callous-seeming to an outside observer.
Want a good example of a signing that was great for PR? Ryan Howard. It might be “nice” to ignore injuries and age and focus on what a player has done and how you feel about him and your public image, but it’s only good for PR for so long, and then people wonder if you’ll ever have another winning season. Especially for a team like the Astros, the overlap between making good moves and being nice is going to be small, and overreacting to them doing business in an unfortunate situation is dumb.
To be fair we’re usually calculating the value of contracts like Howard’s by the perceived value of the wins he contributes to the team. However, there are other ways that Howard provides monetary value to the Phillies organization. There is a balancing act that includes a team’s image to it’s fans.
Fans are morons, sorry. Put a winning product on the field and all is forgiven with them. You cant listen to the vagaries of the whiny fan.
Close’s comment that the Astros are the only team in baseball that would do this is extremely disingenuous. He just misses the good ‘ole days when teams were not interested in maximizing their resources, but in making friends. It reminded me of Kevin Towers’ comment that he can’t talk to new GMs because they aren’t straight shooters, and are always proposing lopsided trades to him. (think about that Astros leak) Close can’t talk to these new GMs because they want to get the most bang for their buck, instead of signing his client money be damned.
The Astros are the first to run into the injury situation with the asinine new CBA cap rules, and are acting rationally. To guys like Close, rationality is crazy when a handshake already happened. But don’t pretend that the A’s/Cubs/Rays/insert rational team wouldn’t do exactly the same thing when presented with this situation.
Don’t limit yourself to small-market teams. Those are the teams that get dumped on, and particularly the Astros since they haven’t seen the success that will (eventually) come from the rational approach, but the Cardinals or the Red Sox would do the same/similar thing in this situation. Sustainable success would not be possible otherwise.
I don’t think you can assume the Astros’ approach is the “rational” approach. This approach has yet to be proven. The Astros likely would have been better off taking Byron Buxton and slot guys rather than saving money on Correa and using the money on Lance McCullers and Rio Ruiz. There is an argument to be made that the boring approach works better. I’d bet the WAR produced for the Twins in their boring, slot-bound 2012-2014 drafts will be higher than the Astros in their progressive, rational, forward-thinking 2012-2014 drafts. I doubt there is much evidence that over-slot signings in later rounds perform better than slot-level picks to justify gaming the system rather than just taking the best player available at the top.
And with respect to just the Aiken injury, it’s fine to try and use your leverage but don’t be surprised when agents take exception and bad-mouth you to the press. There are negative reputational consequences that come from going for every last nickel particularly when dealing with the same pool of agents over and over again. I don’t think you can say the possible advantage gained by chintzing on Aiken (which seems small to me) is worth the downside.
Another Brian, I wasn’t saying their draft strategy was the rational, correct choice – because we don’t know until years later what the “right” strategy is under new cap rules. I’m saying that once they had chosen that strategy, they executed it in a rational manner. I should have clarified.
This perspective is far too binary. Being forward-thinking and analytical need not come completely at the expense of these other “soft” factors we’re considering. The Astros FO may be full of whiz kids with an impregnable approach to decision making, but they still need to conduct business with other teams, agents and players. You’re kidding yourself if you think this stuff is all fluff, and you’re building a strawman when you equate it with signing Ryan Howard to an extension because it’s the nice thing to do.
The media is the one spinning this story with the Astros as the evil manipulators, and they are doing it for the same reasons they always break stories with partial truth, rumor and innuendo…so they can draw the readers in. The team is not providing specifics on what the physical found because it’s against MLB rules to discuss something on a player not under contract. If Aiken has a high risk of a major injury then the team has the absolute right to reduce the offer. you wouldn’t pay the same for a house which your inspection found to have a foundation issue, would you?
This completely ties into the analytic bent. What, you want them them to act with heart now?
Doesnt work that way. Live by the science, die by it.
The title states that everyone involved looks bad, but I don’t really see how Aiken looks bad, regardless of how big a problem the UCL issue is or isn’t, unless we have reason to believe Aiken was aware of the issue and refused to disclose it.
If the Astros don’t relent, I suspect Aiken’s best option is to go to a community college for a year. I believe the CBA still allows JC kids to get drafted after one year, right? The initial agreement could get him in trouble with the NCAA – another issue the Astros are likely exploiting, so going to UCLA may be up in the air.
Maybe not him specifically, but I don’t see Close looking great for calling out the Astros for not following the rules everyone else would, yet being unable to back that up.
Anyway, now teams question Aiken’s health. That’s not great for him.
My read of Close’s comments were that he was most upset by how they’ve treated Nix, not Aiken. I think that’s valid. Close, and everyone, understand that the MRI can veto the deal. They may not agree on the genuineness of the Astros position, but that’s an inherent risk.
Close seems to be saying that there was an unconditional deal with Nix, and Nix passed his physical. His deal should stand. The Astros are trying to backpedal on it because it deprives them of leverage in the Aiken negotiation – they basically have to sign Aiken if they have already spent $1.5 on Nix, or else they lose a pick next year.
If Close is right, that the deal with Nix was unconditional, the Astros really are way offside, I think. I wonder what would happen if they sign none, Nix grieves, and if his grievance is upheld by the arbitrator they have to sign him. Do they forfeit the pick next year? Seems like they might.
Where was the money coming from if it was unconditional? Not from his own slot for sure or anyone elses slot ofr that matter. The only place it was coming from was Aiken’s pool. So this argument holds no water.
Jim Callis has speculated that as a possibility. He clarified that it may not be the likely outcome, but the Astros face risk in a grievance.
Your comment explained much more to me than the original article. Thank you. Your scenario is actually plausible.
The Nix deal was ABSOLUTELY conditional on someone else signing below slot. That is the ONLY way that you can then turn around and give someone else a deal that is above their slot value.
This is the gist of the Dave Cameron article that the author linked to. The penalties are so severe for going above the draft budget that the system is basically a series of hard slots, unless someone blinks and signs below slot.
To Joe: it’s never up to the player to sort out where the money comes from. That’s 100% on the team. They have to manage their budget.
Comes down to what the deal with Nix was. If they clearly said “$1.5 but only if you pass your physical AND if we can sign Aiken for less than $___” that’s a different story. But from what Close has said that wasn’t the deal.
of course close is going to say that. Goodness me, he has to get what is the most for his own client.
What? Close had to do what Close had to do – keep drumming up negative public sentiment against the Astros & putting PR into the Stros calculations. He’s got very few other leverage points, as I assume that Aiken will not make more than the $3+ million currently on the table. The Stros upping their offer to the $5 million previously floated & Aiken taking that seems to be the best win-win available.
There will always be a legion of fans who think *all* professional athletes are overpaid, and that any 18 year old who turns down $3m deserves nothing at all.
I think the most logical thing is that the Astros thought that Nix and Marshall were nearly unsignable so they just decided to leave enough money left over to sign one or the other. When they realized that they could sign both the only way to get the money was to cut Aiken’s bonus. Of course Aiken could be injured – you can hardly go wrong by betting on pitcher injuries. However if they were so worried about Aiken they should not have drafted him. But the timing of it all makes the Astros look terrible – I’m assuming that they gave him a physical before the draft and he passed it but now that they need more money to sign other players he’s failing it? Certainly suspect.
Pre-draft, there is just a medical records review. The in-person physical doesn’t occur until after the draft.
The article specifically mentions that players do not take a physical until after the draft.
“Teams can’t get their doctors to give full examinations until after a player has been drafted, so until there’s more of an NFL combine type of situation, this sort of thing happens.”
That seems like an issue that needs to be fixed. Rather easily, as well, I would imagine
That’s a collective bargaining issue, and those are rarely easy.
It would be tough to fix.
Kris changing his mind three hours later?
They certainly would have given him a full physical before they offered a $6.5m bonus right? So from that time to today something changed with his physical history. Or are we to believe the Astros just took Aiken’s word on his physical condition before giving him the bonus offer?
“Or are we to believe the Astros just took Aiken’s word on his physical condition before giving him the bonus offer?”
Yes. That’s how it works. They agreed to dollar terms contingent on passing the physical, then had their docs examine him.
Surely Aiken can’t feel betrayed if everyone involved knew from prior experience that the whole deal was contingent on his health?
Whether his arm actually shows worrying signs or not wouldn’t you expect both parties to be saying the exact same thing they are now? No one is in a position condemn the Astros here they simply don’t have enough information.
Teams generally give physicals after the contract (or bonus here) has been negotiated. That’s why you see plenty of examples of teams agreeing to deals “pending the physical”.
As the article points out – same thing happened with Loux, Stauffer, etc. They had an agreed amount, the team found something in the physical, the agreed amount lowered.
Per the CBA, teams are not allowed to give physicals to players before the draft. Most likely, the Astros had no clue about the congenital defect until they completed their physical after the two sides had agreed upon a number.
