IBC

Not officially suspended, the Rockies are intentionally not playing him.

What do we do about him?

Gut reaction is he plays if/until there's any league action to suspend him.

Unless we can name a precedent where we benched a player suspended by his team (which is what this is for all intents and purposes), I think Reyes can still play in SIM-life.

Agree, I think Reyes plays.

yeah

Ditto

MLB put him on paid administrative leave, not the Rockies (source: http://www.denverpost.com/rockies/ci_29 ... tive-leave)

Given that he wasn't allowed to attend spring training, I'd say him playing is sketchy at best to me and would prefer to rule him out.

Some newer information per this story: http://blogs.denverpost.com/rockies/201 ... son/21811/

Reyes was placed on paid leave under Major League Baseball's new domestic violence policy pending completion of the criminal proceedings.

The MLB and the players' association agreed to the policy in August following a series of high-profile domestic violence cases involving NFL players. Reyes was the first player affected by it.

The MLB declined to comment on prosecutors' intent to drop the charge against him but said in a statement Reyes "remains on administrative leave until the commissioner completes his investigation and imposes any discipline."

Administrative leave is paid suspension, although Reyes will start accruing his $22 million salary Sunday, the day the MLB season opens. If the discipline becomes an unpaid suspension, he has the right to offset the time served against the penalty but must repay any salary he received during the paid suspension.

I guess the question becomes do we as a league consider a suspension the same as paid administrative leave? It appears the league is still investigating, which is why he's not playing, not a choice by the team.

I would say the safest bet is to say if you're not playing because the league says you're not (ie: investigation, ped suspension, drug suspension, criminal charges, paid/unpaid leave), you don't play in the IBC. Once we start picking and choosing situations, it gets too complicated.

At this point, I think we can follow the league's lead.

Tigers wrote:I would say the safest bet is to say if you're not playing because the league says you're not (ie: investigation, ped suspension, drug suspension, criminal charges, paid/unpaid leave), you don't play in the IBC. Once we start picking and choosing situations, it gets too complicated.

For what it's worth, that's exactly my argument on injuries that I think everyone rejects. And to an argument that this is easier to classify, that's actually part of my argument on injuries, that us thinking that we can diagnose the health of a player - via lazy one-line and one-paragraph media reports, mind you - well enough to identify fairly when an injured player isn't playing but should, is pretty ludicrous. I think it's better to be consistent and fair and inaccurate than be slightly more accurate while being inconsistent, potentially biased, and potentially unfair.

So, I agree with your sentiment, but approaching all of those things as "if MLB doesn't play him, we shouldn't" would make our current stance on injuries even more blatantly silly. MLB can have all kinds of liability and pr issues that have nothing to do with whether a player should be playing.

If we're dead set on breaking from MLB on injuries, we should be willing to break from MLB on miscellaneous leaves, and one obvious line is this sort of leave. The only reason these guys are going on leave is that MLB doesn't want the PR hit IN CASE they might be guilty. If there were enough reason to suspend them, you'd better believe that they would already be suspended. And when there is enough evidence to suspend them, they will suspend them on top of these leaves. Look at Greg Hardy, for example.

The difference to me in injuries and suspensions is one is clear cut regardless of the time of year and one is not. But I do agree that exco picking and choosing which injuries are actual injuries and which guys "would" play based on rotoworld write-ups is flawed.

Tigers wrote:The difference to me in injuries and suspensions is one is clear cut regardless of the time of year and one is not. But I do agree that exco picking and choosing which injuries are actual injuries and which guys "would" play based on rotoworld write-ups is flawed.

I think we're on the same page, but I would just say that a player not playing for a little while whether or not he did anything wrong because the team/league thinks it might incur a PR black eye that it doesn't need versus a player not playing for a little while because his team doesn't really care if it wins this week since we're already eliminated and we might as well let him rest, aren't exactly day and night.

Yeah, I think me mostly agree and it's a fair point and something I think exco needs to address. But I don't think Reyes, for instance, was suspended because he maybe didn't do something wrong:

"His wife told responding officers that Reyes grabbed her off the bed and shoved her. Sources say she also told police that he grabbed her throat and shoved her into the sliding glass balcony door."

