Cup of Coffee: February 26, 2024
A big free agent signing, a Senga update, MLB gaslights as expected, A's FanFest, a dumb pundit, the lonely death of a great traveler, and I got a fun cease and desist letter
Good morning!
One of the final four big free agents lingering on the market has signed. We have an update on Kodai Senga’s condition. MLB says exactly what I expected it to say regarding the new pants. Tony Clark has some things to say. Oakland A’s fans had a FanFest with no help from the team. We also witness a grand study in contrasts.
In Other Stuff, a professor from my law school who moonlights as a bad pundit embarrasses himself, we contemplate the death — lonely death! — of a great traveler, and I got a cease and desist letter from a famous jackass’ lawyer.
You can just scroll down to the stuff about the cease and desist letter from the jackass’ lawyer, though. I know that’s all anyone’s gonna care about today.
The Daily Briefing
Cubs sign Cody Bellinger to a three-year deal
The Chicago Cubs and free agent Cody Bellinger agreed to a three-year, $80 million deal late Saturday night. Bellinger gets opt-outs after the first and second years of the deal. He will receive a $30 million salary this season, $30 million in 2025 if he doesn't opt out after 2024, and $20 million in 2026 if he doesn't opt out after 2025.
This, to say the least, is not what Bellinger was looking for after a 2023 campaign in which he hit .307/.356/.525 (133 OPS+) with 26 home runs and 97 RBI. He did that after signing a one-year $17.5 million deal with the Cubs with a $25 million mutual option for 2024, which he rejected. But despite the astounding comeback season for the 2019 MVP following three awful, injury-wracked seasons with the Dodgers, the market just didn’t materialize for Bellinger in the way he and his agent, Scott Boras, assumed it would. The Cubs waited him out.
Part of the reason Bellinger’s market didn’t materialize, I suspect, is fear that his 2023 was a fluke. Whether it was or not is hard to say. On the one hand, there’s a strong argument to be made that his bad final seasons with the Dodgers were a function of a lingering shoulder injury he suffered in the 2020 postseason and which took a good while to get right. Now that he’s healthy, the thinking goes, we’re seeing the real Bellinger again. On the other hand, some have pointed to Bellinger’s poor peripherals, such as his low exit velocity last season and they have suggested that he’s due for a regression. Guess we’ll see.
For now, though, the Cubs have retained their center fielder/first baseman at a rate far lower than they probably expected when the offseason began. And Bellinger, not unlike fellow Boras client Carlos Correa who signed a similar deal with the Twins two offseasons ago, has a big incentive to once again put up big numbers and re-enter the market next year to, hopefully, better returns.
For those who are curious, Boras coined the term “pillow contract” to describe one-year deals for mid-career superstars who couldn’t get a decent long-term deal such as the one Bellinger just agreed to. He first used it, I believe, back in 2010 in connection with Adrián Belté’s one-year deal with the Boston Red Sox. At the time he said, “a pillow contract is, basically, you lay down, it’s comfortable, it’s soft, it’s there. But the fact of the matter is it’s not with you all the time. That’s a one-year contract . . . short-term, you use it for a little bit, then you move on.”
While Boras’ little Boras-isms tend to be cringeworthy, I like "pillow contract." It's aesthetically satisfying. It’s "cellar door" for baseball writers. Indeed, I was inspired when I first heard it. It made me want to come up with other contract nicknames. My best idea was for a contract which is a big pain for the team but which it can never get rid of, which I called a "Herpes Contract." Sadly that didn't . . . go viral.
Senga update
Yesterday the Mets gave an update on the status of pitcher Kodai Senga, who was shut down late last week with a bum shoulder. They say he went back up to New York and received a platelet-rich plasma injection. They are saying that his shutdown period should last three weeks, at which point he’ll begin his throwing program. Given that timetable he’ll certainly start the season on the IL, but if he’s throwing before Opening Day it shouldn’t be a terribly long absence.
That said: with top free agents like Bellinger now settling for pillow contracts with opt-outs, why haven’ the Mets signed Blake Snell or Jordan Montgomery yet? Seems like a perfect fit.
MLB: right on cue
On Friday morning, while writing about the ugly new jerseys and the new see-through pants Major League Baseball, Nike, and Fanatics have inflicted upon the world, I said of the league, “I bet they’ll try to gaslight everyone and claim that nothing at all has changed and that we were just imagining these see-through jobs in the early going.”
