4:02pm: Halem says that whether or not an arrest occurs will not be a factor in the investigation, Bob Nightengale of USA Today tweets. He also indicated that the league hopes to complete its look by the opening of Spring Training, as Barry Svrluga of the Washington Post adds on Twitter. That certainly suggests that a resolution may not be forthcoming for some time.
12:23pm: In the wake of the scuttled trade that would have sent Reds closer Aroldis Chapman to the Dodgers, many are wondering how much the Reds knew about Chapman’s alleged domestic violence history and, if they were aware of it, when they were apprised.  In a press conference with reporters on Tuesday morning, MLB chief baseball officer Joe Torre told reporters that the league was not aware of Chapman’s arrest record until Monday evening.  That timeline would imply that the league learned of Chapman’s arrest roughly around the time everyone else did, as the Yahoo Sports report was filed roughly around 9pm CT on Monday night.
Obviously, the Dodgers and other fervent Chapman suitors will be holding off on trade talks until we gain more clarity on the closer’s messy situation.  Torre, who has an instrumental role in league discipline, indicated that the league will be taking its time in weighing a potential punishment for the soon-to-be 28-year-old.
“As awful as his situation is, there are still rights that have to be protected.  So, we’re very careful in making sure that we respect that and get all of the information.  Then, we will proceed accordingly,” Torre told the press in Nashville.
Pressed on Chapman for roughly ten minutes, Torre referred a good number of the questions to Dan Halem, the league’s Chief Legal Officer.  Halem is expected to address reporters at the Winter Meetings at some point on Tuesday afternoon.
Not that I am saying they should, but will the Reds be penalized for withholding this information (especially while trying to trade him)?
Why would they be penalized? The new domestic violence policy has nothing in it that says the league must be notified by a team.
twitter.com/MLB_PR/status/634825604274257920
It says the commissioner will investigate all allegation of domestic violence and provides the commissioner with the sole discretion to sanction a player who he finds to have violated the policy. If a team knows about allegations against one of their players but can sandbag them in the hopes that nobody will find out then this would essentially nullify the policy. So any technicalities aside, I doubt very much that MLB will take the position you suggest.
Well, I strongly disagree. Without any specific contractual language i’m not sure how they could possibly apply any disciplinary action.
It’s stated explicitly in the policy, which was agreed to by the MLBPA. So basically you are are strongly disagreeing with a fact.
What “fact”? There’s no specific language in the new agreement regarding compulsory team notification to the league nor any reference to penalties to a team that fails to do such.
It is literally not stated ‘explicitly’ anywhere in the policy. You believe it is ‘implicit’, which is quite different.
Responding to your actual question, the commissioner’s power to investigate and sanction is explicitly called out in the policy. A policy that does not require a team to notify MLB of a possible violation is basically no policy at all.
The reactionary in me says yes, depending on what’s dug up, mostly based on what seems to be a pretty shady sequence of events.
The Red have been shopping him for months and this feels like something that someone would have to have actively suppressed. Rumors went around yesterday that the domestic violence incident may have had something to do with the Red Sox backing off. If that’s the case, then poo poo on the league in general for not getting this out there sooner.
If it’s not true, though? Then we can say that the Reds were shopping Chapman to teams at an extremely high value while hiding extremely big info, almost on par with actively hiding an injury. Everyone knows what a huge media storm something like this would create if it didn’t come out until an acquiring team got him and it’s going to severely hamper his value. That being the case, it sounds to me like maybe the Reds have been negotiating in bad faith for a month now.
Yup. Only part of this story is about Chapman. The other part is about MLB’s new domestic violence policy and whether a team tried to bypass it. If it turns out to be true, this could turn into the biggest baseball story of the offseason.
I think it’s pretty obvious that no one knew about this until it broke nationally a few days ago.
This post references “Chapman’s arrest” multiple times. While I am in no way defending him or his actions, just to be clear, Chapman was not arrested. The police did not arrest him on the date of the incident and subsequently, the prosecutor refused to bring formal charges due to “inconsistent and uncooperative” witness testimony.
I get the sense that Jocketty’s pre-winter meeting declaration of “we’re moving Aroldis Chapman” was an attempt to expedite the process before THIS news broke and everyone else found out. We’ll see.
I’m not really up on the details of the domestic violence policy, but I imagine it’s kind of a grey area when there isn’t actually an arrest or charges filed. If it was at home over the offseason, the team pretty much wouldn’t find out until he told them, and the same goes for the league.
