Ripping the unwritten rules a new one - MLB

Dirk Hayhurst does just that today over at Deadspin. He takes Tim Kurkjian’s recent article on the unwritten rules and, combined with his own professional baseball experience, explains why they’re simply incoherent.

The strongest observation: that there is no one set of unwritten rules. It’s all about what young players learn from veteran players on their team. And that every team has a slightly different variation on those rules. Some veterans are OK if you have flair and personality as long as you do your job. Others are stricter about decorum and behavior. There is no uniform standard. If there were, then no one would fight about these things. Everyone would know. But they do fight:

Some of those players will get traded to other teams where other leaders with different views have imprinted other rookies. Lockers rooms will face a an unwritten code schism. Sects will form. Doctrines will mutate. In many ways, unwritten rules are like religious views, with different values assigned to different doctrines, all of which must be taken on faith. And just like with many religions, believers will embrace things for which they have no clue of the origins, just because they’ve been told to believe them, and that there will be hell to pay if they don’t.

It all boils down, basically, to arbitrary values with said arbitrary values being justified by a seniority system in which veterans try to dominate young players out of fear or inertia or habit or tradition. The key is that there is no way to ever truly get a good explanation for why things must be a certain way. Or why things could be a certain way on one club but a totally different way on another. At its core it’s an irrational system even if the desire for generalized traditions and decorum is understandable.

I’ve met Dirk and talked with him a lot. I’ve read all his books and most of his articles. I think I get him pretty well. At least I get this much: guys like Hayhurst tend not do well with irrational rules and can’t help but call such irrationalities into question. There’s a grand tradition of that sort of thing in baseball. Unfortunately, those who partake in that tradition tend to get attacked on an ad hominem basis or have their criticisms fended off by appeals to authority. I’m sure some folks who don’t like what Dirk has to say here will dismiss it by talking about his writing career or the relative brevity of his major league career and say that those things disqualify him as a critic, QED.

If and when that happens it will only prove Dirk’s point, of course. For such appeals are, themselves, irrational and are designed to obfuscate the matter at hand and change the terms of the debate to one more favorable to the person on the defensive.

UPDATE:

.@Deadspin from Dirk Hayhurst? No thanks.

— Brandon McCarthy (@BMcCarthy32) June 3, 2014

Well then.

CHICAGO – The number will follow Shohei Ohtani until it is over. No, not Ohtani’s home runs or strikeouts or any of his magnificent numbers from the field. Nothing like that.

It’s all about how much. As in how much will his next contract be worth.

Ohtani is among several players going into their final seasons before they are eligible for free agency. There is still time for signatures and press conferences before opening day, but history shows a new contract becomes less likely once the real games begin.

There is no real precedent for placing a value on Ohtani’s remarkable skills, especially after baseball’s epic offseason spending spree. And that doesn’t factor in the potential business opportunities that go along with the majors’ only truly global star.

Ohtani hit .273 with 34 homers and 95 RBIs last season in his fifth year with the Los Angeles Angels. The 2021 AL MVP also went 15-9 with a 2.33 ERA in 28 starts on the mound.

He prepared for this season by leading Japan to the World Baseball Classic championship, striking out fellow Angels star Mike Trout for the final out in a 3-2 victory over the United States in the final.

Ohtani, who turns 29 in July, could set multiple records with his next contract, likely in the neighborhood of a $45 million average annual value and quite possibly reaching $500 million in total.

If the Angels drop out of contention in the rough-and-tumble AL West, Ohtani likely becomes the top name on the trade market this summer. If the Angels are in the mix for the playoffs, the pressure builds on the team to get something done before possibly losing Ohtani in free agency for nothing more than a compensatory draft pick.

So yeah, definitely high stakes with Ohtani and the Angels.

Here is a closer look at five more players eligible for free agency after this season:

RHP Aaron Nola, PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES

Nola, who turns 30 in June, went 11-13 with a 3.25 ERA in 32 starts for Philadelphia last year. He also had a career-best 235 strikeouts in 205 innings for the NL champions.

Nola was selected by the Phillies with the seventh overall pick in the 2014 amateur draft. There were extension talks during spring training, but it didn’t work out.

“We are very open-minded to trying to sign him at the end of the season,” President of Baseball Operations Dave Dombrowski said. “We’re hopeful that he’ll remain a Phillie for a long time.”

3B Matt Chapman, TORONTO BLUE JAYS

Chapman hit 36 homers and drove in 91 runs for Oakland in 2019. He hasn’t been able to duplicate that production, but the three-time Gold Glover finished with 27 homers and 76 RBIs in 155 games last year in his first season with Toronto.

Chapman turns 30 on April 28. Long one of the game’s top fielding third basemen, he is represented by Scott Boras, who generally takes his clients to free agency.

OF TEOSCAR HERNÁNDEZ, SEATTLE MARINERS

Hernández was acquired in a November trade with Toronto. He hit .267 with 25 homers and 77 RBIs in his final year with the Blue Jays. He was terrific in 2021, batting .296 with 32 homers, 116 RBIs and a .870 OPS.

The change of scenery could help the 30-year-old Hernández set himself up for a big payday. He is a .357 hitter with three homers and seven RBIs in 16 games at Seattle’s T-Mobile Park.

OF Ian Happ, CHICAGO CUBS

The switch-hitting Happ is coming off perhaps his best big league season, setting career highs with a .271 batting average, 72 RBIs and 42 doubles in 158 games. He also won his first Gold Glove and made the NL All-Star team for the first time.

Chicago had struggled to re-sign its own players in recent years, but it agreed to a $35 million, three-year contract with infielder Nico Hoerner on Monday. The 28-year-old Happ, a first-round pick in the 2015 amateur draft, is on the executive subcommittee for the players’ union.

LHP JULIO URÍAS, LOS ANGELES DODGERS

Urías, who turns 27 in August, likely will have plenty of suitors if he reaches free agency. He went 17-7 with an NL-low 2.16 ERA in 31 starts for the NL West champions in 2022, finishing third in NL Cy Young Award balloting. That’s after he went 20-3 with a 2.96 ERA in the previous season.

Urías also is a Boras client, but the Dodgers have one of the majors’ biggest payrolls. Los Angeles also could make a run at Ohtani, which could factor into its discussions with Urías’ camp.