I’m sorry a busy weekend caused me to miss this story, but MLB suspended Jose Reyes 52 games under the league’s new domestic violence policy. Jayson Stark wrote an excellent take on the situation. In it, he provides another example of why Rob Manfred is turning out to be my favorite commissioner:

So even though the commissioner is the figure with sole power to determine the length of Reyes’ sentence, Manfred chose not to handle this that way. Instead, he involved the players union, Reyes and his agents in what ultimately became a negotiation.

They could settle this together, or the commissioner could play judge, jury and tough guy. In the end, best we can tell, those were Reyes’ options. He could let the commissioner suspend him for 60 games or more, and try to appeal it. Or he could say, “Enough,” accept this sentence and move on with his life.

Like Aroldis Chapman, Reyes chose not to fight. And since he’d already served all but 18 days of this sentence, who can blame him?

Manfred seems to be much more transparent about how matters are decided than his predecessor. That’s a good thing.