Neal: Rosario has nothing to do but wait

[Brock Beauchamp]

Just like the warning on cold medications not to operate heavy machinery for a certain period of time, and truck and courier drivers driving under the influence of alcohol, employers probably have the right to know if their employees are on company time and potentially impaired in their judgement.

 

If the public is at risk, sure. I don't see how it's my employer's business what I'm doing in my free time any more than it's my right to tell them which politicians to support through lobbying. My job involves no risk to the public if I'm on medication/drugs. If my employer wants to fire me for bad performance, so be it. That's their right... But it's not their right to control my private life if it's not impacting my performance.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Who is your LF next year, or are we punting next year too?

 

It won't be hard to find a dozen options who have a floor higher than Eddie Rosario, a guy whose bat barely profiles as a corner outfielder anyway.

[Mike Sixel]

We'll just disagree on it being easy for the Twins to acquire legit position players over the last 5-8 years.....

[Willihammer]

No one tests for alcohol, and pot is much less harmful a substance. You already give a massive amount of time and energy to your employer, they have no right to tell you what you can or cannot ingest on your free time.

I won't comment on the legality of drug testing. All I know is I'm more productive as a sober person and not as a half-baked, hungover, or low on sleep person. So it seems reasonable that the company paying 100% of my salary would expect me to produce at 100% efficiency.

[Mike Sixel]

I don't disagree with testing....I think the penalty is harsh.....

[JB_Iowa]

I wish him well and I hope he takes the lesson to heart and learns from his own stupidity.

 

While many of you may believe that marijuana will eventually be legal everywhere, it isn't at this point. And many lessons may well be learned from Colorado and Washington.

 

The Twins appear to have handled this well. Let's see if Rosario does so going forward.

[JB_Iowa]

I don't disagree with testing....I think the penalty is harsh.....

 

Perhaps.

 

But for young players, it is also about self-discipline.

 

Rosario failed on that front.

[Mike Sixel]

Agree, JB. I know I would not have done what he did.....and he knew the consequences when he did it. I too think the Twins handled the privacy well, actually. (two compliments to the FO in one week, someone check the air in here!)

[Brock Beauchamp]

I won't comment on the legality of drug testing. All I know is I'm more productive as a sober person and not as a half-baked, hungover, or low on sleep person. So it seems reasonable that the company paying 100% of my salary would expect me to produce at 100% efficiency.

 

Except that testing only punishes one of those things. There are a million ways to be inefficient, yet we've chosen to punish just a few of those things through testing.

 

At some point, we as individuals have rights. We are not property of whomever is employing us at any given point. I show up to do a job and then I go home and do whatever I please. If my employer doesn't like what I do with that free time or feel that my actions are disrupting my performance, they can fire me.

[Twins Twerp]

The alcohol bit is completely untrue. Drug tests DO test for alcohol, but it stays in your system for a much shorter period than marijuana, opiads, amphetamines, etc. Something about a half life and science stuff I don't get. But my papi worked many years in HR and had to administer many tests for alcohol and drugs. If it is a blood test, you can test for anything. Hair samples are even better, but you can only go back so far (in terms of months). I believe you can go back years (maybe forever) in your hair follicles.

 

As far as "it should be legal so let them do it" argument...I don't agree. Private business can, and should be able to test for whatever they want. In the eyes of the federal law, marijuana is illegal EVERYWHERE, regardless of what state law is. My senior government kids get pissed about this all the time, but I MAKE them understand that federal law supersedes state law. Just ask John C. Calhoun, Jefferson Davis, and the Confederacy about laws and who tells who what to do. That is my government/law and justice rant for today

[Brock Beauchamp]

While many of you may believe that marijuana will eventually be legal everywhere, it isn't at this point.

 

Again, I feel that is irrelevant. If Byron Buxton goes out tonight and gets plastered drunk, does he get a 50 game suspension? Why not? It's illegal.

 

Sporting leagues are not law enforcement agencies.

[jokin]

If the public is at risk, sure. I don't see how it's my employer's business what I'm doing in my free time any more than it's my right to tell them which politicians to support through lobbying. My job involves no risk to the public if I'm on medication/drugs. If my employer wants to fire me for bad performance, so be it. That's their right... But it's not their right to control my private life if it's not impacting my performance.

