Major League Baseball has had to deal with a number of situations recently in which it’s had to punish teams or front offices, rather than players. Those include the Padres’ failure to disclose some medical information in trades, which led to the suspension of GM A.J. Preller; the Red Sox’ manipulation of international signing practices; and hacking of the Astros’ database by a Cardinals front office employee. Evan Drellich of the Boston Herald explores those issues an excellent article that includes new tidbits from commissioner Rob Manfred. (We also highlighted some of Manfred’s other thoughts on the Preller matter yesterday.)
Some throughout the game have wondered whether Preller’s 30-day suspension is enforceable. He would, surely, only need his phone and computer to continue to influence over the Padres’ decision-making. Manfred, though, says that the league has mechanisms in place to ensure Preller stays away.
“I know where A.J. is,” Manfred says. “We’ve also told the Padres that we will be making investigatory undertakings to verify that there has been no contact. They’re very, very explicit rules about what he can and can’t do. I think given the circumstances, I am comfortable we can enforce the penalty.”
The Red Sox, of course, were victims of Preller’s handling of medical information, having been deprived of relevant records in the Drew Pomeranz / Anderson Espinoza swap. The Sox could have rescinded the deal in either July or August, Drellich reports. When the Red Sox learned that the Padres had withheld information, they informed the league, but took the position that they wanted to keep Pomeranz, even after receiving the results of an MRI that increased their frustration with the situation. (The exact results of the MRI are not publicly known, although Pomeranz is currently struggling with left forearm soreness.)
“For a very, very long time, there has been a rule in baseball that if something happens in terms of lack of complete information or disclosure with respect to the trade that the remedy is to rescind the trade, and you saw that baseball rule operate,” Manfred says, referring to the partially-rescinded trade between the Padres and Marlins involving now-injured Colin Rea. (Rea originally headed from the Padres to the Marlins with Andrew Cashner and Tayron Guerrero for Carter Capps, Jarred Cosart, Josh Naylor and Luis Castillo, then headed back to the Padres for Castillo alone.) “Once that happens the rule in baseball has always been that we do not reconfigure trades. Figuring out exactly what happened when is extraordinarily difficult if not impossible. And even if we can figure that out, we are not institutionally capable of deciding who would have traded what for what.”
The truth of the matter is the worst thing that’s going to happen to Preller is the Pads may be forced to fire him or work out a deal where he steps down. There’s going to be a few teams out there that will be more wary of making a deal with Preller.
Preller isn’t getting fired any time soon
He won’t survive the off season. I know what the team is saying but no one will deal with him and the team will have no choice.
Trades will happen regardless, if they deem the price fair. There will be no team under a greater microscope on players health information than the Padres. Other teams know this and will respond accordingly.
So if a team wants one of our players, is offered a deal they like and know that Preller is providing full medical info this time because MLB is GOING to be watching him, they won’t take the trade just because it’s Preller?
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That’s my point. Let’s say in a hypothetical scenario the Pads decide to shop Brad Hand who had a good year in the pen for them. I’d imagine that teams might be slightly more willing to pay more on a potentially worse investment with another team because all Padre players are now hurt by the question “Well what’s the real medical story?”
Likewise let’s say in a hypothetical scenario the White Sox decide to shop Chris Sale and it turns out the Padres are one of the interested parties. If Padres and let’s say the Marlins have similar trade packages then I’d imagine the White Sox might be more inclined to take the Marlins offer because Preller’s word is tarnished.
Wow, you just suggested that some team would take a worse trade when they have a better offer presented to them just because one of the GM’s is Preller! Stupidest comment of the week award goes to you!
“because all Padre players are now hurt by the question ‘Well what’s the real medical story?'”
No. They know that MLB will be keeping a close eye on the Padres and they will be keeping up-to-date info this time around because they don’t want to get in even more trouble.
Exactly, Preller would be too stupid if he ever tried anything funny again, he’d be fired and probably banned from the game. Teams will still make business with the Padres, nothing will change.
Once a cheater, always a cheater. You can’t trust Preller to change his ways, only to find another way to skirt the rules.
Ya, because Preller has done so much good for the Padres. They would me smart to wash their hands of him.
The buildup of the 2015 season was part of the rebuild strategy, what Preller has done with the baseball player development programs has been amazing in his short time here. His spending in the international draft was both methodical and aggressive. If most of these prospects from last years draft or the Intl draft dont pan out then come your word might hold so bearing.
I don’t like him either but he will NOT be fired. Don’t believe me? Just watch.
