Should We Allow Teams to Do What the Red Sox Did with Brusdar Graterol?

[Matthew Trueblood]

The Red Sox saw something in Brusdar Graterol's medical information that made them balk. But is there any real value in the kinds of assessments that lead to such reversals?The way the Boston Red Sox interpreted and evaluated medical information about Brusdar Graterol cost the Minnesota Twins something tangible. Now that the terms of the Mookie Betts megadeal are more or less set, we can assess exactly what that cost was. Instead of getting Kenta Maeda in exchange for Graterol in a straight-up exchange, the Twins are now getting Maeda and $10 million from the Los Angeles Dodgers, but giving up Graterol, outfielder Luke Raley, and the 67th pick in the 2020 MLB Draft. The change in marginal value for Minnesota is small, but it’s real, and it’s not really fair. The Red Sox shouldn’t have had the right to hold up the deal on this basis, and MLB should modify its rules to avoid similar situations in the future.

 

At first, this might seem an extreme position. No team should be expected to take on damaged goods, and any rule that reduces the discretion a team can exercise when reviewing otherwise privileged information before giving a trade final approval would be met with dismay. There are relevant, recent precedents for teams withholding key information about a player when trading them to another club, and that can’t be allowed to happen. However, there’s a marked difference between truly damaged, injured baseball players—especially pitchers—and merely risky ones. I would argue the difference is one of kind, not of degree, and that the ability of one team to apply their own prognoses to subjective medical data after a trade has been agreed upon is unfair to the other party in said trade and to the player himself.

 

We’re very bad at predicting injuries in baseball, but that should come as no surprise. We’re pretty bad at predicting, and even diagnosing, much more simple, straightforward medical conditions, across much more robust and similar populations than big-league pitchers. In numerous studies, when shown them far enough apart to minimize awareness of the subject at issue, radiologists have been shown to draw almost diametrically opposite conclusions and make dramatically different diagnostic proclamations of two scans, only to be told afterward that the two scans were actually identical.

 

Representativeness, available mental energy, halo effects, and a half-dozen other external factors and cognitive biases affect the way medical professionals assess patients, even in much higher stakes situations and with more time available for the review. It’s easy to imagine that the Red Sox drew different conclusions from Graterol’s medical history and private health information than did the Twins, or even the Dodgers. That doesn’t mean they’re right. In fact, they’re probably wrong.

 

Graterol is most likely to be a reliever, in both the short- and the long-term future. His build, his delivery, his repertoire, and his movement profile all point in that direction. So does his health history, though the tea leaves are much less clear there, because it’s not at all clear that pitching in relief poses less risk to a pitcher’s arm or allows him to stay healthier than he would as a starter. However, he’s healthy right now. He’s pitched at a very high level as recently as the MLB postseason, and his offseason workouts have been uninterrupted.

 

By declaring his medicals unsatisfactory, the Red Sox were able to renegotiate their deal with the Dodgers, and they got better talent in the process. The Twins, however, had to decide whether to go forward with a deal that lost some of its original simplicity and desirability. The Dodgers, though willing to take on Graterol, were in a position to apply leverage to the Twins, because of the public reports about the newly questionable health of their flamethrowing pitcher. If the Twins had elected to back out of the deal, they’d have had an even more damaged asset on their hands, because (unfairly) the outside view would have been that Graterol was also rejected, to one extent or another, by the Dodgers.

 

For Graterol, this is all patently unfair. It will, if only tacitly, affect his future earnings. It will color the global perception of him. Again, the risky elements of his body, background, and skill set were already public knowledge, but this assigns a false sense of objective reality to one of those elements. If a player can be shown to be injured (in a way that prevents him from taking the field) at the time of a trade, and if that injury was not known to the acquiring team when the trade was agreed upon, the league should step in, certify as much, and nullify the deal. In all other cases, once an agreement has been reached, it should be final.

 

If teams want to run risk analyses around injury precursors on a given player, they should have to do it using publicly available information, and they should have to do it before agreeing to acquire that player. A smart front office employee can map out the injury risk of a given pitcher using that pitcher’s age, workload, documented injury history, and average velocity, with purely statistical data, repertoire, and qualitative information about their delivery baked into the assessment. They can do so just about as reliably as a doctor, a biomechanics expert, and another front office employee can by viewing old scans of a shoulder strain or measurements of the length of the player’s ulnar collateral ligament, and the simpler method also avoids trafficking in divination. It wards off overconfident assessments that also hurt the reputation and earning power of players, and it provides a fairer foundation for trade negotiations.

