Appeal system loophole

[bigredrobbo]

Am I the only one that gets annoyed by the whole appeal process in baseball? A team appeals against MLB disciplinary rulings to stall the whole process until it better suits them.

 

Usually the player picks up a little niggle in the interim or decides he's tired, so the team drops the appeal process and he sits out his suspension on a day he probably would have sat out anyway.

 

MLB needs to start increasing some of the suspensions, especially in cases such as, for example, a player has a Piniella-esque blowup. That would make teams think twice I'd suggest...

[hauser42]

It use to be worse. Appeal would be help up till the player has an off day to get to New York or till his team traveled to the East Coast.

 

I would call it a strong union more than anything.

[1992casey]

I think the New York thing still happens.

 

There has to be a way to expedite this process. If either management or the union feels strongly that these hearings have to be conducted in person, then 'flying the hearing to the player' ought to be strongly considered.

[RightFieldCoder]

Appeals can't be taken away (what union would allow that to go away?) and you can't increase suspensions. (Players lose their pro-rated salary for the days they are suspended so the union won't allow that either. And I think the money goes to a general charity fund so the teams don't get to keep the money either) About the only thing to do is fly the lawyers out there. But you'd still probably need to give a couple of days for both the lawyers and the agent to "research" the case.

[endaround]

Its usually the league thats historically be slow to move on scheduling hearings. Now all this information is available on computer it shouldn't take more than a week to have a hearing.