The policy does not define domestic violence as a criminal act though clearly it could be that as well. The very odd aspect of this situation is apparently the Red Sox knew about the allegation a month ago so it is highly implausible that the Reds were not also informed. The policy doesn’t explicitly say but it certainly implies a team’s responsibility to report any alleged violations of the policy to the commissioner. Obviously that did not happen.
The question, then, is whether or not that definition of domestic violence would hold up in court. If there wasn’t probable cause for an arrest at the time or for charges after the fact, it’s going to be an uphill battle for the league in that regard.
No court is involved, From the policy: “The Commissioner’s authority to discipline is not dependent on whether the player is convicted or pleads guilty to a crime.” The player’s recourse to a ruling against him is an appeal to an arbitration panel. This is all pretty much in alignment with the commissioner’s abilities to sanction other player behavior issues. No real departure from the norm on procedure.
That’s not quite what I’m getting at… there’s always federal court to fall back on. No matter how it gets dressed up at the end of the day it’s labor relations, and it’s not over until 1) both parties decide it’s over or 2) they take it to court and judge rules it’s over.
Aside, at work on my phone I haven’t been able to find the text of the policy. Where’d you get that from?
To clarify I mean say the league hands out a suspension, they’re going to have issues if Chapman and his representation fight it. I doubt in this instance that the MLBPA will back him up quite as fervently as the NFLPA backed Adrian Peterson for example (league was on shakier ground in that situation) but still, if it came to a knock down drag out fight the league better have some pretty compelling evidence that something serious happened.
Even Ray Rice… He ended up with pre trial diversion and ended up settling his wrongful termination case with the Ravens out of court.
@JD396, Since I apparently can’t reply directly to you this deep into a string.
I think the ruling that MLB makes on Chapman and Reyes will set the tone for the seriousness of the domestic violence policy. If these guys get suspended for 4-5 games with a fine then they’re basically saying this infraction is on par with starting a fight on a the field. and the policy will be a joke. On the other hand if Chapman and Reyes get 50-game suspensions, on par with drug abuse, then MLB will probably score a PR victory regardless of whether or not Chapman tries to go to court. My guess is they and MLBPA both would prefer not to go to war over that punishment..
I really doubt the MLBPA fights the league much on this one. They gotta come down hard on this sort of crap and create an expectation that when you get home in October and play Joey Badass at home, you’re gonna pay for it.
For PED’s too, in the future I’d like to see some kind of team opt-out or something in that vein so these guys REALLY pay.
Frankly, it would be nice if they’d go after the Pap v Bryce incident, too. I get that it’s a bit of a slippery slope but
Yes I think start_wearing gets it about right. This is a new policy created to address the many concerns about domestic violence in pro sports, MLB and the players are not going to want ti see it turned into a joke or a lawsuit in its first test.
@JD396: The policy was posted as an attachment to a twitter feed. It’s less than two pages long. Brief and to the point.
Hey Zach,
WHEN did Chapman get arrested? What records are available??
I think that you will see the players union insist on a conviction or admittance of guilt before allowing the league to punish a player in the next CBA.
The domestic violence policy was jointly developed and adopted by MLB and the MLBPA.
They would have some grounds to do that. Like I was trying to say above, you’d see a federal judge shred a serious suspension if 1) Chapman goes for a knock down drag out fight (quotelet from his camp seems to suggest they might deny anything happened) 2) the MLBPA backs him up 3) it ends up in civil court. Again, if the local criminal justice system down there didn’t feel like they had the PC for an arrest or filing a complaint, it isn’t likely the league is going to come up with a preponderance of evidence to uphold their suspension. If there’s a criminal conviction it’s pretty much slam-dunk in favor of the league.
However I find the above extremely unlikely… as Bluesky noted the policy was jointly developed by the league and the union to avoid becoming the NFL about this time last year, where the league was behaving arbitrarily and the players union and all their lawyers got to admirably rally behind the cause of going light on a guy who whooped his preschooler with a stick. I highly doubt the MLBPA would do much of anything on the policy’s first go-round. I hope they really hit Chapman and Reyes and any other ne’er-do-wells hard though, as this sort of stuff has no place in the MLB. Or anywhere else for that matter, but obviously the off-field problems tend to be a little more dramatic and regular in some of the other major sports leagues.
In the Chapman case it’s really up to the girlfriend. If she doesn’t make a statement to the investigators confirming the story we are reading in the media, then probably nothing much happens in terms of sanctioning the player. At that point it won’t even be a case of he said-she said.