The problem with your description of the most logical thing, aside from the lack of a team physical before the draft, is why would the Astros think Aiken would simply agree to a lower bonus by making up an injury? In your theory, you make it sound like the Astros expected to agree on a bonus for Aiken, and then get him to agree to take the lower bonus by claiming an injury that didn’t exist. That doesn’t seem to be a logical move by a team.
They must have thought Marshall was unsignable, hence why he slipped to the 21st round. Nix, on the other hand, was eminently considered signable because of where he went. Teams do not mess around with potentially losing bonus slots within the top
By not signing Nix, the Astros lose 3% of their signing pool ($370,500). If they simply signed everyone else at slot value, they would end up OK. The penalty for going over your pool by less than 5% is only a 75% tax on the overage and nothing else. Loss of future draft picks happens once you go more than 5% over. So while the Astros would be somewhat upset at losing that bonus slot, it would be far from the end of the world. So to say that Nix was eminently signable is wrong. The correct thing to say is that he had some combination of talent and signability that was appealing to the Astros at that particular pick.
The “PR” issues in this case are caused by Aiken’s “advisor”, his crossfit trainer, his family, and the media who tell their story for them. All the while, the Astros are limited from responding by HIPPA regulations. I certainly wouldn’t pay anything close to full price for a pitcher with a non-existent UCL. The Astros have offered the requisite 40 % of slot, which is a helluva lot more than RA Dickey got with a same or similar problem. Aiken can take it or move on, taking a chance that, while pitching for the Sugarland Skeeters this season, his elbow doesn’t blow out.
Yeah, I am not sure what the big ethical dilemma is here. And, generally speaking, I’m fairly sympathetic to the little guy.
Oh and to clarify, I mean the big ethical dilemma with regard to Aiken.
What they’re doing with Nix by all accounts seems atrocious.
close is the agent for both Aiken and Nix. not sure why he isn’t called the culprit here. It isn’t as if he as zero interest in the nix or aiken deal.
Aiken’s camp would argue that the ethical dilemma comes from the fact that he is not actually, currently injured & that 90%+ of all pitchers have abnormalities. As there is scant research/knowledge on the subject of having a small UCL & Aiken has been cleared to begin pitching asap, as-is, there’s a lot of room to argue ethics as to the reality & magnitude of the actual risk & who should bear that risk.
I think this is a very good synopsis … I guess it guides me toward a question to which I do not know the answer: when someone is drafted, are you compelled to make them a good-faith offer?
Can you draft someone and then make no attempt to sign them, regardless of reason? It’s not a free and open market so I feel like that can’t be the case, but what is the case?
Obviously here they have a reason, or they purport to have a reason, to offer Aiken less. Who decides?
I don’t think there’s much stopping you from drafting someone and making no attempt to sign them, but if you at least make a 40%-of-slot offer you get a compensation pick the next year.
I can conceive of a strategy around this but I’m not sure it’s plausible. Maybe you think next year’s draft is going to be a lot stronger, and one of your rivals picking shortly after you wants to draft a kid demanding a bonus near or above slot that won’t fit within your draft strategy. So you draft the kid and make an insulting offer that’s just enough to guarantee the comp pick. Downsides? Aside from screwing the kid and having that on your conscience, you delay the entrance of a top prospect for a year — the next year’s draft class has to be much stronger for 2015’s comp pick to truly be more desirable than 2014’s first-rounder. Also, however they clamp down on the practice in the future, they’ll name the rule that does it after your miserable ass.
So while castigating everyone for naively taking Aiken’s side without knowing all the facts, you’ve decided instead to…naively take the team’s side, without knowing all the facts?
?!?!!?
How exactly did you determine that Aiken has a “non-existent UCL?”
“Not available to them is the best option: Sign all three at negotiated prices, value pools be damned, without fear of being penalized in next year’s draft.” Of course this isn’t available to them, if the rules allowed for that, do you think those players (Nix & Marshall) would have been available for them to pick at those spots with every team able to spend whatever they wanted?
Every team went into this draft with an understanding of the rules around the draft. The Astros took some chances and appear to have the chance to cash in on more chances than the Astros predicted. What a horrible problem to have, too much to choose from. At the end of the day, they played the game and won more than they could pay for, now they have to find a way to make the pieces fit as best they can and accept that they can’t get everything.
Either Aiken really has an arm issue so bad they are hoping he doesn’t sign at all and they get none of these 3 players this year but a compensation pick next year, or they do right by Aiken and try to find enough for Nix and understand they miss out on Marshall whose pick was a hail mary anyway.
You may have issues with the system, but this isn’t an example to use against it. The Astros gambled here knowing the risks, which is why those risks were there to be picked when they were picked.
The reason why the system needs to be changed is that the 5th rounder, Nix, wants to play but cannot if the Astros can’t sign their first round pick. The Astros seem to have decided that the second overall pick next year is more valuable than Aiken at $6.5m and Nix at $1.5m, and if Aiken is broken as they say than I don’t blame them at all. The second pick in next year’s draft produces on average $28.0m in value. They would be fools to pass on that opportunity if Aiken is indeed broken, nearly without regard to how good Nix actually is. That’s the messed up part. The Astros want Nix, Nix wants the Astros, and they can’t execute their agreement because the Astros got unlucky drafting some other player who turned out to be unhealthy.
Except the Astros can sign Nix at $1.5m, they just don’t want to pay the penalty necessary to do so. And they can still get him even without penalty by just reaching an agreement with Aiken above their low-ball offer. They agreed to sign Nix when they thought they’d pay Aiken $6.5 million, so they could still get Nix without penalty if they up their offer to Aiken to something better than the minimum necessary to get the comp pick next year. Their real issue is they can’t get Marshall too (who conveniently fits only when Aiken takes a haircut from $6.5m).
I don’t see it as a problem if the Astros fail in their attempt to game the system. They may have been better served with a more straightforward approach anyways. I think the Twins, who pay slot value to their first rounders, will end up in a better position. The Twins selected Buxton, Stewart and Gordon and then slot level guys in the later rounds. I bet that turns out better than Correa, Appel, and Aiken (and perhaps the #2 next year if Aiken doesn’t sign) and a few above-slot guys later who probably don’t really provide much additional value over guys who would have taken slot value.
the issue is the “lowball” coment. Would you want your team drafting 1.1 a player who has a congenitally small ucl, or rather even nonexistant one?
The Astros just have to decide how much this medical issue is worth to them. They thought he was the best player in the draft and were willing to pay him $6.5 million. He throws 98 mph with this condition (whatever it is). It seems like they could afford to pay him more than their $3 million offer even considering the injury. Put another way, if they are willing to pay him $3 million then I don’t see why they can’t up that to $4 million or $5 million or even the original $6.5 million. The injury adds uncertainty but that’s not much money to the Astros.
It is, however, a lot of money to Aiken. He can go to juco and reenter the draft in a year. He shouldn’t take any less than what he can expect to get next year, which would exceed the $3 million Astros offer if he is right and the Astros are wrong about the elbow. Appel was able to get more money the following draft (granted, no injury issue). The Astros have to decide whether to get up to a number Aiken will take or risk losing Nix too.
If the Astros think the injury risk is too great, then don’t sign him. Aiken will get picked next year and we’ll see how he does. I just don’t see why we should be sympathetic to them that their plan to work the system didn’t actually work out.
they thought he was the best player as well as practically everyone else, without taking a predraft physical. noone is disputing he is healthy and can throw real fast now, the issue is when, not if, when the arm will break down. risk is high with pitchers anyways. With the his ucl issue, the risk is even more pronounced. There is precedence in the dickey signing. So this isn’t a new situation.
It isn’t about whether they can afford 3 million more. It is if Aiken would have been even in the top 10 in the 1st round if his congenital ucl was known.
I have no problems with the Astros backing out on Aiken if they really think the elbow is a problem. Personally, I think (with no medical training or anything) that every pitcher’s elbow is a problem waiting to happen so they shouldn’t make such a big deal about it. He was going to need TJ at some point. I agree with Petriello that pre-draft medicals would be a good idea.
I just don’t see why this condemns the slotting system. The Astros have tried to work that system and it looks like it won’t work out for them. Those are the breaks when you try to do this. As the original comment said, everyone knew these risks going in. So either suck it up and give Aiken an amount he’ll take and get Nix without penalty (and perhaps Marshall). Or don’t sign him and risk an issue with Nix, which really comes down to whether the deal actually was contingent on Aiken.
From the DC article:
“Tax on over-slot signings – 75% tax on up signings up to 5% over recommendation, 75% tax and loss of first round pick for signings from 5.1% to 10% over recommendation, 100% tax and loss of first and second round picks for signing 10.1 to 15% over recommendation, and finally, a 100% tax and loss of two first round picks for signing of greater than 15% over recommendation. These penalties are so severe that they essentially eliminate any benefit a team would get from signing a player for more than the slot recommendation, so they equate to de facto hard slotting. Teams no longer have the ability to spend heavily to convince players who were strongly committed to colleges (or other sports) to forego those options and begin a career as a professional.”