You ask for miracles, Theo, I give you the M . . . L . . . B:
On Friday, the league attributed the sheerness of its uniform pants to sizing changes, rather than a new fabric.
“The uniform pants have the same material and thickness as the uniform pants used last season,” a baseball official told the Journal on Friday. “There were changes to the fabric of the jersey, not the pants.”
Sometimes I wish I didn’t understand how this league is run as well as I do.
In related news . . .
A lot of people are mad about the uniforms. I think they’re awful, but I’m actually grateful for them because the content has been AMAZING.
Tony Clark talks about various things
MLBPA Executive Director Tony Clark was making his annual rounds of spring training camps over the weekend when he spoke on a handful of items of interest. In addition to the pants — which he says, yeah, are a problem and that the league and Nike need to figure it out — he offered the following:
- He was critical of MLB’s decision to shave time off the pitch clock with runners on base, going from 20 to 18 seconds. Clark said, "we just had the biggest adjustment this league has ever seen in regards to length of game and how the game was affected by including a clock. Rather than give us another year to adjust and adapt to it, why are we adjusting again, and what are the ramifications going to be?" He and others are concerned about increased injuries. There has not yet been any comprehensive study done regarding the relationship, if any, between the pitch clock and injuries but it’s understandable that he’s concerned;
- Speaking of concern, he noted that some big free agents are still out there, including reigning NL Cy Young winner Blake Snell, Matt Chapman, and Jordan Montgomery. Still, he quite reasonably rejected the idea of a limited free agent signing period, noting that "A deadline, in all likelihood, is going to do more damage to players in those conversations than the other way around.” That’d be obvious enough based on common sense, but the fact that Rob Manfred wants a free agency deadline is proof positive that it’ll depress salaries. Depressing player salaries is basically all that guy lives for;
- Finally, he weighed in on the A’s current lack of a home for the 2025-27 seasons, saying that the matter needs to be settled. Clark: “I've been pretty consistent in that it needed to happen yesterday. The players on those teams, the fans in that market, and potentially in other markets, the longer this conversation goes on, the more detrimental in the grand scheme of things. Whether it's Sacramento, whether it's Salt Lake, whether it's somewhere else, decisions need to be made sooner rather than later."
I realize I’m typically in the bag for the MLBPA as a default, but it’s hard to disagree with that, that’s for sure. And I sure as hell can’t wait to hear what happens if and when the Las Vegas 2028 plan eventually turns out to be a no-go, which would not shock anyone, frankly.
Oakland A’s fans had a FanFest with no help from the team
Most teams do some sort of offseason Fan Fest or Fan Caravan of some type. These are pep rally-style events held to stoke interest in the upcoming season which feature current players and sometimes the managers and maybe even the owners meeting a greeting the fans. They’re a good way to shine a light on the club after a few months in which everyone’s mind has been on things other than baseball.
The Oakland Athletics, however, aren’t in that business these days. Mostly because they’ve alienated their fans by announcing that they’re moving the team to Las Vegas and, in the process of doing that, jerked around and disparaged the city at every turn. If John Fisher and Dave Kaval were to invite a few thousand A’s fans into a hotel ballroom, a convention center, or the town square to hear them talk there’s a good chance it’d end in an extrajudicial execution or two.
But that didn’t stop A’s fans from Festing anyway. Led by A’s fans groups the Oakland 68s and Last Dive Bar, they held their own on Saturday, with no participation from the team. Well, no positive participation, as word on the street is that the club pressured a stadium beer supplier to pull out of its participation on the wildcat event, though the team vehemently denies it.
That aside, several thousand folks showed up for it. Including some ex-A’s players like Grant Balfour and Coco Crisp. It looked like a hell of a lot of fun. And it looked like something that you’ll never see in Las Vegas because there aren’t any actual Athletics fans in Las Vegas. There’s just John Fisher’s spite and his hope for a financial windfall for himself.
A study in contrasts
When Shohei Ohtani left via free agency it was pretty obvious that no one the Angels could sign would fill #17s shoes. But I’ll be damned if they didn’t try:
There are only so many numbers available and once a player leaves his old number is up-for-grabs. I get that. But I’m willing to bet that there has not been a bigger one-season falloff in player quality for a given number on a given team in baseball history than the one that going from 2023 Shohei Ohtani to whatever is left of Hunter Dozier at this point in time represents. And yes, that includes1993, when the Pirates simply handed Barry Bonds’ number 24 to left-handed pitcher Dennis Moeller.