 

MORE FROM TWINS DAILY

— Latest Twins coverage from our writers

— Recent Twins discussion in our forums

— Follow Twins Daily via Twitter, Facebook or email

 

Click here to view the article

[USAFChief]

How will this affect Graterol's future earnings?

 

His rookie salary is predetermined, and after this year this whole thing is a nonissue. Either he proves healthy, or he is injured. In either case, Boston's opinion on his future is irrelevant.

 

And no...team's shouldn't have to go through with trades, for any reason, until they do.

[4twinsJA]

Should not announce trades until final, Reporters in such a rush to be first to report, leds to premature announcements.

[Heezy1323]

I can understand the argument here, and evaluating medical info is definitely fraught with uncertainty in baseball players (as in any human being). Smoltz's shoulder MRI looked like a bomb went off in there- while he was pitching at the top of his game. But if teams are considering investing millions (and in some cases hundreds of millions) of dollars, my view is they should be allowed every opportunity to evaluate their investment to ascertain level of risk. Just like statistics/analytics should be used to project the player's likely level of performance (which is only a best guess, really), medical information needs to be able to be used for risk stratification, IMHO. 

[ashbury]

I don't think there was a premature announcement. Someone on the inside of one of the organizations probably shot off their mouth to someone with media connections, for reasons unknown. I would guess it was someone new to the Red Sox, young and inexperienced and interested in demonstrating what an insider he or she is now - but other possibilities exist. Dodgers and Twins usually run a tight ship, whereas the Red Sox have probably had some turnover under the new guy Bloom.

 

Once the cat was out of the bag, and names were named, there really wasn't going to be a "fair" way to roll back the trade and un-name the players.

 

Trade discussions like this probably happen all the time, getting near the point of announcement, and we don't hear about them when something jinxes the deal.

[Seth Stohs]

Yeah, what is the Red Sox doctors saw that there is a partial tear in Graterol's shoulder (I'm speaking hypothetically)... he could pitch at 100% and even feel OK, but if I was the Red Sox doctor and saw that, it sure would raise a flag... 

 

I think that maybe they can let other team's doctors see medicals a little earlier in the process. That might help some... but leakers, whether it's agents or teams or whoever, are going to be around and media types, understandably, will run with reports from their trusted sources. 

 

I don't know if there is a good way to somehow legislate this.

[Blake]

The Red Sox new FO, by doing this, just sent up a huge, "seller beware" sign and I expect any trades with the Red Sox, by any team, in the future, will be approached with extreme caution.

 

 

[Riverbrian]

I don't think it can be avoided. 

 

It's more my fault than the Red Sox. I follow Rosenthal, Passan and Heyman because I can't wait a damn minute. 

 

So, I take full responsibility but with that said. 

 

The Red Sox sure screwed it up. 

[diehardtwinsfan]

First off, this will not affect Graterols future earnings one bit. His salary is predetermined until he hits arb, at which point his arb value is determined by his results. When he hits FA, it will be based on what he's done. If he is still often injured, nothing in this ordeal will matter. If he's not often injured, he'll get a big deal. 

 

But to the point, should teams be allowed to do this? To an extent no, but how do you stop it? That's the rub. If the Twins had seen something in Dyson's medicals, should they have been allowed to go back on that deal? In hindsight, yes. So how do you protect an honest medical assessment vs. something that was most likely backtracking as in the case of Boston? I know that in the real world, this isn't possible either. Just look at buying a house. It's the same concept with an inspection that allows a buyer to get cold feet without recourse. 

[Craig Arko]

 

Should not announce trades until final, Reporters in such a rush to be first to report, leds to premature announcements.

Yup. This is an actual problem.

[Steve J]

"The Red Sox shouldn’t have had the right to hold up the deal on this basis, and MLB should modify its rules to avoid similar situations in the future."

I don't see the need.  The Twins aren't victims here.  They could have terminated their participation in the deal and went to the Dodgers directly if they really wanted Maeda.  

[Otto von Ballpark]

This seems like a solution in search of a problem.

 

In other words, I expect to hear Manfred is considering it very soon!