Assume they have already decided that they don’t want Aiken at any price above the $3.16m that they have to offer, by rule, in order to get the compensation pick next year. Then their deal with Nix subjects them to the >15% over-slot penalty when Aiken walks and takes his $7.9m slot value with him. Their deal with Nix is $1.0m over slot, and their remaining draft pool would be $5.44m. 1/5.44=18% over budget, which triggers the loss of their next TWO first round picks – and since the Astros suck, those are two premium picks.
Who the hell is this Nix kid anyway, if you are just implying that he is worth that? Second coming of Bryce Harper? There’s a reason he went in the 5th round and wasn’t the first overall pick.
I don’t think anyone is arguing that if the Astros are lying about the seriousness of Aiken’s disability, then they are scum. The issue is that, if you take the Astros at face value, then the system is STILL broken, because Nix is collateral damage to Brady Aiken’s bad injury luck. And since teams are prevented from doing their due diligence in assessing the physical condition of their draftees until AFTER the contract is agreed to, there is no way to prevent situations like this.
@Brian “The issue is that, if you take the Astros at face value, then the system is STILL broken”
The system isn’t broken based on this evidence, not arguing for the system here, just saying this isn’t a case of it being broken. The Astros picked a guy in the 5th round they knew full well would not sign for 5th round money, that is why he was available in the 5th round. In order for that risk to pay off, they would have to make savings elsewhere. I have absolutely no issue with that as they knew those risks going in and took them. If you wanted to sign Nix without risking that you needed to save money elsewhere, then you have to spend a high enough pick on him where the slot value is much closer to what it would take to sign him. Those are the rules everyone is playing under.
But the fact that they did find the money and agreed on contracts with both players made their gamble worthwhile. The issue here is that they DID make savings elsewhere, promised the guy 1st sandwich round money based on those savings. Only then could the Astros do the physical on Aiken to confirm that the money they used to sign Nix was actually available. It turned out in this case that the money isn’t going to be available and now Nix is pissed. Wouldn’t you be? From Nix’s perspective, why should someone else’s injury have any impact on whether he should sign?
“From Nix’s perspective, why should someone else’s injury have any impact on whether he should sign?” When you price yourself out of your projected range, you incur risks. He told teams it would take $X to sign him from his UCLA scholarship and he knew he would not be drafted at a spot where $X is the slot value. When you know the price you are asking for is contingent upon the team making savings elsewhere, you risk the team not being able to do so, either via negotiations not going well or injury. If he agreed he was a 3rd round pick and would take 3rd round money, then he likely would have been taken in the 3rd round and there would be no conversation to be had. When you tell teams that you are happy with either UCLA or $X and you know they have to get $X via other things falling in place, you should be happy with either outcome. It looks like UCLA right now and that is one of the two outcomes he picked for himself and presented teams with.
Or the 2nd pick can bust, provide no value at all and cost 5-6MM to sign.
That $28.0m in value takes into account the bust rate. This is obvious. Let’s see why
The ceiling for draft picks is basically Mike Trout for 6.5 years of team control at basically league minimum salary for 3.5 years and $50.0m (give or take) for the arbitration years. That’s 65 WAR for $52.0m. The current market rate for a win is a little more than $6.0m. That is $400m worth of wins for $52m, giving you a surplus of $348m over the first 6 years of MLB service time.
How do you arrive at a true value of $28m when the potential value of the asset is $348m? Lots and lots of scenarios where the asset performs under its potential.
Averaging out value when there is over a 50% bust rate is a terrible way to calculate things. Mike Trout is a once in a generational talent. Expecting another one to come along to get your 28MM is an absolute fools errand.
What is a once in a generation talent? Once every fifteen years? Twenty? For a lottery ticket that pays out $348m when it wins and nothing when it loses, it would have to hit once every 13.5 times for it to be worth $28m.
Now consider that your lotto ticket doesn’t always pay $0 when it loses, but it pays out something every time you play, over a distribution ranging from -$7.5m to $348m.
Also consider that $28m is the market price of a little more than 4 wins. 4 WAR over 6 years. That’s 0.7 WAR per year for the player to be worth it. That’s not a very high bar to jump over when we’re talking about a dude who is talented enough to be the first overall pick.
Yep, you should always be in it. Is signing a pitcher in the top 5 an additional risk factor that skews your odds? Or are these guys so clever they get a free peak at the pitcher and then get to punt til next year??? One things for sure, most likely one of these 3 (and the way they are going, many more) will be busts. Can the Astros bust out of losing territory before the owner has had enough of these guys? And… Is the owner, who has a pretty cheap rep to live up to, behind all this and this smart, savvy, analytical FO taking all the heat for him?
The problem with your Trout calculations is you are also battling the other 29 teams, and there might be a similar factor to the big bad NorthEast weather that drives the next one down the draft.
Shankbone seems to be bad at math. Specificially, expected values and probability…
And I suck at spelling. Specifically.
Thanks for the summary! I have a much better understanding of what is going on now. It sounds like an overly complicated system for something that should be fairly straightforward.
“Specific to the Astros, there’s obviously plenty of people in and outside the game who would be all too happy to see their unprecedented “tear it down” strategy fail, and especially to see the self-described nerds in the organization exit the game with their tails between their legs, properly shamed for trying to change the way things are done.”
Tank for success isn’t novel or nerdy imo
I expect the “tank for success” strategy to be more common under the new CBA, as a team’s ability to splurge on premium amateur talent (without incurring draconian penalties) is now tied directly to how terribly their major league club performs.
A huge company and a teenager who just graduated high school had a handshake agreement, and the agreement is coming apart…because the huge company is going back on their word.
This is just simply not true. The huge company made a handshake agreement contingent upon a physical.
I get what you’re saying, but you understand that absolutely no one views it that way. Mostly because the player’s camp believes that he should have passed the physical easily.
That sentence seems to apply more to Nix.
Agree, Nix was abused here more than Aiken.
I agree that it isn’t being viewed that way, but who was yelling foul for Mike Napoli when his three year deal became a one year w/ incentives. He just happened to make up the difference in a subsequent deal so it’s all forgotten.
The problem, to go along with what “illinibob” said above, is that the Astros have to sit silently while the agent (& apparently others) throw darts.
How do we know that the agent isn’t using the Nix situation in tandem? There is more pool money available so he’ll ask for more for Nix?
The difference with Napoli is that he was free to choose to negotiate with another team, who maybe wouldn’t consider the hip injury all that serious, and get what the overall market considered a fair value for his skills.
If Aiken doesn’t sign, best case scenario is he loses a year of development time and makes no money while he waits for the next draft. He can’t find out what the market assesses the cost the physical issue he may or may not have has to his value. He’s stuck.
I wish people wouldn’t compare the situation of free agent veterans and new draftees, it just doesn’t make sense.
Why there ARENT any yankees player on the list,hah?
I don’t really have much of an opinion re the Aiken stuff. But the way they have treated Jacob Nix is absolute poison to their reputation. Good luck not having the ability in future to draft HS players
good luck to high schoolers then going back to being an amateur for at least one year and possibly getting injured and falling in the draft.
All it takes is a few of those to then bring a class action lawsuit against MLB to revoke the anti-trust exemption.
As long as they are following the CBA there is no anti-trust case to bring. That is a main point of a CBA from management’s perspective. It allows them to do things that would otherwise be obvious anti-trust violations, like salary caps for example.
They can’t sign Nix at the agreed upon amount unless Aiken signs, because by rule they lose $7.9m of their budget if they don’t sign Aiken. The $7.9m represents something like 60% of their draft budget, so losing all that money means they would have to take a lot of money from others in order to go $1.0m over slot on Nix. Without the $7.9m, the $1.0m that they would need to find elsewhere represents almost 20% of their remaining money, which would have to be diverted from their other picks from the first 10 rounds. Which means either they have the choice between signing Nix at the agreed upon price and potentially losing the rest of their draft class, or reneging on their agreement with Nix.
If most of their other picks have signed, then there isn’t even a choice; the Astros would either have to take Nix AND Aiken as a package or lose them both and get the second pick next year as compensation.
So basically, if you care about Jacob Nix, then you have to care about Brady Aiken as well.
They can sign Nix for the amount they both agreed upon. And if the Astros have to take a financial hit because of big picture draft salary cap math, well then that is the Astro’s problem – NOT Nix’s. It is the Astros who are turning that into Nix’s problem because FYTW.
actually close is turning this into a problem because he isn’t getting what he wants for his clients
Close is not the one creating this problem. The Astros made a verbal offer (contingent upon the physical) to Aiken of $6.5 million. That offer is what created the cap space for the offer of $1.5 million to Nix.
Now the Astros have clawed back both offers. Maybe the Aiken clawback is based on the physical. But the Nix clawback is simply the Astros telling Nix to FYTW.