Other Stuff
Death, Lonely Death
“Billions of miles away at the edge of the Solar System, Voyager 1 has gone mad and has begun to die.”
That’s how this lovely elegy for the first human-made object to leave our solar system begins. It was written by a man named Doug Muir and it’s a wonderful read for anyone who remembers when the human race still, at times anyway, sought knowledge and understanding of our universe for its own sake.
Um. What?
Right wing crackpots had a bad week last week as it was revealed that virtually the entire Hunter Biden investigation, which they hope will damage President Biden, has been a Russian intelligence op. To wit, Alexander Smirnov, the man whose allegations were at the heart of their case, has been indicted for lying to the FBI about the president and Hunter Biden for political purposes. The information he’s been peddling — and which right wing news outlets and Congressional Republicans have been touting for years — was invented from whole cloth by Russian intelligence operatives who wish to throw the 2024 election to Donald Trump.
There are a lot of fairly important implications to that, of course.
For one thing, it would seem that Russia’s interference in the U.S. political process, which is something that many people decided to forget or dismiss when Robert Mueller refused to charge anyone after his investigation a few years back, is actually more significant, not less significant, than people were saying back in the day.
For another thing, it’s showing just how easily Congressional Republicans have been duped and manipulated by foreign intelligence agencies. Seems dangerous! Between that and the fact that so many of them actively attempted to overturn a free and fair election and install its loser as president maybe they shouldn’t be in high political office!
Another implication of this is that right wing crackpot columnists, pundits, and “intellectuals” — and, yes, we’re really stretching that term now — are at a bit of a loss. They have to figure out how to keep bashing Biden as crooked despite the fact that their only evidence of this has been revealed to be based on fabrications of malicious foreign agents. Crackpots like Jonathan Turley who, on Saturday, wrote a column for the Hill in which he argues that criminality is genetic and that something which happened in Biden’s family 160 years ago matters now:
Turley goes on to tell the story of a Civil War era Biden ancestor named Moses Robinette who, while serving in the Union Army, was found guilty of attempted murder after stabbing a guy he claimed was threatening him. He was sentenced to two years, but some influential superiors got word of the case to President Lincoln who pardoned him. Turley then agues that, just like his great-great grandfather, Joe and Hunter Biden benefit from friends in high places and political favor and blah, blah, blah.
Observations:
- Trying to link Biden’s actions today to something that his ancestor did 160 years ago is unhinged lunacy. It’s basically phrenology;
- Even if it wasn’t, this could’ve been a fun historical story but Turley’s writing is so bad that it’s almost impossible to read. It’s like he typed “tell a stupid and pointless story, but write it in a way a slow middle schooler might’ve written it” into an AI engine; and
- I remain perpetually humiliated that my law school alma mater, George Washington University, still employs this fucking lunatic, as he actively sullies the place’s reputation every time he opens his mouth. And, of course, he is by far the most visible member of GW’s law faculty, so it makes us all look like morons.
I dunno, maybe I’m just biased here. Because, folks, if we’re gonna get into the business of being judged based on what our great-great grandparents did, I’m pretty much fucked.
Great Moments in Legal Correspondence
Late Friday morning I tweeted some things about the unemployed baseball player Trevor Bauer. Those tweets came in the wake of his pretty poor showing in that interview with Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times in which Shakin pretended to be an MLB owner interviewing him. The tweets were sharp, yes, but I’ve tweeted far sharper things about Bauer in the past.
Then at 9:27 PM on Friday evening I received a cease and desist letter from Bauer’s attorneys, demanding that I delete three of those tweets, which they claimed to be defamatory. They threatened to sue me if I did not do so.
To be sure, I do not believe the tweets were defamatory. Indeed, they were in keeping with things that were said (a) the same day by one of Bauer’s accusers, who has chosen to publicly identify herself and who has become active on social media criticizing Bauer; and (b) by an attorney for one of Bauer’s other accusers nearly two years ago. In light of that — and in light of a conversation I had with a source who will remain unnamed but who is in position to know about the substance of my tweets — I believed there was a good faith basis for saying what I said. And it was only after gathering and assessing that information that I tweeted what I tweeted.
Bauer’s attorneys claimed otherwise. They claimed I was knowingly spreading defamatory information about him. It’s probably also worth noting that his attorneys’ letter seemed to be rooted in the logic that Bauer’s fanboys like to trot out on social media in which they argue that, since Bauer has never been charged with a crime, he has never done anything wrong, so make of that what you will.