 

Yours doesn't, mine doesn't- I'm with you on this 100%. I don't want the government or private business to have any control of my private life, if I'm performing satisfactorily and not breaking any laws. The government should be out of ALL of the drug-banning business completely, as they were less than 100 years ago. But an impaired baseball player probably does present a danger to others on the playing field what with all of the balls and bodies flying around at high velocities, and if a player enters a private contract with a specific code of conduct in it, then he should abide by it. Still, the penalty seems grossly unfair, and apparently since the major leaguers aren't being tested, this seems ripe for a test case in court regarding equal application of the law with respect to how employees are treated.

[jokin]

Again, I feel that is irrelevant. If Byron Buxton goes out tonight and gets plastered drunk, does he get a 50 game suspension? Why not? It's illegal.

Sporting leagues are not law enforcement agencies.

 

MLB, and not just the players, did get called before Congress during a massive investigation into drug-taking, resulting in the Mitchell Report, after which they were expected to become an adjunct to the government in terms of enforcement of the law.

[Willihammer]

Except that testing only punishes one of those things. There are a million ways to be inefficient, yet we've chosen to punish just a few of those things through testing.

 

At some point, we as individuals have rights. We are not property of whomever is employing us at any given point. I show up to do a job and then I go home and do whatever I please. If my employer doesn't like what I do with that free time or feel that my actions are disrupting my performance, they can fire me.

OK well good luck with that.

 

Rosario knew drug testing would be administered going into his contract, and now he will face the consequences. Again I don't have the legal expertise to comment further on whether that's constitutional. But in my expereince with drugs, I think the idea that you can use 2014 super-pot in your off hours and the effects won't bleed into your work

is a little preposterous.

[Brock Beauchamp]

MLB, and not just the players, did get called before Congress during a massive investigation into drug-taking, resulting in the Mitchell Report, after which they were expected to become an adjunct to the government in terms of enforcement of the law.

 

Heh, fair enough. Don't get me started on that.

[Brock Beauchamp]

OK well good luck with that.

 

It's worked thus far. Been employed in a good career for a long time and I've never taken a single drug test. As I mentioned earlier, the requirement for me to take one might be a deal-breaker for any job offer.

 

There are lots of jobs out there and I'm pretty good at mine. I can go work for a place that doesn't try to tell me what to do in my free time.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

I could care less that the kid smoked pot, but the lack of judgement is concerning.

[JB_Iowa]

Again, I feel that is irrelevant. If Byron Buxton goes out tonight and gets plastered drunk, does he get a 50 game suspension? Why not? It's illegal.

 

Sporting leagues are not law enforcement agencies.

 

Illegal to get plastered drunk? As long as he does it in private and certainly as long as he doesn't drive, I'm not aware of a law that prevents someone from getting drunk.

 

But regardless of that, I would hope that if the Twins found out about it, they would offer their employee assistance program. And if the Twins found out about it happening on a regular basis, that they would somehow mandate their employee assistance program (and whatever alternatives they may have under a player's contract).

 

Sporting leagues aren't law enforcement agencies. They are privately owned entities that expect certain behavior from their employees. Those expectations are subject to certain contractual limitations (more at the major league level than the minor) but they exist nonetheless.

[Monkeypaws]

At least it wasn't a PED. More a performance detracting drug.

 

Proves his talent is legit at least.

[Guest USAFChief]

I think a business has every right to test its employees for illegal drug use, particularly when the employee agreed to said testing when he signed a contract. Employees have every right not to sign such a contract. Let the free market sort out which side is "right."

[Brock Beauchamp]

Illegal to get plastered drunk? As long as he does it in private and certainly as long as he doesn't drive, I'm not aware of a law that prevents someone from getting drunk.

 

He's 20 years old.

[zchrz]

"until the day comes that MLB could definitively prove that MJ is a dangerous PED (highly unlikely)."

 

Wait what base was I supposed to throw it to again ... ah **** thats right I'm batting.

[zchrz]

If the public is at risk, sure. I don't see how it's my employer's business what I'm doing in my free time any more than it's my right to tell them which politicians to support through lobbying. My job involves no risk to the public if I'm on medication/drugs. If my employer wants to fire me for bad performance, so be it. That's their right... But it's not their right to control my private life if it's not impacting my performance.