Verbal offer is just that verbal. And everyone knows that it is contingent on Aiken signing. The money could only come from aiken. Astros know this, Close knows this, and it would have been verbally spoken of. So Yes Close is creating this problem because he is upset that the Astros would dare to find something wrong in his client Aiken which also affects Nix. This is a bad representation of his business.
Are you some tool of the Houston front office?
I have to be a tool to see the obvious?
the obvious?
The Astros agreed to pay Aiken 6.5M two days after the draft. That amount creates the cap space for Nix.
The Astros then clawed back that offer to Aiken. Supposedly to $5M. Supposedly because of an MRI. More likely in my opinion because they also wanted to make an overslot offer to Marshall.
Now the Astros have further clawed back that offer to Aiken to an amount that has nothing to do with Aiken but merely allows the Astros to get a #2 pick next year.
Maybe Aiken is actually injured. Maybe he isn’t.
But the Astros have proven that their word isn’t worth a shit. And if your word isn’t worth a shit, there ain’t no way you’re gonna recover that reputation.
Even without many details of this available publicly, there is not the remotest possibility here that the Astros have done anything here in good faith. They are using MLB’s antitrust exemption to screw over kids via the draft.
If I’m a baseball player in college or high school, there is ZERO chance I will assume that the Astros are telling the truth in whatever they tell me. NOTHING the Astros can do now can change that.
your interpretation on the situation is based on fantasy. astros words aren’t worth anything. Ok. based on…
This is ABSOLUTELY NOT a financial issue. Read the damn Cameron article that is referenced in the post. If they sign Nix at the agreed upon price they lose their next TWO first round picks. How is a 5th round player actually worth that? If he was worth that he would have gone #1 overall. If you want to comment on the rules of the game, you should actually read up on the rules of the game.
Those aren’t the ‘rules of the game’. They are the rules of the cartel that controls the game exempt from the laws of the land.
While you say $1.5M isn’t much money in baseball terms, if Aiken’s camp has even the slightest belief that the exam is right, doesn’t it make sense that they should be trying EVEN HARDER to get the pre-draft $6.5M agreement, since a potential injury could prevent him from reaching arbitration/free agent money in the bigs?
Great article Mike!
The source from the Houston article just pit their foot in their mouth if they are to be believed. The exact statement was that Aiken UCL is not torn but that it is just naturally thinner than some. To make matters worse, close told hey man that Aiken has been seen by 3 independent orthopedic surgeons who all say he is not injured. One of the surgeons is Dr. James Andrews.
A UCL that appears thinner hardly seems like a medical condition to me, its like halving a bonus because the player is 5’0 instead of 5’10.
Noone disputes that he is not injured. The article doesn’t even say the Astros believe that he is injured. If you don’t know how important the ucl is to a pitchers arm, you should read up on it. Height is not even a comparison that comes close to the analogy needed.
1) Your example doesn’t make sense. A team can visibly see a player’s height and would know the player is 5’0 instead of 5’10 before drafting him. Here, the Astros could not know his UCL was thinner without completing a physical, which they were contractually not permitted to do per the CBA
2) A thinner UCL (or having no UCL like RA Dickey, which led to his bonus being reduced) means the pitcher is much more likely to have a tear or other injuries that will hamper his ability to have a successful career. Heck, Dickey wasn’t successful until he learned to “master” the knuckleball.
3) Close saying Aiken is not injured is disingenuous. A player with a genetically thinned UCL isn’t “injured” but definitely is not the same pitcher the Astros thought they were getting when they drafted him. Dr. James Andrews agreed the UCL is thinned – basically both sides can use his diagnosis to their benefit. Playing with the facts.
I obviously men at 5’9, regardless, failing a medical without an actual medical condition is a questionable outcome. Also this article didn’t say his UCL was thinner it just said there was a problem with it. Its a question of degree, obviously close believes that other teams won’t view this as a issue otherwise he would that the 3.1.
Also a congenitally smaller UCL does not increase the risk of a tear. Do some research or read mlbtr.
sure if you’re a normal person sitting at the ballpark watching the game. Throwing 97 is different matter.
While your armchair MD is probably pretty impressive to friends and family, I’ll take the opinion of a real doctor over yours.
like your armchair md that ucl is hardly a condition? I’ll take the astros doctor;s word over yours
Its not my opinion, its that of Dr. Chris Geary of Tufts medical center, an expert in the field. Size is not everything.
n0exit: Where are you citing a “real doctor”?
actually it isn’t my opinon either because Lintner was the doctor who saw aiken. Geary didn’t say size was not everything. You are misquoting him. Geary also did not see aiken. It is conjecture on his part. Expert opinion, but conjecture.
Firstly I didn’t quote anyone as noted by the absence of quote marks, I merely repeated a common statement that size is not everything. Secondly Dr. Geary categorically stated that a congentically thinner UCL does not increase the chance of a tear. That is not conjecture. Whether Aiken has other issues surrounding that is not known but it certainly wasn’t mentioned by the Houston chronicle source.
Also I don’t understand the reference to the other doctor? Are you saying that it is his opinion that Aiken is at greater risk of a UCL tear?
here this is what the Chron statement said. Instead of you trying to summarize it, this is from the article
Dr. Chris Geary, an orthopedic surgeon and the chief of sports medicine at Tufts Medical center who has not evaluated Aiken, said the presence of a congenitally small UCL on its own wouldn’t necessarily indicate danger, or a lessened risk of success with Tommy John surgery.
“Maybe the ulnar collateral ligament is small but he has a freakishly big flexor-pronator mass, something like that, where it’s like, for whatever reason, his anatomy is different, but it’s not impacting him,” Geary said. “It sounds to me like it’s not completely straightforward. It’s one of those things you could maybe, depending on what it actually is, you could kind of spin it depending on what your own agenda is.”
he didn’t say it “doesn’t” increase the chance of the tear, he said it doesn’t “necessarily” increase the chance of the tear.
The conjecture part is that he hasn’t viewed Aiken. So logically, he doesn’t know what Aiken is going through.
I didn’t see how else you could interpret that.
Lintner is the Astros team doctor. he is the one who gives physicals. This is what he found.
A person with knowledge of the situation told the Chronicle on Tuesday that there is a “cut-and-dry” issue with the anatomy of Aiken’s ulnar collateral ligament, even though he is currently able to pitch. Aiken has visited five doctors, the person said: two affiliated with the team and three who were not, including the renowned Dr. James Andrews.
“He may have some (of the UCL), but not much,” the person said, adding that Tommy John surgery, which has become common in baseball, would not be a straightforward solution in this instance.
“He may have some (of the UCL), but not much,” the person said, adding that Tommy John surgery, which has become common in baseball, would not be a straightforward solution in this instance.
It doesn’t specifcally name him, but by inference, he is the one who came to that conclusion.
So basically you just repeated what I said, a thinner UCL doesn’t by itself increase the chance of a tear. Of course there could be other problems we don’t know about. As for the source, its clearly not the doctor who examined him being quoted, that would be wildly unethical. More likely, its an Astros front office person trying to get on the right side of this issue. How close is that to the doctors findings? We don’t know but I wouldn’t put money on the words cut and dry being used by any doctor. Thanks for the quotes though, this article should have had them.
nope you didn’t say that at all. You actually stated one word to fit your narrative.
I’m not writing a medical paper for professional publication. That is why I called it by inference.
and really that is all there is to report. A whole lot of words from Close, and absolutely nothing from the Astros on the record.
So it comes to this, are a the astros doctors correct or is the narrative that Close wants you to believe is correct? You are choosing Close’s narrative, based on his carefully worded statements.
Andrews has yet to make a statement, why hasn’t he? It sure isn’t the astros stoiping him.
Doctors don’t make statements without patients signing waivers or agreeing to it. Even then, I have never seen Andrews make a statement about a specific players condition or treatment. Those usually come from the front office. As for the narrative, it seems that they both seem to agree. He has a thinner than usual UCL, I chose to believe that this doesn’t increase his chances of a tear by italef based on the Geary quote. If there were other issues then why didn’t the source mention them?
Geary? Because he hasn’t seen Aiken. duh
From astros because they aren’t allowed to. duh
A thin UCL not increasing the risk of a tear by itself is not a patient specific conclusion. Its an anatomical issue that holds for all human beings. Given that there has been no mention of any other problems and that the Astros are getting an unexpected windfall out of this its not unreasonable to believe that they are manipulating the situation unethically. The source could have outlined further issues if they existed.
so your opinion on the situation is based on whole lot of nothing. Got it
Excellent deduction Sherlock.
Seriously? BECAUSE the UCL is thinner means the Aiken’s elbow has a much higher chance of blowing up. That’s the Astros’ concern, that a future Tommy John surgery is almost inevitable with Aiken and because of his thinner/smaller UCL that he won’t be the same (reduced velocity, etc).
This is wrong, and of course the crux of the entire issue. See above.
