Dell Diamond, Round Rock, Texas (AAA #8 - A Free Agent Working into Shape)

 

Watching AAA games, we’ve seen a lot of players who are a step away from the majors in either direction, either waiting their chance for big league stardom, or trying to hang on for one more shot. Tonight, we saw another category of player, the major leaguer trying to get in shape, either after an injury or, in this case, after signing a free agent contract too late in Spring Training to be ready for the season.

In the late 1800s, the baseball major leagues (by far the biggest professional sports leagues of the time, at least in the U.S.), established a “reserve clause,” which gave teams the “rights” to players, and forbade them from negotiating with any other team. Although that was challenged a couple of times early on, MLB was granted an anti-trust exemption from Congress in 1920, and the reserve clause persisted until the 1970s. As other professional sports grew, they adopted similar systems.

In 1969, the St. Louis Cardinals attempted to trade Curt Flood, who  had been the best centerfielder in baseball in the 1960s, but was now in his 30s, to the Philadelphia Phillies, a team that was both very bad (the Cardinals played in the World Series in 1967 and 1968, while the Phillies lost 36 more games than they won in 1969), and had a reputation for fans who treated players poorly.

Flood sued MLB. Eventually, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against him, based on the Congressional anti-trust waiver, but a) his career was essentially over (he played a dozen games in Washington before retiring), and b) the reserve clause’s days were numbered. It became a major point in negotiations between the players’ union and MLB, and by 1975, the first two baseball free agents signed contracts. Similar things were happening at different speeds (mostly slower) in other big-time professional sports, in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Since then, the system has continually evolved. At present, a player is basically tied to a team, or to the team he’s traded to, until he’s played seven years in the majors (there’s a complicated procedure to prevent teams from holding players in the minor leagues forever, too). After that, he can sign with anyone he wants to, once a contract ends. If he’s generally acknowledged as the best player in baseball, as Shohei Ohtani was last winter, he’ll get a lot of money, in Ohtani’s case $700 million, to play for 10 years. Lesser players will get lesser contracts, but there’s a catch. None of the players on the free-agent market are young, and as a player gets older, and less productive, he may have a harder time getting a contract. Here’s where today’s game comes in.

Michael Lorenzen had, in many ways, the best season of his career last year. He made the All Star game for the first time. He pitched a no-hitter. He pitched more innings than he ever had before in a major league season. He was a prized acquisition at the trade deadline – if that doesn’t make sense to you, don’t worry,  it just means that he was pitching for a team without a chance of making the playoffs (Detroit, in this case), and was considered good enough that a team with hopes of going far in the post-season (Philadelphia) thought it was worth giving up a minor leaguer with some upside to have him for just half a season.

But he’s 32 years old, and despite being an “All Star” last season, has never been a star. He’s just a guy who’s consistently been average or better.

Generally, the free agent market wraps up before Spring Training starts in late February. This year, several players were still unsigned. Lorenzen was among them, though he wasn’t the best of them. He finally signed on March 22, for $4.5M (plus $2.5M in performance bonuses, if he does well) for one year. It’s far below what Ohtani got, and it’s less than what a lot of people thought Lorenzen would get.

When someone signs that late, they generally go to AAA for what is essentially their Spring Training (J.D. Martinez, Blake Snell, and Jordan Montgomery are also in AAA at the moment for the same reason, and there may be others).

Lorenzen started for the home team Round Rock Express tonight. For the first two innings, he sliced through the Oklahoma City lineup, and pitched like he belonged at the next level (where he’s pitched successfully for the last seven years). He had a little trouble in the third, but got out of it. In the fourth, OkC got a run, but he didn’t look too bad. In the fifth, Lorenzen struggled mightily, and left the game after giving up three more runs, without getting out of the inning. Is he just not fully in shape yet? Were the first two innings of masterful pitching a fluke? Is he over the hill? The Texas Rangers, who own his contract for the year, will find out.

The game:

The Express beat the Oklahoma City Baseball Club (more about that name later), 7-6, in a 7-inning game.

Last night’s game was rained out. Tonight’s wasn’t affected by rain (although I felt a drop or two), but the wind was definitely a factor. Early in the game, there was a foul popup behind home plate, not too far from where we were seated. I could tell it was well behind and to the left of us, so I didn’t worry much about it. But the wind was blowing it back toward us, and it ended up one row and five seats behind and two the left of us. During the game, three balls were hit to right or right-center field that I thought had a chance of getting over the fielder’s heads that ended up being home runs, because of the way they carried in the wind. There was a ball hit down the left-field line that I thought was long gone (and said so), but it didn’t make it out. 

The wind was 21 mph, according to the box score. There are several things worth commenting about that. First, is that the average, the sustained, or the maximum gusts? Second, is that at the start of the game, or for the game as a whole? Third, I hadn't realized that box scores contain inform about the wind conditions. 

We went to two games of the Oklahoma City Dodgers last year. This year, they’re the Oklahoma City “Baseball Club.” I haven’t found an explanation of that, other than that they’ll be renamed at the end of the season. I wonder if their deal with the Dodgers is up, since this is their 10^th year with L.A. Incidentally, in trying to figure that out, I found out that the largest crowd in Oklahoma City for a game this century was in 2017, when Clayton Kershaw, one of the best pitcher in the majors at the time, made a start in the minors before coming off the injured list.

This was the first game of a doubleheader, required because of last night’s rainout. In the minor leagues, the games in doubleheaders are each seven innings, instead of the normal nine, so we got out by 7 o’clock, which is nice, since we’ve got a long driving day tomorrow.

I continue to be amused at the difference in the way MLB and AAA stadiums operate. For instance, they have metal detectors, but if you set it off, they just ask why you set it off (Kerry has artificial knees that trigger metal detectors) and say, “OK.” They don’t even have wands. Their ticket office only opened 30 minutes before the first game of the doubleheader tonight. There weren’t more than a couple of hundred people in the stands at the start, so I guess it’s OK, but still. Their big scoreboard never did work during the game.

But here’s my favorite. It was $1 hot dog night, so I went to get a hot dog. After seeing that “hot dog” wasn’t on the menu of the first three or four vendors I went past, a young lady coming from the other direction stopped me and asked if I knew where the hot dogs were, because she hadn’t found them. I finally asked at a pizza place, and they said, “Oh, they’re at the Ono Pacific Grill.” Why didn’t I think of that?