In early February Mariners then CEO Kevin Mather gave a very candid interview to the Bellevue Breakfast Rotary Club that has fucked things up for not only the Mariners, but other MLB teams. Why did it stir up controversy, you ask? Well in the interview Mather talked on a variety of topics such as, service time manipulation, being forced to pay for interpreters, and bragging for purposely underpaying players.
Days after giving the interview, Mather came to his senses and knew he fucked up. What did he TRY to do to fix the situation? He forced the Rotary Club to take the video down. Mather must’ve thought that he fixed everything and nothing will go wrong. Well, Mr. Mather, for being a rich guy and a CEO of a sports team, you certainly don’t know how the internet works. Because people, who saw the videos before they were taken down, were able to save them and expose Mather weeks later.
In the video above, you hear Mather talking about how during last year’s 60 game season, the Mariners were going to do whatever they needed to do in order to not have to call up any of their top prospects. He said that the only reason prospects like Julio Rodriguez and Jarred Kelenic were a part of the team’s taxi squad was to give them major league training and to keep them developing, as opposed to missing out a year due to minor leagues not having a season. Reasons given are because they didn’t want to start their service time at such young ages.
Why is this such a problem? This is a problem because players have argued against teams not bringing up players who are clearly ready for the big leagues, because they want to gain an extra year. So, the way MLB player contracts work is usually, a players’ rookie contract is 6 years under team control. However, if a team decides to not call you up until after a certain date, usually around April 15 to April 20, then they get an additional year of team control. Examples of teams manipulating players’ service time, are Blue Jays with Vladimir Guerrero Jr, Cubs with Kris Bryant, Padres with Fernando Tatis Jr, and Mets with Pete Alonso. In the case of Bryant and Guerrero Jr, they were victims of teams manipulating a player’s service time, while Tatis Jr and Alonso weren’t. Both Cubs and Blue Jays used the excuse that Bryant and Guerrero Jr, respectively, needed to work on their defense before getting called up. Blue Jays also used the excuse that they wanted to see how Vladdy bounces back from a slump. I mentioned Tatis Jr and Alonso because in 2019, at the end of Spring Training, the major question was whether the Padres and Mets were going to have them on their Opening Day rosters or give some BS excuse to get an additional year.
Fans and players knew this was going on in the game, but they never had proof. Players, like Kris Bryant, even filed grievances against their clubs to get rid of the extra year but they always failed. Until now, because now they have video evidence of a team executive admitting to manipulating player’s service time.
The next two videos are of Mather talking about how he hates that team’s have to pay an additional salary for interpreters. I’ve seen people come to the defense of Mather saying that he wasn’t necessarily saying that they shouldn’t leave international players to learn on their own. The way I look at it, it’s fuckin hard learning a second language. Even if you speak your second language decent, you will still have trouble understanding it when talking to someone who speaks really fast.
Let’s say we have a catcher a from Dominican Republic and Iwakuma is on the mound. We have someone who’s first language is Spanish and someone who’s first language is Japanese. How are they supposed to communicate to one other when they both speak broken English? Translators are needed in order to have effective communication during a game.
Even after the game, we know how fucked up the media is in this country. They twist your words, and make you look like you said something that you didn’t. Ichiro famously talked in every press conference in Japanese and used his interpreter on purpose. Reason being, he didn’t want the media to twist his words. You can ask any player Ichiro played with or against, if Ichiro spoke near perfect English, and they would all say yes.
Looking at this tweet, I would say Mather pissed off Julio Rodriguez, who has been nothing but passionate and loves Seattle.
Lastly, this video above, shows how he wanted to under pay an up and coming talent. Now for those of you that don’t know, Mariners got Kelenic from the Mets as part of the trade that sent Robinson Cano and Edwin Diaz to Queens. Kelenic is looked at as the ‘lefty Mike Trout”. The dude is a stud and should be in the big leagues by the end of this season. However, if what Mather said is true, Kelenic won’t be called up for a couple years. Mainly because Kelenic decided not to accept the contract extension that was offered to him by the Mariners. A prospect being offered a guaranteed contract while never having played in the big leagues is unusual. Only a handful of players have signed those extensions. There are pros to players signing those extensions, main reason being that if you sustain a horrific injury you still get paid big league money. Kelenic, smartly, decided to bet on himself and see if he can earn a BIG contract, a contract like Tatis Jr, recently received. I hope Kelenic gets called up this year, along with Rodriguez, because they can compete for a division title or a wild card spot. I also hope that both Kelenic and Rodriguez get extensions that they deserve.
I will end the blog on this note; at the end of the season is when the CBA ends and we are probably headed towards a lookout. Among issues, are universal DH, playoffs expansion, qualifying offers, that god-awful stupid 3 hitter pitching rule, and service time manipulation. If Josh Donaldson’s tweet is any indication, the MLB Players Association is going to make sure they get rid of service time manipulation.