That is not even close to the exact statement. The quote was along the lines of, “if he even has a UCL at all, it’s so small as to be a serious concern”. That’s not exact verbage, it’s too late. But it’s RA Dickey all over again. And Dickey waent from an 810K offer to 75,000. If you think the Astros should pay this kid a dollar more than the 40% of slot, you’re not a good businessman.
Nix’s contract was most likely contingent on the signing of Aiken, since the Astros needed the $7,922,710 slot for the 1-1 pick, which, as the article stated, is lost if Aiken is not signed.
Either Close or Nix’s attorney should have advised Nix that his contract was contingent on Aiken’s signing and physical, otherwise Nix’s support team did not do their job properly.
Given the proclivity of teams, especially the Astros, to reallocate slot values to hard to sign picks later in rounds and the harsh penalties for exceeding the draft pick bonus pool, it would be hard to imagine this scenario was not addressed contractually between the Astros and Nix.
There are a lot of assumptions being thrown around by commentators and critics regarding this PR nightmare, but I think its safe to assume the Astros are well within their contractual rights to not sign Nix as a result of the issues with Aiken.
That depends, honestly we don’t know. But its not the job of Nix’s advisors to mention contingencies that aren’t in the contract or aren’t mentioned by the Astros. Its the Astros job to manage their pool and it appears they reached an agreement, a subsequent deal unrelated to Nix fell through and so they backtracked on his deal. For Nix, its certainly not assumed that his signing is contingent on Aiken’s, a signing on which they would have saved 1.5 at the original offer.
Where was the $1.5 coming from then if it wasn’t assumed it was coming from aiken?
That’s not Nix’s problem. His advisors certainly wouldn’t say “congrats Nixy, but don’t celebrate yet Aiken hasn’t signed”. Its not their job to brief him on hypothetical contingencies. Anyway this could all be moot if the Astros told him his deal wasn’t final until Aiken signed.
Fairy dust, that’s where it was coming from. It’s total insane balls to pretend that these deals aren’t linked, especially with Close as both their agents. Close is playing hardball because he thinks he can get more money out of the Astros for Aiken since they are playing with the extra cap space that only comes when Aiken signs, not because he thinks Nix’s deal should be non-contingent. Nix doesn’t get to cry foul on the Astros because he hired poor advisors.
Deals are never final until both sides sign, before then either side can back away for any reason they want, like “this kid eats too many tacos” or “it’s tuesday.” Not that it will win you any friends to behave as such, but that’s the way it works.
“Its not their job to brief him on hypothetical contingencies.”
Of course it’s their job! If his deal is contingent upon someone signing below slot – and make no mistake, it IS contingent upon that – then his adviser absolutely should brief him on that!
A contract being contingent on something is a very specific thing. Unless the Astros stated that specifically it isn’t contingent on it. The Astros are allowed to go over their limit if they want to incur the penalties, Nix’s lawyer wouldn’t tell him his deal was contingent on anything unless he was specifically told as much. Just because it seems obvious to you doesn’t make it part of the deal. There are many obvious terms not included in contracts that come back to haunt the parties, almost every contractual dispute is basically this.
If I was looking to get a million dollar + signing bonus – well above slot, too – and I had less knowledge about the draft pool than the average fangraphs reader, then I’d want my agent, lawyer, adviser, or whoever, to go over something that important.
The draft pool system doesn’t make deals contingent on each other. It just looks that way because that’s how teams operate. I’m glad you want your advisors to outline how the draft works but that doesn’t make Nix’s deal contingent on Aiken signing. The only way that can happen is if the Astros specifically state that and the MLB CBA allows for it. Just because it seems obvious to you doesn’t make it a term of the contract.
n0exit, you are failing to acknowledge the fact that while the draft rules don’t explicitly make deals contingent (in theory teams could just overpay everybody and punt the next two drafts), the rules also don’t prevent teams from operating in contingent fashion. It is not against the rules at all for teams to wait on finalizing handshake agreements until other deals are good. If those other deals don’t work out, teams can walk away from those non-finalized deals – they weren’t official yet. Dick move? Sure. Should the union have been smarter and not allowed this in the CBA? Totally. Irrational to pretend that teams don’t do it? Totally. So it is Nix’s problem. He can’t be counting his dollars until both parties have signed official paperwork, which they obviously haven’t. He can get mad and lobby the union to get rid of draft pool shenanigans in the next CBA – but he can’t pretend that it was foul play. Because it wasn’t, it was a team working within the agreed upon rules that explicitly stated that unused slot money can go to other picks.
You clearly haven’t read any of my comments. I’ve already said multiple times that it could be contingent but the Astros would have to say so explicitly and if they didn’t then no one, especially Nix’s advisors is assuming that it is. Hence if the Astros didn’t say it was contingent nix wouldn’t receive advice that it is. You also assume the CBA allows for contingent deals but this isn’t necessarily clear as the players association has said that Nix had a valid agreement, I wouldn’t assume that contingent deals are allowed but maybe you can point to the clause in the CBA that says they are or are not. People seem to think that because its obvious that the Astros were relying on Aiken’s draft pool Nix’s agreement was contingent on it. This is absolutely wrong, the Astros would have to specify it, I don’t know if they did but I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t. As for the so called handshake deal, how far along in the formalities are the parties? Was Nix supposes to travel to Houston to get a medical? Has he already had a medical? These are all important facts that I don’t know hence my first reply is prefaced with honestly we don’t know.
n0exit, Nix’s council (Casey Close) has said that Nix already has had his physical and is totally clear. That has never been in dispute. What has been in dispute is that Nix thinks that his verbal agreement should be honored, while the Astros feel no obligation until papers are filed. I feel for Nix. If somebody told me that they had an agreement with me, then went back on it when it came time to make things official, I’d be furious. However, as an independent observer – I also am capable of knowing that nothing is for real until all the papers are signed. I just think that you are being intentionally obtuse by pretending that the Astros have to say the words out loud “contingent” before making a verbal agreement. They don’t. They don’t need to say any words at all. They can back out at any time before papers are filed for any reason and be within the rules. That doesn’t mean they aren’t being dicks – just that they haven’t broken any agreed upon rules.
Absolutely false. First off, Nix and Aiken are being advising by the same exact person. Secondly, Nix made it known before the draft that it would take a lot of money to sign him away from his UCLA scholarship and that his 3rd round expected spot would not be enough. In doing so, he and his advisor would have to be aware that this money must come from somewhere else in the draft pool as no team is going to incur the major penalties for being too far over the pool amount. By being picked in the 5th round, he would have to know that they only way to save enough money elsewhere to afford his asking price would be if the 1st round pick signed far enough under slot. There is no chance Nix didn’t know the money had to come from somewhere else and nearly no chance of Nix not knowing that it had to come from the 1st round pick, Aiken.
I agree completely. I must be in the minority based on what I’ve read, because I don’t see a problem with the way Houston has handled this.
If there’s a problem with his UCL, I would not expect them to give him the same bonus he’d receive with a healthy UCL. He’s less valuable, so he should be paid less. If this issue was known before the draft, would he have even gone top-5?
If they don’t sign him, then they have no money for Nix. As you said, Nix should have known that they could only pay him above slot if they paid someone else lower than slot. And they had to officially sign the below-slot player first, otherwise the below-slot player can screw them over. If I know this, then a million dollar draft pick has no excuse for not knowing it.
Sure, it sucks for both players, but I don’t blame Houston for it. It’s not their fault that Aiken’s UCL is the size of a toothpick, and I don’t expect them to pay Aiken full price just to appease Nix.
from an Astros fan perspective, how can you be happy. Your top pick in the draft 3 yrs ago is out with a very bad leg injury. By all reports he is good but you picked him because he signed below value allowing you to sign Mccullers. Meanwhile the 2nd pick Buxton was picked as top prospect in baseball.
The next year you picked Appel even though from what I know privately there was concern with his offspeed pitches needing work and his command. So far that played out and he looks like he could be a bust. meanwhile the Cubs took Kris Bryant with the next pick and has been moved up to the top prospect in baseball by many outlets.
Again you have another 1.1 pick and now you think you might not sign him because of abnormality meanwhile a kid you watched every start grew up an hour away and is the prototype Texas fireball goes next and signs a friendly deal with the Marlins.
Its seems like its too much about business and not enough about finding real good baseball players. What a waste if this is what they end up with after 3 top picks in the draft.
Yeah, the greatest lesson of all this is that team’s shouldn’t try to get cute and go for bargains when they’re picking 1-1. Any other round is going to be a crapshoot to some extent, so get the player you think is the top overall talent while you can.
but Aiken was considered consensus #1, and not a bargain pick.
Shhhh! We’re ignorantly criticizing the Astros right now! Isn’t it fun!
All three were legit #1 picks. Hell, Appel was a legit #1 pick 2 years in a row.
I sat with several Astros scouts watching Appels start against Rice during his senior year. Maybe they were nitpicking but a lot of the issues that he is having now were very much being talked about that night They didn’t like his slider or his command. He was hitting 99 that night on the gun though.
