MLB will void Seong Min Kim contract

[Matt P]

http://www.masnsports.com/school_of_roc ... tract.html

This organization really is a joke.

[ofahn]

http://www.masnsports.com/school_of_roch/2012/02/sources-mlb-will-void-seong-min-kims-contract.html

This organization really is a joke.

What you apparently see as a joke I see as a long overdue aggressiveness by the FO to find talent and acquire it for the organization regardless of the cost. THANK YOU DD for trying to improve this team by thinking outside the box.

[Matt P]

Yes, thank you for breaking protocol, getting scouts banned by the KBO, and once again having the rest of the baseball world laughing at the O's.

[A_K]

Foolish. Embarrassing. Ignorant. Humiliating.

[thezeroes]

As far as I have been able to read the KBA or KBO have no restrictions placed on this particular player. The Orioles in this had done nothing wrong as far a being illegal. This seems to be a push by the Koreans to get a better MLB agreement in place and are using the Orioles signing of a player that they had no control over as an emphasis of getting this new agreement. Dan Duquette and his team have been a bit more aggressive than MLB or the Koreans expected and to curb other teams from "Raiding" the Korean High Schools the Orioles will be made an example of.

[Rising O's]

The right people were not paid off and so this is the result.

[Ampontan]

I'm with Ofahn and The Zeroes. We'll get the kid anyway, but have to wait another 30 days. The overreaction by the other posters is worse than the Korean overreaction, which is just a means to get leverage for a new deal. MLB is not laughing at the O's, any more than they laughed at the Dodgers for doing the same thing a few years ago. (The usual social media snarkmeisters don't count.) That no one has brought the Dodgers' case up --- because they mostly likely didn't know about it --- indicates the ultimate outcome: no one will care.

This will not satisfy the people looking for any excuse to gripe, but nothing will satisfy them except another excuse to gripe.

[ofahn]

The right people were not paid off and so this is the result.

That thought has been nagging at me since I first read about this "scandal".

[A_K]

People rushing to explain why this isn't a big deal are missing the point.

The following things are entirely true:

Seong Min-Kim isn't a particularly important prospect. Losing access to South Korea doesn't particularly affect our international efforts. The KBO-imposed ban is the result of a governing body looking to extort money from its members and those that look to capitalize on those resources. The majority of baseball fans won't change their thinking of the Orioles, because they will never hear about something that is as arcane and nerdy as any baseball news has ever been. The MLB itself is just trying to save face with a foreign partner and doesn't particularly care about the infraction. Five years from now this won't be something anyone remembers.

Again, all of that is entirely true. And to the extent that those things are true, they also mean that this isn't a particularly big deal.

But it's also true that the protocol the Orioles broke is a simple matter of doing business in Korea that a group of people with decades of combined experience broke without compelling reason. Putting aside whether it was a good idea to spend $530,000 on a soft-tossing left under 6'0 tall, it's also true that it would have been just as easy to abide by the protocol as it would have been to break it. No one has said that there were a bunch of teams competing to sign the kid. We can assume that the signing was meant to be an entry into the South Korean market, rather than the final destination. In that case, why fire bomb the bridge just after building it? What does that action say about the decision-making prowess of those conducting it?

Also, it's time enough that we stop waving away the infraction as the creation of a corrupt governing body that's looking out only for it's best interests. Is it true that that's the case? Yes, of course. That's also true of the Rule 4 Draft. And the luxury tax. And arbitration hearings. And virtually every other rule put in place by MLB that allows it to continue operating as a antitrust exempt association with publicly financed stadiums and arbitrary regulations that depress the earnings potential of baseball prospects to the direct financial benefit of team owners.

We aren't liberators bringing to light widespread corruption. We're a corrupt entity operating under the framework of another corrupt entity that bumped up against the corruption of a third-party corrupt entity and had corrupt regulations placed on us by both the corrupt entity under which we operate and the corrupt entity we bumped up against. Enough with the equivocating.

What happened here is very simple. Supposedly qualified professionals failed to do their job, resulting in a series of regulations that probably won't change the direction of any of the involved organizations.

[ofahn]

A_K,

You make some valid points but I see this issue differently than you do.

There are two ways to look at this. One is that the Orioles simply didn't understand the rules, although I find that hard to believe with DD's experience in the Asian market. The other is that DD felt the rules were unfair to the players and decided to make a statement that the players would clearly understand and applaud.

I have no doubt that the Orioles have upset some Korean baseball officials, but I think we have become heroes to the Korean players, and they're the ones that we need to focus on. We signed a Korean kid to a LOT OF MONEY for that country. EVERY player in Korea, and probably Asia, will know or be told about the Baltimore Orioles at some point in discussions about going pro. When an Orioles scout comes to town the best players will want to show off for him. This is just like the Negro League players right after Jackie Robinson signed with the Dodgers. So many black players wanted to sign with Brooklyn that they could have added some SERIOUS talent if Branch Rickey wasn't afraid of fielding a predominately black team and replacing some white stars in the process.