What are you talking about there is no international draft.
I’m guessing he meant international scouting.
Preller has done an excellent job since he got here, he brought in a bunch of overpaid “all-stars” at the request of the front office in 2015, the “win-now” plan failed, now ownership finally let him take over the wheel and has done an excellent job at rebuilding the farm system with true high level prospects.
This team is now headed in the right direction, worst mistake the Padres could do right now is fire Preller, it would set back the franchise for several years, and a new GM would most probably set aside Preller’s plan and start all over.
I’d be really curious to see your explanation of how it was part of the rebuild strategy.
If most of these prospects don’t work out, I think you need to look more at the team’s player development infrastructure. Their draft was odd, and seems like they expected Groome to fall to them, but it’s not like any of these players were super huge reaches or dumb investments.
It’s not like drafting Matt Bush instead of Buster Posey because you don’t wanna pay the signing bonus.
Drafting Posey after his junior year of high school would have been a unique strategy.
#gotheeeeeeeeem
Hey you remember me, see that part up there where manfred even says that its a rule a trade is rescind if all info wasnt passed. You still want to tell me the padres did it in kindness. Cause that right there is proof in my favor right out of the commissioners mouth
^was meant for thewestcoastryan
Cuban is schooling WestCoast Ryan!
He isn’t schooling anyone. It’s common knowledge that the Padres weren’t forced to do anything with regards to Colin Rea. They willingly agreed to reacquire him. Like if I stole a chocolate bar from you and then asked if you wanted it back. Of course you are going to say “Sure.” And that’s exactly what the Colin Rea situation was.
Dude youre a joke. You cant even admit you were wrong. First i showed you olneys article saying mlb facilitated the deal. Now you have it here with the commissioner saying they had no choice in the matter, and you still think that the padres did it in kindness. THEY HAD NO CHOICE.
It doesn’t say jack squat about the Rea deal in this article. The other article even originally said that MLB mandated the Padres to trade back for Rea but then they edited that part out because they realized it was wrong but you’re too dumb to realize this.
It doesnt say anything about it, ill just leave this here:
“For a very, very long time, there has been a rule in baseball that if something happens in terms of lack of complete information or disclosure with respect to the trade that the remedy is to rescind the trade, and you saw that baseball rule operate,” Manfred says, referring to the partially-rescinded trade between the Padres and Marlins involving now-injured Colin Rea
It refers specifically to it, you illiterate fool
You seriously have to be the dumbest i have ever encountered in any facet of my life.
Your one bit of proof is t saying something was in an article and was edited out. So essentially you can take any random article and say and was edited out and thats your proof.
I can actually provide olneys report that says mlb facilitated the reworking of the deal. Im the only one with ACTUAL proof, you lose
Im starting to think you may be a troll. Because if i was a religious person i would hope and pray that no one person is really as utterly stupid as you appear to be, and if you are this stupid its just a matter of how you have survived this long on your own.
Either way im done engaging because you know what they say about idiots, they drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.
Note/: you didnt actually beat me, im just starting to realize youre to stupid to ever realize you have been proven wrong, so this will go on foerever
While I don’t have it screenshotted or anything like that, if you scroll down to the comments on that article you will see a comment from me and some from others asking if MLB actually mandated the Padres to take Rea back. Shortly after I asked about this, they edited that part out of the article. I know that this happened and I don’t need you to believe me in order to feel validated so think what you want.
And “MLB facilitated the reworking of the deal” sounds purposefully vague so no thanks.
And you know what they say, the idiot will always be the last one in the room to know he’s the idiot and that certainly applies to you here. I’m sure more infantile tantrums to come from you in the future every time someone disagrees with you.
How does that sound purposefully vague? Is that because you dont understand what facilitated means? Also i actually have olneys report to go by while you just have your own stupid narcissistic thoughts running through yours. your right though, the idiot will always be the last one in the room to know hes an idiot, that certainly explains why you still havent realized you were proven wrong a long time ago.
Judging by every other post, i have to believe that if you did ask that, its because you clearly hadnt understood what you had read.
And now im definitely done, because i feel myself getting dumber by the second conversing with you.
Oh, still in imaginary land? Pity.
Not just my “stupid narcissistic thoughts.” I saw that other article say that MLB mandated that Preller trade back for Rea and then remove that part about an hour later. You still haven’t answered why they would do that if it were true.
You already said you were done then came back once. Why should I believe you won’t come back again?