The anti-Astros position appears to be that they’ve falsified their interpretation of the results of a physical in order to try to sign a player for less money. This strikes me as A) very unethical if true and B) very unlikely to be true.
Leaving that aside, to me this exposes a larger problem than just the specific rules MLB employs for its draft (the pools, the slotting, the penalties, etc.), but an issue with the notion of a draft itself. If Aiken were allowed to negotiate with multiple teams (or the Astros were allowed to trade the right to negotiate with him), it would quickly become clear what the results of his physical actually were. Either all 29 other MLB clubs would make reduced offers and the Astros would be vindicated, the other 29 MLB clubs would pounce on offering Aiken his full value and the Astros would be exposed, or teams would prove to have different opinions and Aiken could get his money from someone else (a la the Balfour situation). This current situation is worse for everyone involved; worse for Aiken, who cannot collect his full value from whatever team is least concerned about his elbow; for that team, who cannot acquire a prospect it values highly; for the Astros, who cannot allocate their draft money among the prospects they want and have to await sentencing in the court of public opinion; most of all, for Nix, who might get screwed through absolutely no fault of his own. In every other American industry young workers are allowed to negotiate with multiple employers and choose one as they see fit based on all factors involved (location, work environment, compensation, etc.) It’s time to stop treating our young athletes differently from everyone else.
Aiken can go back in the draft next year. And he can collect his full value, but it won’t be anywhere close to $6.5 million. If everyone knew about his ucl, he wouldn’t even be top 10 this year.
Even if you doubt the word of Aiken’s agent and doctors (a fair enough position), it’s not terribly rational to assume the Astros and their doctors are to be absolutely believed. They’re equally likely to have their own agendas.
Lintner is highly respected. I suppose Andrews coming out now would put everything to rest, but nothing is stopping him from saying aomething unless Aiken’s camp won’t release his info. One has to wonder why they don’t release what Andrews has to say.
I’m not sure sure about that. He’ll undoubtedly have more medical exams in the future. If he goes into the draft next year, a team drafts him and finds out his UCL is he size of everybody else’s, then the Astros will look significantly worse than they look right now. I doubt they’d just make up a story that’s easily proven to be false.
Says who? There very well may be teams who, in an open market, would pay $10 million+ for him and who would gladly pay $6 million next year. Not saying he will get it, but the draft can distort a player’s actual value, as in the most a team would pay for his services.
with a congenital arm issue? Your quite sunny in your outlook. I’ll believe it when I see it.
His value on the open market isn’t relevant though. All of the draft picks are signing for less than their open value. Maybe there are 10 other draftees that would make more on the open market (even though they won’t get it, due to the way the draft works).
Actually Aiken can probably file a grievance and has a reasonable chance of being declared a free agent. Likewise with Nix too.
Both those two can prove that the draft’s exclusivity (part of MLB’s anti-trust exemption) has caused them direct financial harm. All it will take is a judge who is more interested in the merits of the case at hand than the ‘precedent’ of the anti-trust exemption.
no the only grievance they have is that when the MLBPA signed this agreement, they didn’t think about nix and aiken. MLBPA should and could have done better. they will go after MLBPA after the dust is settled, cause they are the ones who represented them in the last round of talks.
There’s a clear distinction between the Aiken and Nix situations. Let’s assume the Astros are acting in good faith on Aiken, and are genuinely fearful that he will blow his elbow out (of course, as we all have seen, that risk is endemic among pitchers) and haven’t used this opportunity to low-ball a player after they had a handshake deal with him. The Astros have a right to put a value on what they have openly called damaged goods. We may not think it’s a savory way to do business, but they are within their legal rights. It’s Aiken’s elbow that’s the issue, and if he had a full-sized ligament he might be getting what was offered him (of course, if we assume Astros bad faith, they would have looked for something else, but we can only see what’s been disclosed.) Bad luck for Aiken, possibly good luck for an opportunistic Astros management that never leaves a dollar on the table, whether they earn it themselves, get it from the other MLB teams, or keep it by making sure they have the lowest payroll. But Nix is in a separate category. It’s his poor luck to have been drafted by a team like the Astros, who clearly could not make the offer they did without getting Aiken in tow first. Looks like the Astros followed the rules. They just play the game harder than others do.
Play the game harder? Not on the field of play that counts! But they’re really tough on the HS bonus babies. Who’s “advisors” will be praying to the sweet lord that the Astros don’t draft them in the future. The Astros didn’t calculate the damage (yet again) they get from being chiselers.
Probably no future damage done to their draft negotiation ability. Drafted players have no leverage normally – JUCO and indy leagues aren’t as good as money today.
Yeah, that’s what they said about Hoffman when the Jays drafted him. What’s he going to do, go play Indy ball as a 5th year senior? He got his slot, and AA acknowledged they needed to change the direction of how they are interpreted (as class A chiselers). They also eased off on the bonus baby pitchers for a change and got a stud college catcher to boot. Its their best draft in years.
Hoffman was pick 9 – the monetary differences are pretty big, AA used the phrase “built-in discount” to reference the fact that his draft position was out of whack with his talent due to injury.
Hoffman was a college pitcher, and their previous first round signing failures were with risky to sign HS players – they lowballed their late rounders to have extra for the players taken early on. A first rounder will fail to sign almost every year. It’s not that the team in question is some sort of “chiseler” – it’s probably just coincidence that it happened to the Jays twice.
I like this analysis, rather than yours:
http://www.thestar.com/sports/bluejays/2014/06/04/blue_jays_why_has_team_failed_to_sign_recent_firstround_draft_picks.html
I get it, teams penny pinching is annoying, and I do want to see teams spend more. But it’s disingenuous to pretend that teams would behave this way if not for the cap rules.
And yet… teams DO behave differently, and don’t chisel. What a concept, just following the draft and taking the best player on the board. The Jays have a large proportion of the unsigned players in the past five years, its not a coincidence. They also just aren’t that good at draft and development. Time will tell on the Astros. It only takes one big win to change perceptions…
“it’s his poor luck to have been drafted by a team like the Astros, who clearly could not make the offer they did without getting Aiken in tow first.”
Could any team have drafted him and made a similar offer without getting someone in tow (under slot) first? Seems to me like if Houston didn’t draft him, he would have gone even later and would have needed someone to sign for even further under slot if he wanted that specific bonus.
Where should your priority be? Getting the 50-50 odds of a top 5 pick right or worrying about the bonus baby that other teams have passed on repeatedly? Maybe next year these self described nerds will look at historical success of position players versus pitchers at the top of the draft. If they still have a job.
I’d have to assume that you didn’t mean to respond to my post? Because I don’t see the connection between my post and your response.
Sorry about that Viva. You are correct that his bonus demands drove him down the draft. The new CBA definitely will screw up future draft studies big time because its impossible to have any true facts on bonus demands most of the time.
I don’t think Aiken or Casey Close looks nearly as bad as the Astros, who have earned their rep in the past 3 years. Now they get to sit in it. This is the top pick in the draft, a high probability MLB event. You’re not supposed to screw it up. Instead of concentrating properly on not screwing it up, they have prioritized getting more bonus babies as the organizational goal. Although bonus demands serve to drive players down the draft to a degree, the other part is that the majority of MLB has passed on the talent as well. So you’re talking the B-team talent. Its so much more important to get the top of the draft right, gaming the draft with slots and underdrafts/overdrafts is a sideshow. And one that earns a lot of scorn from the majority of front offices. Lose-lose for the “self proclaimed nerds”.
You appear to be ignoring the fact that their top pick in the draft has something wrong with his arm entirely.
Allegedly. There could be absolutely nothing wrong, as Aiken & his coach/trainer/other doctors have said.
That’s not what Aiken’s camp has said. They’ve said that he’s ready to pitch. They are not disputing the congenital defect, but trying to say it doesn’t matter. Significant difference.
They said he can pitch, he can. It isn’t a false statement. astros don’t disagree that there is nothing wrong with him now. It is the UCL that poses a problem for the future. THat is the disagreement. Close hasn’t disclosed all of the his doctor’s reports.
What would the Astros gain by completely falsifying an arm problem? The Astros did not expect to be able to sign Aiken, Nix and Marshall. For that to be the argument, the Astros would have to believe they could agree to a deal with Aiken, fake an arm impairment, and get Aiken to agree to a lower amount when both the Astros and Aiken know there’s nothing wrong. That’s not happening.
And if there was absolutely nothing wrong with Aiken’s arm, you better believe Aiken’s people would be doing more than a press smear of the Astros.
AK – from the article in the SD paper, there wasn’t any acknowledgment of the condition by the Trainer/Coach. You’re right they said he is ready to pitch. Basically the Astros have 40%’d their offer on the future risk of a condition. Whether the 5MM offer was there or not is up for grabs, the story came from Heyman originally. In that SD story there is a bit more fleshed out about how chiselly the Astros were before the verbal agreement and the physical. Sure that’s how games are played, to an extent. Some teams like to be thankful for being in a position to pay blue chip talent and get on with it, some teams aren’t and need to fight for every inch of the bone. A lot of approval on that regard, but there is value in just paying the price. YMMV
JayKay – Casey Close is hugely respected as a discreet and excellent agent. He’s doing a fine job of smearing the hell out of the Astros.
