Many players around baseball reacted with fury after Mariners team president Kevin Mather openly discussed service time manipulation surrounding former Mets prospect Jared Kelenic, and Yankees ace Gerrit Cole is in that camp.
Speaking with reporters on Tuesday, Cole vented about the "bad faith" in baseball, and how Mather, who has since resigned, represents a greater problem in the game when it comes to the treatment of its younger stars.
"I think it's in bad faith," Cole said. "I think it's completely demonstrated and every player should wake up and read the news on the guy in the Mariners, those conversations are being had in a lot of clubs unfortunately, and that's the kind of way a lot of clubs are acting. I don't know if there's a rule that can fix that because someone will just find a way around that rule, but as an industry, I'd like to see us move past that. That's not productive for anyone. It's not productive for the product. You're not putting the best players on the field for people to see."
Service time manipulation has long been a point of frustration for the MLB Players Association, which Cole is a part of as a member of the executive subcommittee, with stars like Kris Bryant and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. being among the most notable cases where the players felt they were being kept in the minors to delay the countdown to arbitration and free agency.
"This guy is talking about players making him money," Cole said of Mather, who also said prospect Logan Gilbert would be kept down to start the season to keep him under team control longer. "The product is the people that he's talking poorly about. It's tired, man. I think players are over it, and if they haven't been awakened to that type of behavior, that's what goes on."
Cole likened a typical MLB career to a "bell curve," with teams paying for players' peak years and maximizing players' younger years, before they're able to hit free agency and cash in like Cole, who signed a record $324 million deal with the Yanks prior to the 2020 season. Cole was 29 years old when he signed his mega-deal, seven years after breaking into the majors with the Pirates in 2013.
"They're very well aware of studying that curve," Cole said of MLB front offices. "That's why we see a lot of competitive offers or some weird situations where offers are the same because people are working off the same kind of algorithms. But you know when that curve starts, you start studying these players as they're younger. If they're ready but that fiscally isn't as efficient for you if you bring them up earlier as opposed to later…if you start to play with the beginning of that bell curve so you can start to maximize what it is, and you're only doing it to be more efficient business wise, that's frustrating."
Cole also spoke on the heightened role that analytics and advanced data has in the game today, which new Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor discussed on Monday. Lindor expressed a frustration with the modern game's overreliance on analytics, while Cole agreed that he would like to see more of a balance within the sport, and that analytics can at times be used as a weapon in contract negotiations.
"How that information is played out, if you're trying to win, you want to have an open field for clubs to compete in all different areas," Cole said. "Compete in analytics, compete over players, etc. Now, when the analytics are used to supress salary or to manipulate service time or for things other than trying to put the best product on the field, that's concerning."
The topic of service time and the use of analytics will certainly be a major talking point for the Players Association and MLB owners in the coming year, with the current Collective Bargaining Agreement expiring after the season.
"We all have to get better," Cole said. "I just don't want to see that kind of stuff to make the product worse or to manipulate…That's just stupid."
Yankees manager Aaron Boone spoke with reporters after Cole, and echoed his star pitcher's sentiment.
"I'm fortunate to be in an organization where we don't do that. When guys are ready or we feel like they're ready to impact the club, that's that. Purposefully holding a guy down, I don't think should have a place in our game," Boone said.
Follow Ryan Chichester on Twitter: @ryanchichester1
Follow WFAN on Social Media
Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube | Twitch
