Would a grievance get Aiken, Nix or players union anywhere?


It’s hard to imagine the players looking worse than the Astros if Brady Aiken and Jacob Nix don’t sign by today’s 4 p.m. CT deadline.

A year of junior college, and the players could be right back in high rounds. But the Astros, who made fans endure a 51-111 season with a terribly low payroll last year, would be losing the grand prize that season brought, the top pick in the draft.

But just what ground the player’s union or Casey Close, who advises both players, would have with a grievance in relation to Nix or Aiken is a tricky matter, and J.D. Drew might have an impact.

When Close spoke to FOXsports.com Tuesday, he said that Nix had passed his physical with the Astros, but remained unsigned. Wrote Ken Rosenthal: “It is standard industry protocol for players to agree to contract terms, then take physicals as the final step in finalizing a contract. But the Astros, after reaching agreement with Nix, notified his family that the offer would be rescinded because the team first needed to complete Aiken’s deal, Close said.”

Asked on Friday what made a deal final, one major league front office member succinctly wrote in a text message: “Signatures.”

It’s unclear what, if anything, was in written form when it comes to Nix.

“Verbal agreements aren’t binding,” former Astros general manager and current Phillies special assistant Ed Wade said generally of his front-office experiences, without speaking specifically to and with no knowledge of the Astros’ current situation. “A contract has to be signed by both parties and approved by MLB before it can be considered a ‘done deal.’ There are any number of things that can go wrong between the time of a verbal agreement — and, in most cases, a letter agreement of understanding — that can derail a deal. Some of the things that can put a deal off the tracks include health issues that could come up in a physical, contract language disagreements or a conflict with existing Major League rules or rules covered in the Collective Bargaining Agreement.

“The circumstances are different when talking about acquiring a Major League free agent versus agreeing to terms with a drafted player. With a Major League free agent, the club and the player can often manage to get the physical and all the other details ironed out before an announcement is made. But with a drafted player, the world instantly knows which team has selected the player and there’s a lot of pre-signing attention paid to the pick, even though the physical, terms of the contract and other issues have yet to be finalized. The reality is that teams have to tread lightly regarding the physical because if issues arise, both sides are impacted and, oftentimes, both sides have to regroup and then re-engage to figure out how to resolve the issue. The club has to be concerned about its financial commitment and the player has to be concerned about how his health will be scrutinized going forward.”

In the case of Nix, where a player has a passed a physical, there seems a grey area. Slotting — the draft bonus system that includes a pool of money that inherently makes player signings contingent on one another — is a new and very significant wrinkle in all of this, and essentially uncharted territory because it’s a system that was instituted in 2012.

The union believes the Astros have manipulated the system.

But, ostensibly, a manipulation doesn’t necessarily mean a violation of the rules.

Nix hasn’t been signed by all accounts because the Astros don’t have penalty-free pool money available to do so unless Aiken signs.

Wade said he couldn’t recall being involved in a situation where a player was not signed after passing a physical.

“In the two-plus decades that I was directly involved in contract negotiations, a verbal agreement followed up with a memo of understanding of the terms was a common and accepted practice between the club, the player and his representative,” Wade said. “That said, we were always steadfastly reminded that those types of agreements are not binding. We may have felt ethically committed to the deal, but we also had to know that nothing was etched in stone and wouldn’t be until MLB and the union signed off. My recollection is that none of those deals that I was involved in ever fell apart unless the criteria spelled out in the memo of understanding weren’t met.”

Wade was the general manager of the Phillies in 1998, at a time when a grievance led to an arbitration ruling that does not seem to benefit Close or the union if a grievance becomes necessary in this situation.

Being advised by Scott Boras, J.D. Drew went to an independent league in an attempt to allow him to become a free agent after the Phillies drafted him in 1997. MLB amended its rules trying to block such a move, and did so without the consent of the player’s union.

From a Doug Pappas article in the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) Business of Baseball Committee Newsletter in 1998:

“Enter the Players’ Association. While Drew wasn’t eligible for membership in the MLBPA, the union was determined to protect the principle, established in a prior arbitration, that MLB couldn’t change the draft rules without its consent. And by bringing the matter to baseball’s independent arbitrator, the MLBPA could bypass the courts and obtain a ruling on Drew’s status before the 1998 draft. Management spokesmen warned that a ruling for Drew could render the draft obsolete.

“On May 19, arbitrator Dana Eischen upheld the MLBPA’s grievance — but Drew may not benefit from the ruling. Rather than declaring Drew a free agent, Eischen held that because Drew wasn’t a member of the MLBPA, his rights weren’t subject to arbitration. Drew’s status will therefore be determined by the Executive Council, which is virtually certain to send him through the draft once again. If they remain dissatisfied, Boras and Drew can now turn to the courts for redress, armed with Eischen’s ruling.”

The rules are collectively bargained, and therefore the union has a say in them. But whether the union has a say in the negotiations of specific players’ minor league deals — Aiken, Nix — seems a shakier ground. The potential contracts of Aiken and Nix are minor league contracts, not major league ones.

“The union can get involved,” union head Tony Clark said this week when speaking of the Astros’ situation. “It is a part of collective bargaining, and as such, we are invited into the conversation. That is the only reason I mentioned what I mentioned a second ago.”

As for Aiken, a grievance to settle a potential difference of opinion in doctors over the condition and risk of his ulnar collateral ligament could be trying too. The rules address a situation where a player fails a club-administered physical examination, nothing else.

Even if the Astros were to win this battle, that comes at a cost. Close is a very powerful agent, with big-name clients. He’ll bring them to Houston if the Astros spend enough, sure, but it may cost more. This is just another example of the Astros acting in a way that makes the rest of baseball scratch its head.

Close’s decision to speak out against the team stands out as rare. In the court of public opinion, Close gets the benefit of the doubt sooner than the Astros, who have already established a reputation as a team that, as the Chronicle wrote in May “has created at least pockets of internal discontent and a potential reputation problem throughout baseball.”

Categories: General
Evan Drellich