JayKay – my bad, got cut off, he is doing a fine job of a smear, and it remains to be seen how far it goes, but Nix has a great case. Mayo/Callis are starting to cover this part in their latest stories, can’t remember which one wrote it/tweeted it.
Even though I’m younger than Ryan Lavarnway, I’m old enough to know that there has to be a better way.
Teams need to know what their investment is in a prospect before they use a high draft pick on them.
What if Aiken re-enters the draft next year. Would he get over $3 million with arm concerns now?
Unlikely at best. With a UCL defect, he’s not going to be a high first rounder next year and therefore his earning power is artificially capped below 3 million. He should take the money unless he has some extreme reason to think that teams will not look down on the arm concerns.
The problem is the collusion between MLB and the players’ union. They have essentially conspired to limit compensation to non-MLB baseball players. You see it in the draft, the slot compensation rules, the international signing limits, and soon to come, an international draft. In no other business do you have this ingrained anti-competitive corruption. All of this is based on an antiquated joke of a Supreme Court decision and Congress’ enchantment with major league sports. I am surprised the internationals have not brought anti-trust actions in their home countries. I am also surprised at the callousness of the union toward the draftees. Most work for practically nothing and have not been initially subsidized with sizeable bonuses.
The teams are becoming the toys of billionaires. The sport is not in any kind of danger from teams irrationally “overspending.” They overspend on art, homes, etc. If they are so inclined, let them overspend on the talent that makes the game worth watching.
The Players’ Union is comprised of veterans, who are highly motivated to keep the big money in the hands of the veteran players. Obviously it’s not that cut and dried, but that is the simple answer.
A couple of important points here:
#1) Houston offering the minimum necessary to get draft pick compensation more or less shows their intent. They don’t want Aiken to sign, they want the #2 pick next year.
#2) The Astros are low-balling. Aiken’s agent had already agreed to a deal well below slot, and now Houston is going well below that.
#3) A small UCL is very different from a damaged UCL. Had the physical turned up fraying like Lucas Giolito or Andrew Brackman then that would be one thing, but I’ve never read of any connection between an underdeveloped UCL and increased injury risk. It seems logical, but it’s not the understood correlation that we have with frayed UCLs.
dickey’s situation is quite similar
jdbolick:
The Astros had to offer Aiken at least the 40%. They have to get something out of this. If Aiken does not sign, then they lose the pool and lose Nix too. The only compensation for that is next year’s 2nd pick. Aiken is lucky that he can get 3+ ml with this known issue. You can be sure that if he does not sign he won’t get that in the future with this issue known. So, no..This is not a low ball offer. The Astros are probably offering more than they think Aiken is worth because they have to offer at least 40% to ensure they will get some compensation regardless of which way this goes.
As for the ACL, the word is that the Astros believe that the specific ACL issue Aiken has may not be repairable by TJ surgery. If so, that makes it a very significant issue. Is there an increased risk of injury? There are too many factors to know, but if there is an injury, there is an increased likelihood that Aiken will not recover fully if you believe what is being reported of the Astros view.
“Aiken is lucky that he can get 3+ ml with this known issue.”
Gosh, there’s some unbiased analysis coming from a guy named AstroFax.
What do you think he could get in a future draft when organizations know about his elbow ahead of time? Not 3 million, because picks have specific slot amounts. He probably would no longer be a first rounder, and have to settle for whatever money his slot was worth, i.e. less than three million. He needs to take the money now. Close is doing his client no favors.
Aiken would absolutely still be a first rounder. Giolito and Brackman were first rounders even with damaged UCLs, and Aiken’s is not damaged, it’s just smaller than normal.
jdbolick, no correlation between “underdeveloped UCL and increased injury risk” doesn’t mean that teams won’t pay less for the defect. They will still pay less despite a lack of correlation. They pay less for abnormalities. Regardless of correlation. I’m not saying it’s right, I’m saying that is reality.
AK7007, the reality is that other talented pitchers with damaged UCLs clearly requiring Tommy John already get drafted in the first round regularly. You said something incorrect and need to let it go.
I haven’t seen any medical professional suggest that a small UCL isn’t repairable. That suggestion wouldn’t even appear to make sense. The fear is that a small UCL is more susceptible to rupture, but again, that’s never been anecdotally shown much less medically proven.
One or both of these guys should dump Close yesterday. And the title “advisor” is so self serving.
He’s Derek Jeter’s and Clayton Kershaw’s agent. He’s looking for a big payday and it’s blown up in his face and his only chance is a PR war now. And these kids and their parents aren’t wide eyed innocents either.
Jeter and Kershaw are considered two of the highest character guys in the game, and they both chose Close for agent. He’s collected huge amounts of money from their contracts (not to mention his other very highly paid MLB clients) so “looking for a big payday” from two high schoolers makes little sense.
I blame the players union for caving on the last CBA to cap the draft spending where there was no such issue before. This pool nonsense of one player’s medicals affecting another’s ability to sign is nuts. Owners pennypinching on poor amateurs and minor leaguers while the MLBers DGAF is the issue. Too bad they can’t do a draft pick sign and trade to see if any other clubs are willing to pay Aiken to get an idea of what his value is and so he can be in an organization with whom he doesn’t have bad blood if he does ultimately sign for the 3 million.
I think we’ve seen in recent history that clubs (particularly the Orioles) have idiosyncratic approaches to player health. The Orioles seem to have a “no red flags” policy when handing out contracts, so it’s not unreasonable to think that the Astros would be similarly risk-averse.
It’s a bit of a giveaway to look for the side that’s screaming ‘foul’ the loudest a la the old maxim about ‘pounding the table’.
If there were doctors (instead of ex-coaches) out there saying the elbow thing isn’t a risk, the agent ought to have a strong enough position to not have to resort to public opinion as a bargaining tool and thus risk poising the well for his client…now the Astros have even more of an incentive to prove that his client is damaged goods because he’s put their credibility on the line
The Nix stuff is a a bit of a red herring in all this. The money to sign him overslot was there with the ORIGINAL Houston offer of 6.5mil to Aiken. That 6.5mil, as the article mentions, was already far enough underslot to sign Nix overslot without incurring penalties (plus there is the 5% overage to dip into as well)
That is why this is being perceived as Houston ‘lowballing’ Aiken or saving money.
Cutting ~3mil from that offer has nothing to do with reallocating money unless they are suddenly going to bump up Nix’s 1.5mil offer to 4.5 mil. Seeing as Nix agreed to 1.5mil, it appears the 3+mil would go into the owners pocket (or be spent somewhere else beyond the 2014 draft). I’m fine with Houston saying there is added risk and we don’t want to risk that much money, but let’s not soft pedal this as if that money is being reallocated elsewhere in the draft and a strategic decision – it’s not.
The new offer simply puts Houston well below their 2014 draft allocation. Which makes it a business decision.
“Seeing as Nix agreed to 1.5mil, it appears the 3+mil would go into the owners pocket…”
That’s gotta be it!
This is exactly right. And the reason that Close hasn’t agreed to the proposed cut is also a business decision. (Or more accurately, a emotional decision) He could get Aiken to sign and then Nix would be in as well. It’s cold and calculating, which is why people don’t like hearing about it. But both sides are playing the game.
I would love to hear Wendy Thrum weigh in on whether Aiken or Nix would have an antitrust case here.
My understanding is that professional sports drafts work legally because they result from the collective bargaining process. Otherwise they’d be a clear restraint of trade. But unlike athletes drafted into the NFL or NBA, an MLB draftee (or int. signee) is years away from joining the union that engaged in the bargaining process. So isn’t the MLB draft on somewhat shaky legal ground to begin with?
If a Kafkaesque draft system designed by morons prevents the athlete who goes 1-1 from actually signing a contract, isn’t MLB tempting a landmark antitrust lawsuit? Why or why not? Please enlighten me.
Huge, giant, flashing #notalawyer sign ahead: would a counterargument to that not be that you can’t say that the laws against murder, assault, DUI, etc., shouldn’t apply to you because you weren’t born when they were enacted?
I don’t think this has anything to do with when the laws were enacted (or when collective bargaining occurred). This has to do with a new group of people brought in every year bound by rules that limit their rights until they have 6 years of MLB time and don’t give them a seat at the negotiating table until they’re in MLB.
The situation is more like laws that apply to children that can’t vote until they’re 18. Generally this is accepted because children aren’t considered mature enough to vote before that. It is notable that the voting age used to be 21 until Vietnam. It was widely considered unjust that 18 year-olds could be drafted and sent to a controversial war before having any opportunity to influence policy. There are a bunch of theories and ideas about why and when laws are just in a democracy, some having to do with representation; the draft bought itself some legitimacy by enfranchising people of draft age.