I also don't understand why you feel that the Rule 4 Draft is an anti - trust issue. It's one of the few practices in baseball that isn't. In any situation where you have collective bargaining it is permissible to establish an entry way for new employees. The CBA does exactly that with the draft.

Look at the auto industry. The UAW extracts certain guarantees from the automakers in exchange for GM and the others being able to avoid bidding wars on potential new employees. The union is protecting its wage base and the car makers are provided cost certainty. It's fair, and it works.

[A_K]

I don't buy that this was about DD making a statement to young Korean players. I believe he took a shortcut, thought nothing would come of it and was surprised to see that he was wrong. If it was about signalling to young players that the Orioles care about their earning potential, he'd say so. Instead, he issued a seemingly sincere apology.

As to the Rule-4 draft: there's a reason it exists. It isn't about parity. It isn't about creating an orderly entryway for new employees. It isn't about helping small market teams compete. It's about controlling costs. It, by definition, depresses the wages of players who would otherwise make a great deal more money if not for the system's existence. There are a host of reasons that it is 100 percent legal. First among those is the fact that it has been collectively bargained between the players association and the league. This is a man-made distinction that allows for a market-distorting regulation to be justified by those it affects. And that's all fine. I'm not necessarily saying anything should be changed. But, just as MLB teams depress the wages of new employees in order to benefit a cartel of rich business owners through the Rule 4 draft (entirely legally, mind you), the KBO likewise has a series of policies they've put in place to accomplish the same result. One of those is the protocol breached by DD and the Orioles. Does that make them law breakers? No, no more than a team offering a contract to a draft eligible player in the weeks leading up to the draft would make them law breakers. But just as the team in that scenario would have broken a clearly understood condition of doing business, so too did the Orioles when they opted to cut the line and break KBO protocol.

Now, what we have seen is a group of fans come out of the woodwork to explain that the KBO regulation is unethical, and that therefore the Orioles actions are justifiable. But they do so while ignoring the many unethical regulations in place that allow the MLB to operate in the way that it operates. The only difference is that we're more familiar with our unethical regulations, which allows us to delude ourselves into thinking that what we did in Korea is somehow justifiable. Perhaps it is. And perhaps breaking protocol in order defy the luxury tax would be as well. But when you enter into a cartel, you agree to play by its rules.

[ofahn]

I don't buy that this was about DD making a statement to young Korean players. I believe he took a shortcut, thought nothing would come of it and was surprised to see that he was wrong. If it was about signalling to young players that the Orioles care about their earning potential, he'd say so. Instead, he issued a seemingly sincere apology.

Offering a sincere apology is part of the game. If you knowingly "take liberties" with another man's woman and then get caught, you offer a sincere apology. In doing so you earn the admiration of other men and some long second looks from the ladies. If you take the arrogant approach of a "so what" attitude, you just earn the scorn of almost everyone.

I think that DD has made, in a very public way, the statement that the Orioles have a new "sheriff" and will be serious players for International talent in the future. I can't prove that and I doubt that we'll ever get the truth from DD. At least not while the ladies (players) are giving him some long second looks.

[Ampontan]

Now this is getting interesting. Encina in the Sun reports that the Orioles intend to sign Kim as soon as they can.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/orioles/blog/bal-orioles-still-plan-on-signing-south-korean-17yearold-kim-20120322,0,2977584.story?track=rss&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

He also writes:

The Orioles still believe that Kim, who was initially signed to a reported $550,000 signing bonus, is a rare talent that could be in the major leagues by the time he turns 22. He turns 18 next month.

I'd like to see it happen for two reasons. One, if it did, it means that he really is good, and two, if it did, it would make Law and the other snarktards look bad.

[CSPitt17130]

I'd like to see it happen for two reasons. One, if it did, it means that he really is good, and two, if it did, it would make Law and the other snarktards look bad.

Law reported what he saw or heard from other scouts. That was low 80s and unimpressive secondary stuff. The Orioles reported seeing him at around 90 with a good breaking ball. Kim probably looked very different when these two sets of scouts saw him. Law didn't make up a scouting report or lie about anything.

[Ampontan]

Law reported what he saw or heard from other scouts. That was low 80s and unimpressive secondary stuff. The Orioles reported seeing him at around 90 with a good breaking ball. Kim probably looked very different when these two sets of scouts saw him. Law didn't make up a scouting report or lie about anything.

First, Law didn't see anything himself. (Also, reporters are supposed to get two sources for everything. Think he got two sources for the signing bonus? The Orioles never announced it.) Second, yes, Kim probably did look different, perhaps because he went through a teenage growth spurt.

The problem I have with Law is that in his original Tweet, in the second half, he snarks that the $550,000 might have come from the money DD saved by reorganizing the scouting department and cutting back on major league scouts. That was a move Law has consistently criticized, perhaps because some of his friends were involved. But DD has run two scouting departments in his career and considers one of his strengths to be systems management, while Law makes a living by meta-commentary, without ever having run anything on a budget in his life, that I know of.

A scouting department reorganization has nothing to do with signing a Korean high school kid, and it was just a cheap juvenile shot to put it in the same Tweet, with its limited character count.