If you seriously think that I am the idiot here, you have a problem. Your grammar, spelling and punctuation are all Kindergarten level at best and your understanding of baseball is even worse. How pathetic you are.
Hug it out guys
Preller should have been fired on the spot
MLB should have given him a lifetime ban, what Preller did made a mockery of the trade market and added this underhanded, slimy level to how we all view front offices – if one guy can get away with this, others must be working on this level of sabotage too.
People like Preller do not belong in MLB, period. He should have been made an example of.
You act like this is the first time something like this has happened..
If anything, this isn’t even as bad as what the Red Sox or the Cardinals did.
Saying your players are healthy then providing fake medical reports is absolutely horrific.
Yes the Cardinals did a bad thing too. Boston, I dunno, to me it looks like they just bent the rules, but that’s on MLB for creating such flawed rules in the first place.
What the Red Sox were busted for isn’t even close to being as slimy as withholding medical information, it is a well known fact that packaging goes on and every team has been doing it for years. The Red Sox got overzealous with it and made it far to blatant forcing MLB to step in. It was like the Pineda pine tar incident a few years ago, no ones going to be super upset about it as long as you try and be discrete.
Nice uninformed rant. There have been radio interviews with the teams president that suggest the keeping of two sets of medical records wasnt even attributed to Preller. Hes simply taking the fall for someone else in the organization that he hired. There is so little information on what actually happened it would be ridiculous to insinuate whose responsible of anything more than simply masking all treatment information to gain competitive advantage, just like large market teams use complete medicals to their advantage in cases of arbitration and in the free agency.
This dude just trolls (remember when he got the Cleavenger thread shut down?). Ignore him.
No, Dookie Howser, MD, I did not get anything shut down. Isn’t it funny how you can have that screen name and have the audacity to call other people trolls though??? Having a different opinion to you is NOT trolling.
I am never trolling. But good point above about not enough info available, that is pretty strange – I get my opinions based on media stories and that’s what they’re all saying but you are actually right, there isn’t enough info here.
In terms of lousy business practices this is a blip on the map.
I wonder what the punishment will be for the Cards. I hope they Astros get a pick, but that’s probably just wishful thinking.
I won’t pretend to know what role a GM has in September but other than salary and the potential (however remote) of job loss a 30-day, post trade deadline, pre-offseason is a bit light… sure there must be planning going on but I agree that a suspension with bite would take him at least through February.
A lot of milage out of Manfred interview. We learn how ghastly Boston’s experience with the Pomeranz trade is (so much so that it was the only one of several tainted trades to move Manfred to take action.) We also learn the importance of maintaining Ortiz’s legacy, since Manfred is looking to hire Papi to a good will ambassador contract. We learn that all the testing results from the 2003 results should be ignored (at least, those that apply to someone about to be hired as a good-will ambassador)
My speculation–there are a number of players on the 2003 list who would have benefitted having their names (partially) cleared by MLB years ago.
If the list was tainted, why not an earlier announcement?
My guess regarding the 2003 tests is that it’s more about not having the documentation and oversight it takes to make it an official drug test rather than some scientific problem with the results.
That’s a good point. The thing about this is that we’ve had a number of years to talk about the 2003 tests, but I don’t recall MLB coming out earlier and disavowing them. If the tests were not reliable, then it was unfair to accuse the players on them of being users, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it cost at least some of them employment opportunities and contract dollars-and that should have been out there from the very beginning. Do I think many of the players on the list were using? I wouldn’t doubt it, but it seems to me that the lack of reliability now presently referred to by Manfred is one of convenience. The league is marketing a particular player, and wants to clean up his image. This has less to do with Ortiz (I have no idea what Oritiz actually did) than it is a general statement. If you are looking to clear player’s reputations, you could have done it a long time ago. Maybe some of those players were actually innocent.
Ok, so Manfred knows where Prellers at. Does he know where Waldo and Nemo are??
Maybe he knows where jimmy Hoffa is too.
He made a mistake trying to cross MLB’s favorite son the Boston Red Sox. It might not be fair but in a disagreement with the Red Sox you will ALWAYS be the one who gets burned by MLB.
Yeah, it’s like the baseball version of the Red Wedding, with the Padres playing the part of House Frey.
Should be gone, obviously this group isn’t working
AJ Preller was hired in part due to his expertise in international scouting. It will take some time for the players to develop (the ones he acquired through international signings, the draft, trades, etc. Give it time, and his hiring will pay dividends. By the way, you would be the worst owner to work for…”Two years into your five year plan and we aren’t in the playoffs? You’re fired.”