Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Living up to expectorations: The Alex Sanabia spitball clip
(www.baseballnation.com)
Read More...Alex Sanabia is on the Marlins. The odds are at least decent that you’ve never heard of Alex Sanabia before. What’s he all about? Let’s see ... leads the league in losses ... kind of a control pitcher in the minors ... 24 years old ... drafted in the 32nd round, just a round after William Mays ... but pretty nondescript, mostly.
...Spitter. He’s the spit guy. The guy with the spit. Yeah, I remember him. Ol’ Spitface with the spit coming out of his face. Good spitter, that guy. Loves to spit. ...
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< 1 2 3 4 5 >Just that, basically. I don't think there's any point in trying to discuss anything with the people who've taken the position that since Buehrle's contract didn't include a no-trade clause he has no standing to be upset that he was misled about why that is. As far as I can see, taking the position that people only owe each other whatever their contracts specify, and should otherwise lie, cheat, and so on from each other and be free from criticism for doing so have no moral reasoning at all, having substituted only legal judgment. I'd just as soon try to explain morality to them as I'd read a poem about daffodils to a blind watersnake; either is a waste of both our time.
Buehrle is far and away the more likely liar in this contretemps. "I was lied to on several occasions" has about a 3% chance of being true.
So in other words the "overriding factor" in Buehrle choosing Miami didn't have the least thing to do with "assurances," verbal or otherwise.
These are the words of a wise man.
Buehrle's lies are immoral, even though legal. Technically, they aren't legal if they're libelous, which they may be, but they're immoral even if not actionable as libel. Few things are more immoral than bearing false witness against others, particularly through the means of mass communications. (Indeed, the law of contracts is there in part to discourage people from coming into court and bearing false witness.)
Buehrle can't know that they were lying to him at the time they promised him he was in their long term plans. He may suspect it. It may be plausible. But unless he has Watergate style tapes or an admission from one of them, all he has is his suspicions. They could have changed their mind. And actually, the fact that they didn't grant his request to offer him a no-trade means that they reserved their right to trade him.
And that last fact is what people are glossing over. They specifically denied his request for a no-trade. So how the eff is it reasonable for Buehrle to conclude that they had promised him he wouldn't be traded?
Even Buehrle's story is that they made noise about wanting him in their long term plans. Even Buehrle is not saying that they told him "We will never trade you."
Because he doesn't proffer any facts about what the lies are; the things he's crowing about are the type of thing that people say and completely mean in one set of circumstances but not in others; and the fact that he said the overriding factor in his decision was Ozzie Guillen's presence in the managers' chair, which has can't be part of a "lie," properly defined.
So do we have agreement that bearing false witness is far worse morally than puffery/exaggeration in employee recruiting? I'd sure hope so, though you never know around here.
What basis does Buehrle have to conclude that "We won't give you a no-trade, but we want you here long term" was a lie? It is immoral for Buehrle to complain that a party who did not breach a contract lied to him, that if they changed their mind it had to be a lie, that they should never have changed their mind, that they should have been held to pre-contract fluff that could have been the truth at the time that never made it in to the deal.
Ray I have to say that's a truly odd invocation of morality. That Dan sees it the same way really surprises me. That SBB does, well I'd expected that going in.
Contract law defines morality? New one on me.
2) The Marlins are ########, if not legally obligated ########.
_____________
The lawyers on this forum conflating "morality" with "contractual obligations" are hilarious. No, the world of moral judgement is not limited to American contract law, who fugging knew?
So puffery in recruiting an employee is a bigger moral wrong than bearing public false witness against someone?
Nothing's really surprising around here, but ... WOW.
Generally speaking, I think keeping your promises is important, without any contracts or anything.
In this case, all parties having a contract in advance agreeing explicitly not to make any such promises, changes the calculus considerably. People keep bringing up making promises in regular life as if they're comparable, but they're not for the reason in the last sentence. I think the promise itself, both any possible acceptance on either side, is far more fraught with dangers on a general level of morality. I think on a moral level, one can make the case that keeping faith with the CBA, a hard-fought agreement in which *everyone's* careers are tied up, the fighting for which has resulted in multiple partial baseball seasons, is far more important than Mark Buehrle's being upset about being traded. Assuming such a promise is made and faced with the choice of breaking a promise to Mark Buehrle and breaking a promise made to everyone who is a party to the CBA, breaking the former seems to be the superior ethical choice to me.
In addition, while I won't go so far as SBB, who seems strongly convinced Buehrle is lying, I tend to believe that this could very well be more of the understanding variety. That's why we want big contractual things in writing, not promises. Anyone who has ever had interaction with another person knows, for example, that agreeing to try to do something or seeing how it goes will frequently become a promise or an ironclad guarantee by the other party. Loria's entire alleged promise was essentially an important part of an eight-figure contract, so the contractual obligation aspect is very important - Loria and Buehrle's relationship is primarily *defined* by contractual agreement, after all. This isn't like Loria agreeing to babysit Buehrle's kids or help him clean out his garage.
