Friday, November 9, 2007

Accusations of Collusion

It wouldn't be the first time major league owners were accused of collusion. In fact, a court one time said they were. But player's union rep Donald Fehr is seething over what took place at this past week's General Managers meetings.

An idea was spawned by Sox GM Theo Epstein and Marlins prez of ops, Larry Beinfest.... Let's have all the GMs sit around and talk about their plans for the coming season, what players might be available and what their free agent intentions might be.

In other words, let's find out how many teams want to spend 'X' amount of dollars on big name free agents. Should a team sign a free agent if they know that a player may become available via a trade?

While no state secrets were released (e.g. Epstein saying he'd like to keep Mike Lowell), Fehr was furious and released a statement in response to the GM's actions:

“We expect to look into the situation, and are prepared to take the appropriate action to respond to any collusive behavior, and to make sure that the rights of free-agent players under the Basic Agreement are fully protected.”

This was Theo's take on it:
“It’s increased our efficiency tremendously and has saved us a lot of time.” Epstein told USA Today. “Some teams are specific; others are more guarded. Everyone I’ve talked to thought the idea was beneficial.”

“We asked before we did it.” Epstein said. “We had two different officials from Major League Baseball there — one from baseball operations, one from labor relations. They felt that would meet all the requirements for a proper meeting.”

Did Theo really think the MLB, run by a former owner, would turn the request down? Now we'll just have to wait and see what the implications and ramifications are down the road.

Source

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