Baseball teams are independent, competitive companies with independent owners and budgets, but they cooperate with eachother to limit the earning power of players. Ordinarily competing companies aren’t allowed to cooperate on things like this — for example, there was a big lawsuit recently about Silicon Valley tech companies agreeing not to recruit from eachother, effectively reducing employees’ options and earning power. The reason the courts allow this in baseball but not in the tech industry is that (as our “Curt Flood” points out) in baseball the agreement is collectively bargained — that players have a seat at the table. It’s similar to a question of representation. But if limits on which teams a baseball player can negotiate with are considered legal because that player is considered to be represented in the collective bargaining process, what can we make of this ruling if in fact most of the players aren’t represented? If, as was argued throughout the 60s regarding voting, that the old were using their exclusive power to oppress the young? Nix is, apparently, punished heavily by rules that limit who he can negotiate with, and he’ll only get a chance to negotiate in several years if he succeeds in MLB (in a morbid way, it’s like the draft question — a young draftee can vote in three years if he doesn’t die in the war first).
bravo
Good writeup.
Wow, well said. This looks even stronger than the Ed O’Bannon vs. NCAA lawsuit’s premise given that (1) amateur baseball players don’t have a viable option to US organized baseball such as the European leagues and (2) the NCAA can at least argue that they provide something of value (a college scholarship) whereas the amateur draft under this CBA is effectively a “take-it-or-leave-it” proposition.
I never thought I’d be saying this, but I’m rooting for Scott Boras to mount a charge against the current system on behalf of minor leaguers. Leaving this issue unfixed puts the future of major league baseball in jeopardy.
To be sure, I am definitely Not A Lawyer or an expert in this or any area of law — I’m just a layman that’s read a lot of Wikipedia articles. I have very little idea how lawmakers or courts will actually legislate or rule on the antitrust issues (they’ve been more deferential to sports leagues in the past than one would expect, simply looking at analogies in other fields, and have used a variety of arguments to get there, suggesting that the law as written and interpreted is driven by rationalization of current practice as much as anything).
I tend to believe the situation of young players is unjust. However, I should temper this: competitive balance is also important, and having some long-term control over developing players gives teams an opportunity to help them improve. It’s hard to design a system that provides for competitive balance, gives teams an interest to develop talent, and is fair to young players (you could give teams more freedom to locate where they want, but even if there are 7 teams in NYC that’s no guarantee of equal financial resources, as the Premier League shows). That said, I don’t think it’s the job of Congress and the courts to ensure competitive balance or give teams an interest in developing talent, and it is their job to ensure that, if workers sign away their rights, they are appropriately represented when doing so.
but the main question is why is the 1.1 not signing the contract?
Some believe there is no just cause.
BUT, this article states this
One source told the Houston Chronicle that “he may have some of the UCL, but not much,” which is absolutely terrifying.
It isn’t as if the astros picked him and purposefully lowballed him. There is also absoutely no precedent that the astros during this regime have done something as sinister as what people are insinuating.
And they aren’t pulling a Phillies and narcing on these players for having an agent.
Great point. Should be clear I don’t think the Astros are acting unreasonably, I just think the system is absurd.
And in the case where the Astros and Aiken disagree about Aiken’s medicals — and this seems like the most likely scenario — Aiken doesn’t sign and Nix loses a chance to go pro this year because he’s unable to come to terms with the one team that’s allowed to negotiate with him due to their limited space under an imposed salary cap.
Why doesn’t Jacob Nix then have a great antitrust lawsuit against MLB?
And actually, also Aiken, because there is certainly a team that would like to take a chance on him but cannot because they don’t have the right to do so. How is that not a restraint of trade? How is that not tempting an antitrust lawsuit?
How are Bradley Aiken’s rights not being trampled? The only answers I can come up with are a) collective bargaining, but the MLBAM doesn’t represent draftees or minor leaguers and b) MLB’s antitrust exemption, but my understanding is that’s on pretty shaky ground, and I can’t remember a draftee ever litigating his rights. Maybe the time is now.
It isn’t an antitrust violation because the draft rules have been collectively bargained with the union. The union represents the workers and can agree to these rules that bind even future workers who have not yet joined.
This would just be the Maurice Clarett case all over again. I don’t think it makes a difference that Aiken and other draftees might not play in MLB for years. A college player might go directly to MLB and the rules apply to both. And some NHL and NBA draftees also wait years to go into those leagues.
I’m torn on what to think about this situation. I think that to an extent the Astros are being unfairly vilified. In years past, bonuses have been reduced without much fanfare for reasons similar to this one. The only exception now is that draft spending has been constrained, and the Astros are in the position where signing Nix (and potentially Marshall?) is contingent on Brady Aiken accepting a certain amount. This never should have been allowed to happen, it’s unfortunate for every party involved.
The Astros are in a tough spot due to not being able to speak on what Aiken’s medical reports revealed. We know that it’s the UCL and what is being reported by the agent. But we can never assume that we know as much as the people taking part in this negation; in this case, the Astros. There is something in the medical report that they are not comfortable with, and I think it is perfectly within their right to choose to not spend more than $3M on Aiken (it is my belief though that the marginal difference between $3M and $5M is worth the risk).
I’d love to see more about this cup and hat he doctors are saying. I’m also not sure that Aiken was the consensus pick everyone makes him out to be. The Astros scouted Kolek extensively and some thought they might take him.
Unless the Nix contract specifically states that it is contingent on Aiken signing, the Astros should be on the hook for 1.5 mil. It doesn’t matter if that would put them over the bonus pool. They should just be assessed the penalty. If they want to avoid the worst of the penalty, they should just sign Aiken to the original offer. If the Nix contract does not have a contingency clause for Aiken signing then Aiken actually has the better bargaining position.
As far as I know, Nix doesn’t have a finalized contract with Houston. If he did, they’d be stuck. They may have come to terms on the parameters of a contract, but that’s a lot different than having both sides sign an actual contract.
As a draft pick who’s looking to be paid a million dollars over slot, he had to have known that he can only get that money if somebody else is signed for below slot. There’s no way this is new knowledge to him. It really sucks for him because it’s an issue that’s out of his control, but the Astros shouldn’t lose a future pick because of it. They have the right to back out of the deal if it’s not yet signed.
I’d advise the Astros in the future to do their due diligence on a player before taking them No. 1 and before shaking hands on a contract. If he had already been checked out to their satisfaction, they should pay him what they agreed.
The Astros have some motivation for opening up this can of worms to save “only a few million bucks.” Interesting that the author presumes that it’s to legitimately discount an injury as opposed to getting all three players signed. That’s a shaky presumption in my opinion.
RMH, you are describing a situation that does not exist.
“I’d advise the Astros in the future to do their due diligence on a player before taking them No. 1 and before shaking hands on a contract. If he had already been checked out to their satisfaction, they should pay him what they agreed.”
This is not possible.
If I’m Aiken at this point I say give me the full slot or go to hell. I’ll go to Juco for a year, crush it, come back and get what I deserve next year.
Easier said than done. That’s a risky proposition for a HS pitcher, and even riskier if he does have a UCL issue. And if he’s not a top 10 pick next year, his slot value will be below $3MM anyway. It might be in his best interest to bite the bullet and take the guaranteed money now. You don’t give up $3MM out of spite.
Fairly sure that he could easily insure himself for the 3 million signing bonus. Everyone is different but would leave a sour taste for me also.
Unless they were convinced that Aiken was so injured that he could not be a productive asset, there’s no reason for the Astros to not just stick to the agreement and avoid all the terrible PR this is bringing. A few million isn’t nothing, but it’s not worth this, either.
This is the poignant argument for me. If the kid is an injury risk they either want him or they don’t, what difference does it make to spend 3 million or 6 million to them other than to allocate it elsewhere? It indicates to me that they were scouring the scan to give them any kind of leverage to try and sign all three of the players they wanted. The guys mentioned Dickey, Stauffer etc all had problems with their arms that were agreed by all professionals and acknowledged by the players themselves.
The Astros didn’t low-ball him to pocket the difference; they lowballed him to game the system. Dave Cameron’s points are silly; if you want to entice him to not go to college, draft the player early. The Astros took the risk of drafting hard to sign players – players that valued college highly. They whiffed and must pay the price.
Don’t blame the system.
It’s the Astros. AFter all, all they have to do is wait for Aiken not to sign and get next year’s #2 – no problem. BUT, they lose the other 2 picks that were risky with no compensation – that’s on them and completely their fault.
The fact that Aiken got hurt validates the Astros opinion of Aiken’s elbow to at least some degree. However whether the Astros made the right decision is a different question.
It comes down to whether the Astros are better off having given Aiken the $1.5M difference in the offers or getting the second pick. This compensation pick is not protected, so the Astros may not get the second best player. The Astros are limited to the pool of players that they can come to terms with prior to the draft, despite the fact that it is against the rules to negotiate before the draft.