And I still have heard no evidence -- including in anything Buehrle and his agents said -- that at the time of the "assurances," the Marlins did not in fact have a good faith reason to proffer them and a good faith and indefinite intent to keep them. The absence of one of those things is an indispensible element to the Marlins having "lied."
NOTE: The "assurances" Buehrle alleges aren't that he wouldn't be traded -- he doesn't say there was a verbal no-trade promise -- they were: (1) that they had a long-term commitment to Buehrle and his family; and (2) that they had a long-term commitment to building a winner in the new stadium. Each of those was entirely true at the time.
Right. Even Buehrle is not saying "The Marlins told me I would not be traded." Rather, he says they told him he had a long term commitment. And WTF do people think a four year contract for $60 million is, if not a long term commitment? WTF do people think a four year contract for $60 million without a no-trade clause, with the lack of said no-trade clause having been specifically been bargained for and paid for, is? That covers (1) above, and (2) is even more true now with the trade.
In my view, both Buehrle and the people on this thread carrying his water are being completely unfair and immoral, and I frankly would be very careful about doing business with them in real life. Who needs such unreasonable, irrational headaches in their business relationships if such can be avoided?
It's one thing to not get a no-trade clause and thinking "well, they might trade me".
It's another to think "well, they might trade me in 11 months".
Maybe he understood that the no-trade clause wasn't included because the Marlins wanted to protect themselves if Buehrle flopped and they wanted to cover their butts 3-4 years down the line.
I don't think he honestly expected them to dump him that quickly, and that's the problem he probably has with this trade.
This is not, on balance, a bad baseball trade from the Marlin's perspective. And I say that as someone really excited to see the Jays ready to be competitive this year. The Jays sent a ton of young and cheap talent to Miami. It's a gamble they have to take, but still a gamble, and one that could work out very well for Miami in 3 years.
So he thought he had a no-trade even though it was specifically denied and he didn't pay for it. That is unreasonable.
And #172 An awful lot has to go pretty much best case for the Marlins, but sure it could work out in an absolute baseball sense (ie no money considerations)
I didn't say that.
I said he realized that he could be traded, but honestly didn't think he'd be dealt after only 11 months.
That's like a coach signing a 4-year deal, and getting canned after 6 months. Sure, the coach knows he could be fired at any time, but there is some reasonable expectation that the team would give him a chance to prove himself.
In this case, Buehrle didn't think the team would give up on the big name signings after only 11 months, especially since Buehrle himself was good (and Reyes wasn't bad either).
"We're trying to build a winner here." doesn't exactly jive with "We're blowing things up 11 months into the attempt."
i think there are about 10 of us who post here are not lawyers. maybe 20.
- i think we ALL understand about the CBA and contracts and no under the table/off the record guarantees/promises.
that does not mean that although buehrle asked for a no trade, he wasn't told something that SOUNDED good but wasn't strictly a promise.
sort of like if you wanted to marry me, but i told you i didn't believe in marriage, but you are the kind of guy a grrrl wants to keep for the rest of her life. then you find out i got something on the side. i tell you - well, i didn't say there wouldn't be OTHER men, did I?
now you didn't get no specific CONTRACT, so you got no reason to complain, right?
He's calling them liars because they told him they wouldn't trade him, and then they traded him. When they told him they wouldn't trade him, they were apparently lying. Just because they had the contractual right to trade him doesn't make them not liars.
On most natural readings of that last sentence, it is inconsistent with there being no morality issue here. If Buehrle is allowed to complain about someone else's actions, implying that they should've acted otherwise, then he is saying that they acted wrongly, and it seems likely that he means 'wrongly' in a moral sense.
I don't follow. I can complain that you served something I was allergic to at a dinner party, but that doesn't make it immoral for you to serve it.
Sometimes people just need to vent about something that didn't go their way.
Yeah I kind of read this, not as a complaint about the contract, but the Marlins' behaviour before the contract was signed. He's not saying the Marlins shouldn't have traded him because they promised not to, he's saying, they shouldn't have promised they wouldn't if they were going to.
"I suspected they were lying to me, and I entered into the contract knowing that they were under no contractual obligation to fulfil their promise* and that promise had no bearing on the contract. But it's annoying being lied to."
*for lack of a better word since we don't know what it is the Marlins said exactly..."statement"? "implied promise"?
The stove in my flat is old and busted, and when the gas dude was over the other day looking at the place he told my landlord that it was no good and he ought to replace it. So my landlord made a show of saying he'd set aside a day next week to bring in a new one. Now, he has no intention of actually replacing it, and I'm fully aware that he has no intention of replacing it. Luckily I don't really care because I do all of my cooking either on the burners up top (which work fine) or in an electric halogen cooker thingie. So if I were to complain a few months from now about it, it wouldn't be about the fact that he didn't fulfil his promise (which I don't really care about), but that he said he'd do it when he had no intention of doing so. Luckily I also don't mind being lied to (I tend to be fairly laid back that way), so I won't be complaining. But if I was one of those high-strung individuals who got all hot and bothered about being lied to I can see that dynamic coming into play.