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

So how do you protect an honest medical assessment vs. something that was most likely backtracking as in the case of Boston?

Is it time we put this conspiracy theory to rest? The Red Sox have steadily been getting bad PR for as long as they've entertained trading Betts, so nothing about the initial fan/media reaction to the trade was unexpected. Then they actually got *worse* PR in Boston once they delayed the deal over Graterol's medicals. Finally, once Graterol was officially off the table for them, they turned around and immediately completed a reconfigured deal, in return for arguably the same prospect value as pre-medicals Graterol seemed to have, which seems to prove they weren't in fact trying to backtrack the whole deal.

 

Occam's Razor would suggest they really did see something in Graterol's medicals that they were unaware of before, and that it downgraded his value in their eyes more than, say, throwing in Luke Raley would have made up for. And it's a subjective evaluation by definition, so it's also not unexpected that the Twins and Dodgers apparently disagreed.

[adjacent]

What sounds weird, and somehow fishy, was that the Red Sox didn't say: "We saw the medicals, and no, we don't want this player". They said we want him, but we want something else too. That is what it makes sound the medicals as an excuse.

[Shaitan]

 

Yup. This is an actual problem.

 

To a point, the story is sometimes broken too early.

 

But it's also up to readers to be able to discern the facts. When this broke, it was not reported that it was official. It's a reporters job to report the story (what is happening), not what happened.

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

What sounds weird, and somehow fishy, was that the Red Sox didn't say: "We saw the medicals, and no, we don't want this player". They said we want him, but we want something else too. That is what it makes sound the medicals as an excuse.

But the Red Sox were trying to come up with a prospect package to replace full-value Graterol. It's quite likely that even at a reduced value after they saw the medicals, the Red Sox still considered Graterol the best prospect the Twins were willing to give up and a likely component of any replacement package.

 

Reports suggest we (correctly) weren't willing to substitute Balazovic, Duran, or anyone better for Graterol. And even taking the "another top 10 prospect" report at face value, depending on the source that could mean prospects like Rooker, Miranda, Celestino, Thorpe, Javier, etc. -- guys who wouldn't necessarily be valuable enough on their own to substitute for full-value Graterol, but good second pieces alongside reduced-value Graterol (and likely considered better by the Red Sox than the second piece we ultimately agreed to send to the Dodgers in Raley).

 

Hence the only way for Boston to try to salvage that iteration of the deal was to request an additional piece with Graterol, no ulterior motive necessary.

[TwinPeaks]

This doesn't really change the article, which I agree with....but is the new deal really any worse than the original deal?   I'd say it's better.   We got $10 million and a low level prospect, which seems to me to be better than pick #67 and Luke Raley.   There are ways to evaluate the monetary worth of a pick and pick #67 is estimated to be worth around $4 million.   At worst, it seems to be a wash.

[Harrison Greeley III]

 

What sounds weird, and somehow fishy, was that the Red Sox didn't say: "We saw the medicals, and no, we don't want this player". They said we want him, but we want something else too. That is what it makes sound the medicals as an excuse.

 

This and the fact that Graterol passed the physical no problem. 

It's such a hard sell to find any other narrative plausible. The Red Sox had a poor scouting report on Graterol, had buyer's remorse, and used bad faith tactics to save face. Any other narrative really seems like an over-accommodating stretch. 

This isn't a homer bias. It's not just the Twins fanbase that thinks this. MLBPA, Scott Boras, MLB, the Dodgers fanbase,the Red Sox fanbase, and other parties involved alluded to if not directly expressed this as their read on the situation. The 'adult in the room saying there's more to this story you don't know...' take did not age well as this story developed.

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

This and the fact that Graterol passed the physical no problem. 

Passing a physical is a completely different thing than projecting a player's value. I could pass a physical from a MLB team (probably ), but no one would project any value for me.

 

 

It's such a hard sell to find any other narrative plausible. The Red Sox had a poor scouting report on Graterol, had buyer's remorse, and used bad faith tactics to save face. Any other narrative really seems like an over-accommodating stretch.

This isn't a homer bias. It's not just the Twins fanbase that thinks this. MLBPA, Scott Boras, MLB, the Dodgers fanbase,the Red Sox fanbase, and other parties involved alluded to if not directly expressed this as their read on the situation. The 'adult in the room saying there's more to this story you don't know...' take did not age well as this story developed.