I nonetheless deleted the three tweets at issue. I sent the reasons I did so, and a little extra verbiage regarding my opinions of Mr. Bauer, in a reply letter, which I have reproduced below. I did not include an additional reason for my agreeing to delete the tweets: my belief that as it slowly starts to dawn on Bauer that his baseball career is over he will likely drop his phony contrition act and resume lashing out at people, suing people, and generally being the sort of toxic jackass we’ve come to know so well. No one needs that headache, so if avoiding it means deleing a couple of Friday morning tweets hardly anyone saw to begin with, well, it’s a pretty easy choice.
Normally in such a situation I would reproduce the cease and desist letter as well, but I’m not doing so now because Bauer’s lawyer discusses the substance of my deleted tweets throughout the letter. If Bauer’s attorneys considered my tweets to be defamatory, I wouldn’t put it past them to claim that my reprinting a letter which discusses them at length to be the republishing of defamatory material and I’m not falling into that trap, even if it’s a dumb trap. If they see this — and I presume they will, because it’s pretty clear by now they’re monitoring what I write — and they feel I’m being unfair in not reproducing their letter too, I’ll happily reproduce it, at least if they execute a waiver of liability. Given the multiple curious and dubious assertions in their letter that’s a briar patch I’d love to be thrown into, but I presume they’re smarter than that.
Anyway, here’s my response letter. A letter I sent to the attorneys for a man who, on Thursday, claimed to be remorseful about his poor interactions with the media and, on Friday, threatened yet another lawsuit against a member of the media. Seems a bit incoherent. It’s almost as if Bauer’s remorse is completely phony and he’s just saying anything he can in a desperate effort to get a job.
Re: Your cease and desist letter of 2/23/2024 on behalf of Trevor Bauer
Dear [Attorney’s name redacted],
The last time your client, Mr. Bauer, took issue with something I tweeted came back in 2022. On that occasion, citing our having previously met at the Tulane baseball arbitration competition in 2018, you offered to call me to discuss the matter informally. Our subsequent telephone conversation amicably resolved the matter to your and your client’s satisfaction. Apparently we’re now firing off formal letters. I find that unfortunate, but I suppose we’ve all had demanding clients in the past.
That notwithstanding, I’d like to give you the comfort of knowing that I have deleted the tweets with which you take issue. To be sure, I did not do so because I agree that they are defamatory. Indeed, contrary to your implication, I did not compose those tweets without first inquiring about their substance and without possessing a good faith basis for believing their veracity. Rather, I deleted them (a) out of personal and professional comity toward you; and (b) because, as I am sure you are aware, there are a great many people who, at least online where they can post anonymously, vehemently support your client for whatever reason. These people are often abusive and obnoxious in my experience and life is too short to deal with the garbage with which they fill my social media mentions in the event unusual attention is drawn to them. In light of this, deleting those tweets, in addition to complying with your request, actually does me a favor.
Allow me to offer one final thought.
Far be it from me to give Mr. Bauer career advice, but I can’t help but think that his instructing his attorneys to send legal threats to members of the media literally one day after he gave an interview in which he said “[i]n my interactions with media over the years, I’ve made the situation a lot more difficult” and in which he expresses his regrets for the “contentious relationship [he’s] had with the media,” is probably not the best tack to take as he tries to convince a Major League Baseball team that signing him would entail no off-the-field distractions. Perhaps he believes that he can walk a line in which he publicly claims that he is contrite and regretful for how he has behaved in the past while simultaneously lodging legal threats against reporters who correctly note that he has behaved poorly, but I am pessimistic that it will pay off for him in the long run.
And I hope you’d agree that, even if Mr. Bauer has never been subject to criminal process, he has indeed behaved poorly. For this one need look no further than the fact that he was disciplined by Major League Baseball for violating its Joint Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Policy, initially receiving an historic 324-game suspension. While that suspension was reduced by an independent arbitrator, the 194-game penalty that remained still stands as the longest such suspension in the history of the Joint Policy by a considerable margin. Given (a) the terms of the Joint Policy and the definitions provided therein; (b) the multiple allegations by multiple women against your client which have been widely reported; and (c) the abusive, and in some cases criminal behavior of those players who have received far less-severe sanctions under the Joint Policy than your client received, it’s inherently reasonable to infer that Mr. Bauer has acted deplorably even if he has never been adjudged to have acted criminally.
Very truly yours,
Craig Calcaterra
So how was your Saturday?
Have a great day everyone.
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