Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
July 17, 2008
Frustrated Francisco

Francisco Liriano wants to pitch in the majors.

Greg Genske says his client is frustrated because he has pitched well in the minors for more than a month but remains stuck in Rochester.

Genske says the delay has had an adverse effect on Liriano's service time, which determines when he is eligible for arbitration.

Genske asked the union to look into this, but since when is limiting service time a foul? One and one half games back in the division, the Twins are only hurting themselves if they don't have the best players on their team. If they thought they could win more games with Liriano, I'm guessing he would be up in a hurry.


Posted by David Pinto at 10:22 PM | Pitchers | TrackBack (0)
Comments

No kidding..!! Lots of clubs have starters in AAA ready to come up to the big club, but have no slots for them. Liriano's agent should know that by now, and so should his client. As long as they are in contention, they aren't likely to move extra pitchers just to make a spot for him.

He is no different then any other player waiting his turn now.

Posted by: Amie at July 18, 2008 12:04 AM

I don't really know the CBA very well, but is it possible that sending a player to the minors solely to affect service time *is* a violation of the contract? Wouldn't it be strange if Liriano's agent was just pulling this out of his behind?

Posted by: Jason W. at July 18, 2008 01:25 AM

Lots of clubs have starters in AAA ready to come up to the big club

Really??????????? More like most teams have starters on the big club who belong on the scrap heap or in the minors.

Posted by: Bandit at July 18, 2008 07:17 AM

It's hard to argue that Livan Hernandez should be on the club over Liriano at this point, but teams make these sort of "savvy veteran in the clubhouse" moves all the time to block young players.

I don't think it's any great conspiracy, it's just a way some clubs do things. Who knows, maybe Livan's veteran savvy is rubbing off on the Twins' staff, but I have a hard time that whatever calming effect he might have that it's enough to offset the crappiness of his pitching vs what Liriano would give.

Posted by: Matt at July 18, 2008 10:34 AM

It seems possible that the Indians could be accused of the same thing this season with 2B Cabrerra, who was just recalled today. Somebody check my numbers (and assuming that post season play does NOT count toward service credit for a player), but I believe the Tribe regained a year of control over Cabrerra by leaving him in Buffalo as long as they did.

Posted by: Zippercat at July 18, 2008 12:14 PM

I think the problem with Cabrera was he had a .529 OPS

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?playerId=28671

Posted by: Bandit at July 18, 2008 12:32 PM
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