But by your own description, they didn't "save face" at all. Are they idiots, or incredibly naive, or both?

 

Boras and MLBPA represent Graterol, so they had a vested interest in promoting their client/member, regardless of whether Boston was making a good faith judgment about his future.

 

And most fans are unaware that detailed medical information is only shared between teams *after* a trade agreement has been reached in principal. So I don't think fanbase reactions are a meaningful measurement here about whether the Red Sox were acting in good or bad faith. (Obligatory link to a good article on the subject: “How baseball teams exchange medical information, and what it means for the Mookie Betts trade” https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/redsox/2020/02/06/how-baseball-teams-exchange-medical-information-after-agreeing-trade/Nu56T96T3GENiqQQs0amZN/story.html?outputType=amp)

 

Time will tell, but if what you are saying is actually true, then we should see Chaim Bloom fail spectacularly as a naive idiot who is ostracized by other MLB front offices. His immediate pivot to completing a comparable deal with the Dodgers doesn't suggest that's the case, but time will tell.

[Harrison Greeley III]

 

 

But by your own description, they didn't "save face" at all. Are they idiots, or incredibly naive, or both?

 

I assumed when I said they 'used bad faith tactics to save face' it was implied that they didn't actually succeed. But if you needed me to specify: they didn't succeed.

Bloom is not a naive idiot. I think smart people can easily have a bad day or a bad sequence. Smart people can have a poor read on a situation sometimes. I think he's a guy new at his job and he second guessed what he just did. It happens. Another example is Theo Epstein admitting he shouldn't have come to Chicago and immediately trade DJ LeMahieu.

In fact, I think Bloom is the opposite of an idiot. He just plotted a course as to how to get out of or extract more value out of a poorly received trade after the deal is made. Whether or not he's an idiot is not my concern. The concern that he set a bad precedent. Regardless of whether or not you believe he acted in bad faith, they just proved it can work if you do. 

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

Bloom is not a naive idiot. I think smart people can easily have a bad day or a bad sequence. Smart people can have a poor read on a situation sometimes. I think he's a guy new at his job and he second guessed what he just did. It happens. Another example is Theo Epstein admitting he shouldn't have come to Chicago and immediately trade DJ LeMahieu.

 

The Theo Epstein example isn't really comparable. He didn't regret trading LeMahieu the very next day.

 

Every GM has a player they regret trading in hindsight. But that tells us nothing about the likelihood that a guy like Bloom (who's new to his job, but a 10+ year veteran of MLB front offices) somehow "had a bad day" immediately upon making a blockbuster trade he was working on for months.

 

I notice you didn't respond to the rest of my post. Were you aware of the volume of details medicals that are exchanged for review only *after* a trade is agreed to, in principle?

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

The Red Sox had a poor scouting report on Graterol, had buyer's remorse, and used bad faith tactics to save face.

Jumping back to this -- "poor scouting report." Why couldn't this mean the Red Sox found something in their review of the medicals that didn't match their earlier scouting report? In which case, it's not "buyer's remorse" because they only agreed to buy pending the medical review. And thus, no bad faith if that's their honest stated reason.

 

It seems that's more likely than the idea that Bloom "had a bad day" and didn't realize Graterol was a reliever now, or that he was somehow surprised by bad press upon trading Betts.

[etwink]

Sorry, this is million dollar negotiating by billion dollar teams, there is no “fair”, you can’t call “no back-sies” and only the bottom line matters.  This is a business.  The injury report nonsense is what generally happens behind closed doors or over the phone; the only difference here is that the Red Sox did it out in public and the Twins were unfortunately affected.  That is the issue here, not whether the result is “fair” or not.

 

I’m pretty sure that the same people who have liked the Maeda trade would still have liked it if the final trade had been the initial trade - Graterol, Raley and a 3rd Rnd pick for Maeda, a lottery catching prospect and cash.  Works for me anyway.

 

Finally, Graterol is going to make, or not make, big money based on his his PERFORMANCE, not on a doctor’s report that may or may not be accurate.  How many guys come up with injury concerns only to prove them wrong?  Graterol has an opportunity to do that.  The Dodgers know how to develop pitchers and he’ll get the opportunity.

[Harrison Greeley III]

 

I notice you didn't respond to the rest of my post. Were you aware of the volume of details medicals that are exchanged for review only *after* a trade is agreed to, in principle?