This is officially far more thought that I intended to put into this topic...must be a REALLY slow Saturday on my end.
Sometimes people complain about others' actions in a way that is not intending to attach moral blame, but I don't think people who do that are really saying that those actions were wrong.
There is certainly a morality issue, because Buehrle has accused them of lying. Lying is immoral. And thus so is accusing others of lying without cause. If Buehrle has no cause to accuse them of lying, he is acting immorally.
People here have not covered themselves in glory by carrying his water.
Wait a minute ... Ray is taking umbrage at someone accusing another person of "lying"? Did I log onto bizarro BBTF by mistake?
Ex<i>actly. And it would also be different if Buehrle had been terrible and they'd traded him for a box of rocks. But in the event, Buehrle has every right to suspect that his signing was camouflage to get money flowing toward the team and then pull the rug out. To mix metaphors.
What is the evidence for this fact? I ask seriously.
Buerhle's statement, "Just like the fans in South Florida, I was lied to on multiple occasions."
Contract law has absolutely nothing to do with morality. They are completely unconnected. A contract is simply the phrasing of an economic relationship.
If you sign a contract, and it would cost you X to breach it, but X+1 to maintain it, you should breach it, because that is the economically rational thing to do.
Example: You have signed a contract to buy 100 widgets at $100 per. The profit of the person you buy it from is $10 per widget, and if you breach, you will owe him his lost profit. You now have a chance buy them at $80 per. You should breach the contract, and pay the first contracting party the $10 per widget, pocketing the $10 in savings. That is the economically efficient thing to do. The law has no problem with this, even if it is a deliberate decision. There are no punitive damages for breaching a contract in almost every jurisdiction, it is a purely economic thing.
Now, is it "immoral" not to keep your "promises"? That depends on what you call a promise, and what is merely an economic arrangement. It may be far more immoral to breach an oral promise, because there are no consequences, than to breach a written contract. That depends on your view of morality.
But what if they simply changed their mind? It is fraud to make a promise which you never had any intention of keeping at the time you made it. If you intended to keep it, but circumstances changed, and your intentions changed with them, it is not fraud, nor even a lie.
If the Marlins said "we are attempting to build a winner here" then they may have been lying, but given that they are coming off a 95-loss season, the fact that they traded their older expensive players is NOT very strong evidence that they were lying. Maybe they would have traded them anyway, even if they'd won 90 games. We don't know. We will never know. Never, ever, ever. So unless Buehrle wants to make a specific accusation and has a recorded conversation where Loria promised not to trade him, we have nothing to go on.
Is is PLAUSIBLE that they were trying to build a winner, and they still are. Part of building a winner is trading away your older, expensive players the season after a disaster. Do you guys think they signed Ozzie Guillen to a 3 year contract with the intention of firing him after one year and eating the rest of the costs? People can change their minds, they can change course when things don't go as planned. Everybody just needs to calm the #### down.
That is all I'm saying.
And the evidence for Buehrle's belief?
He has no idea that they didn't simply change their mind. "We expected you guys would be here. But then we ####### lost 93 games even though you guys held up your end. So our plan sucked, and we are going in a new direction."
The idea that a 93-loss team should shackle itself and continue in the same direction with veterans because they didn't think at the outset that they would lose 93 games is absurd.
Loria.
With Loria, the default option is EVIL. In the absence of evidence, the assumption is that Loria is screwing somebody over, whether it is the fans in Montreal, the taxpayers in Florida, or random strangers he passes on the street.
He was an eyewitness to the events. So we have two choices:
1) Believe Buehrle's story, because he was there, or
2) Assume that you, a random guy on the Internet, knows more about what Buehrle was told than he does.
I am inclined to the belief that they told him they definitely wouldn't trade him while at the same time, planning to trade him after they got their stadium money. I certainly don't think there's strong enough evidence the other way for you to go bloviating about how immoral Buehrle is.
None of that has anything to do with whether they lied to him.
Srul/196, fair point
No. A lie is not strictly about what someone was told; it's also about what the person's state of mind was when they told it to you. They could have been 100% honest when they told him that they expected him to be in their long term plans -- and then a year later after a lost season changed their minds. That is not "lying," to any rational person who understands the concept of what a lie is.
If I plan to stay in tonight and watch a movie and you ask me to play tennis and I say "Nah, I plan to stay in tonight and watch a movie," and then later I change my mind and decide to go out to dinner, I have not "lied" to you.
If so, then you, a random dude on the internet, know more about what Buehrle was told than what he does. Because he has not said that they told him they "definitely" wouldn't trade him. And, again, the fact that they denied him a no-trade says exactly the opposite.
Well, please go educate yourself as to what a "lie" is. After that, perhaps you can bloviate about whether the Marlins lied, but not before.
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