To me, I think we have to stick with the league and not stray on something like suspensions, but also take a hard look at what we want to do with September injuries. And if we decide that everyone on the DL is DLed or everyone not on a DL isn't DLed, then it has to be defensible without a gray area.

So, we need to make a decision on Reyes before we start the season.

I think that Reyes should play unless he is actually suspended. To me, it looks like the Rockies simply don't want him around the team right now. If the league does suspend him, then we obviously follow suit, but it just seems like they want him away from the game for PR reasons.

I'm going to vote that he doesn't play since he's on league-imposed leave while the league investigates the situation. I think BP and I agree that this situation is akin to exco determining who plays/doesn't play in September, but I think league actions are a little more straight forward.

Is there a reason we can't establish an IBC precedent for when players are on administrative leave? This is definitely going to happen in the future too.

To me, it's more akin to a suspension (both restrict the player from being able to play) than September injuries and thus I vote for Reyes being out until he is eligible in MLB as well.

Dodgers wrote:Is there a reason we can't establish an IBC precedent for when players are on administrative leave? This is definitely going to happen in the future too.

To me, it's more akin to a suspension (both restrict the player from being able to play) than September injuries and thus I vote for Reyes being out until he is eligible in MLB as well.

I agree.

FWIW: Major League Baseball announced Friday it has suspended Colorado Rockies shortstop Jose Reyes without pay through May 31 for violating its domestic violence policy...The suspension is retroactive to Feb. 23, when Reyes was placed on paid leave. (http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/15532 ... spended-31)

Should this influence our future rulings on these situations?

Seems to me we followed MLB pretty closely on this one. He'll be suspended through May 31 in IBC as well

I would say 51 games.

Sorry, what I meant was...does this mean in the future when players are placed on administrative leave, we should treat them as suspended (since in this case the suspension was retroactive to include the time on administrative leave)?

Let's vote, would think four yes votes would be enough. I vote no.

Dodgers wrote:Sorry, what I meant was...does this mean in the future when players are placed on administrative leave, we should treat them as suspended (since in this case the suspension was retroactive to include the time on administrative leave)?

I vote no.

In the case of Reyes, we ended up getting it right because the suspension was levied by MLB.

But let's say we let him play all along, and then we learned of a 51-game suspension. Then we just suspend him from 5/14 on for 51 games.

That's much better than the alternative of Reyes on administrative leave, us keeping him farmed in the MLB, and then having the MLB NOT suspend him. There would be no real way to come back from that for us.

If a player is placed on paid/unpaid administrative leave in MLB, he wouldn't be playing in real life. So, therefore, he shouldn't be playing in IBC. In Reyes' case, he was not playing due to the MLB investigation. It makes no sense for him to play in IBC if he's not playing in MLB. I think we follow MLB's decision of administrative leave exactly. If Reyes were put on some other type of "leave" but allowed to play, we allow him to play in IBC.

So, I don't really get that we got it right just because he was suspended by MLB. If he wasn't suspended on Friday, he would be allowed to be activated in the IBC on Friday, but the IBC team was penalized just like the MLB team.

The problem with the "But let's say we let him play all along, and then we learned of a 51-game suspension. Then we just suspend him from 5/14 on for 51 games" scenario is that all the teams that lost due to him playing pre-suspension got screwed, whereas all the teams that won due to him not playing post-suspension benefit. So, it's not just a clean wash just because we suspended/don't suspend him. It still creates different outcomes in IBC.

My vote is we follow what MLB does. If a player is put on leave, meaning they don't play, they don't play in IBC and they are eligible for IBC as soon as MLB says they are. If a player is suspended, they are suspended. If a player is put on an alternate list but can play, he plays in IBC. Picking and choosing which players we think should be playing based on our interpretation of MLB's suspension/leave/etc. is the same gray area I think we're trying to avoid as Exco.

Tigers wrote:My vote is we follow what MLB does. If a player is put on leave, meaning they don't play, they don't play in IBC and they are eligible for IBC as soon as MLB says they are. If a player is suspended, they are suspended. If a player is put on an alternate list but can play, he plays in IBC. Picking and choosing which players we think should be playing based on our interpretation of MLB's suspension/leave/etc. is the same gray area I think we're trying to avoid as Exco.

I concur ...