 

Exactly this. I am in a field that doesn't test unless it is a massive corporate employer, so I have only ever had one job that tried to test me and I declined at that point. I wonder what the companies in the states that have legalized are doing, I have watched here in California with medicinal legalization as the tests have been declining save for the country wide large employers.

[Brock Beauchamp]

I think a business has every right to test its employees for illegal drug use, particularly when the employee agreed to said testing when he signed a contract. Employees have every right not to sign such a contract. Let the free market sort out which side is "right."

 

Which is a good principle in theory... if this country hadn't spent the past 30 years undermining the natural free market lobbyists for the workers' rights, trade unions.

 

Because, let's face it, the free market does a pretty bad job of balancing rights when all the power is in business hands while we continually chip away at trade unions and allow businesses to aggressively union-bust (hi, Wal-Mart). Unorganized workers simply cannot stand up to the power of conglomerated business interests. It's like putting Mike Tyson in the ring with a herd of mice.

 

*thread jumps off the rails*

[TheLeviathan]

Illegal to get plastered drunk?

 

My biggest issue with the penalty is it once again reflects the utter hypocrisy of our laws regarding pot vs. alcohol. If one of those two should be feared and harshly penalized it sure as hell isn't pot.

 

As far as drug testing - I find it 100% acceptable for a company to vet their prospective employee as much as they want. They are often the ones taking the risk at a heavy cost to themselves for each new hire. They should have a right to make sure their investment isn't a foolish one right from the get-go.

[JB_Iowa]

He's 20 years old.

 

Well duh.... forgot he was that young. But then, having come of age when the legal drinking age was 18, I also tend to forget that it is 21.

 

But the fact that baseball doesn't take action for other illegal acts in the same manner that they do drugs doesn't necessarily mean that they wouldn't want to do so. But this is one place where in fact there IS a trade union with whom they have to deal (even if that union appears to be more interested in protecting major league players than those in the minors).

[Thrylos]

Hopefully they move him to LF, and get him here fast. Between Dozier and Polanco, they look set at 2B (and not so set in the OF, as Hicks continues his slide).

 

Never understood why people do not give a chance to Polanco at SS. He is a SS for the time being and much more valuable there than 2B.

[Brock Beauchamp]

As far as drug testing - I find it 100% acceptable for a company to vet their prospective employee as much as they want. They are often the ones taking the risk at a heavy cost to themselves for each new hire. They should have a right to make sure their investment isn't a foolish one right from the get-go.

 

Eh, I don't really buy into this. The employee is giving up roughly 50% of their waking life to work for a company. Does that employee get to go through financial and human resources records and make sure that they're not wasting their time by taking a job at a company that will go out of business or treat them poorly?

 

Risk is assumed on both sides but only one gets to dig into the other's life.

[TheLeviathan]

Well duh.... forgot he was that young. But then, having come of age when the legal drinking age was 18, I also tend to forget that it is 21.

 

But the fact that baseball doesn't take action for other illegal acts in the same manner that they do drugs doesn't necessarily mean that they wouldn't want to do so. But this is one place where in fact there IS a trade union with whom they have to deal (even if that union appears to be more interested in protecting major league players than those in the minors).

 

Alcohol is a drug too.

[TheLeviathan]

Eh, I don't really buy into this. The employee is giving up roughly 50% of their waking life to work for a company. Does that employee get to go through financial and human resources records and make sure that they're not wasting their time by taking a job at a company that will go out of business or treat them poorly?

 

Risk is assumed on both sides but only one gets to dig into the other's life.

 

You can vet most businesses fairly well on the internet now. Many companies are doing that too for that matter. If an employee walks away from a job they still collect pay for whatever commitment they gave. If an employer has an employee walk away they assume all costs of training, the hiring process, the paperwork, etc. Last I checked, you don't pay back the days you trained or sat through new hire stuff. That's all on the company's dime for the potential of you working out for them.

 

The HR end of things ain't cheap. It's why turnover in so many fields (social services in particular) is so costly and damaging to the industry. Companies have a lot of upfront costs that can be very damaging if they get burned frequently.

 

Over the long term the investments are probably about equal, but in the first few years the company assumes a lot of the costs should something go wrong. They have a right to protect those costs.