 

Yes, of course I was. The tone was so combative and intent on mischaracterizing what I was saying (particularly that I somehow think Bloom is a naive idiot) that that was all I had the energy for as a response.

We disagree on this. You've made your point. I just don't find it very convincing. I would assume vice versa about my point. Trueblood made this post because there was something wrong with the way the Red Sox conducted themselves in the negotiations. It had consequences for other parties and especially Graterol. I agree. That's about all I need to add here. 

[SomeGuy]

"However, there’s a marked difference between truly damaged, injured baseball players—especially pitchers—and merely risky ones. I would argue the difference is one of kind, not of degree, and that the ability of one team to apply their own prognoses to subjective medical data after a trade has been agreed upon is unfair to the other party in said trade and to the player himself."

 

Since none of the teams announced the trade and it was not official then how can we accuse the Red Sox of doing anything wrong? The issue is probably with the way this was reported. Everyone ran with it before it was official and looked silly when it fell through. Not because of the Red Sox but because of the way this was reported, millions of people formed their 1st opinion of Graterol and unfortunately it was as damaged goods. This website alone had like 5 articles about Maeda being a Twin before the deal was official.

 

The deal got to the pending physicals part and the Red Sox didn't like what they saw. They have every right to do what they did. It would be terrible if we held teams to decisions prior to the medical reviews. They absolutely have the right to have their own staff go over the history and make their own conclusions. It is unfair to say they are wrong in their conclusions.

 

Your argument is "we think he is okay so you are required to feel the same way"? Up next we will look at why players can't ask a second opinion before surgery.

[diehardtwinsfan]

 

Is it time we put this conspiracy theory to rest? The Red Sox have steadily been getting bad PR for as long as they've entertained trading Betts, so nothing about the initial fan/media reaction to the trade was unexpected. Then they actually got *worse* PR in Boston once they delayed the deal over Graterol's medicals. Finally, once Graterol was officially off the table for them, they turned around and immediately completed a reconfigured deal, in return for arguably the same prospect value as pre-medicals Graterol seemed to have, which seems to prove they weren't in fact trying to backtrack the whole deal.

 

Occam's Razor would suggest they really did see something in Graterol's medicals that they were unaware of before, and that it downgraded his value in their eyes more than, say, throwing in Luke Raley would have made up for. And it's a subjective evaluation by definition, so it's also not unexpected that the Twins and Dodgers apparently disagreed.

 

I'm not sure I agree, but that wasn't the point of my post... if (as the OP suggested) this should be disallowed, my question is how do you do it? I really don't think there's a good answer to that. 

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

Yes, of course I was. The tone was so combative and intent on mischaracterizing what I was saying (particularly that I somehow think Bloom is a naive idiot) that that was all I had the energy for as a response.

I don't mean to come off as combative, so I apologize for that, but I'm trying to understand your take.

 

This link explains my position far better than I can. Before we agree to disagree, I would love for you to read it and tell me what about it specifically you find less compelling than your explanation:

 

https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/redsox/2020/02/06/how-baseball-teams-exchange-medical-information-after-agreeing-trade/Nu56T96T3GENiqQQs0amZN/story.html?outputType=amp

 

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

I'm not sure I agree, but that wasn't the point of my post... if (as the OP suggested) this should be disallowed, my question is how do you do it? I really don't think there's a good answer to that. 

I agree, there is no good answer.  Even if prohibiting teams from exchanging medical infodidn't create more "bad faith" negotiating, it would certainly lead to more inquiries about reversing trades, where the league would have to solicit evidence and adjudicate.

 

At least under the current system, most of that responsibility shifts from the league to the team. "Buyer beware." And if there are problems under the current system, they can be more cut-and-dried -- the health of Pomeranz was less important than the simple fact that the Padres falsified records.

 

[jkcarew]

There will be legitimate reasons that medical reports kill or modify trades.

 

The behavior that does the damage is...

1. - leaking trades to the media/blogosphere before trades are final

2. - the media/blogosphere going with anything and everything they hear...or heard somewhere.

[Harrison Greeley III]

 

I don't mean to come off as combative, so I apologize for that, but I'm trying to understand your take.

 

This link explains my position far better than I can. Before we agree to disagree, I would love for you to read it and tell me what about it specifically you find less compelling than your explanation:

 

https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/redsox/2020/02/06/how-baseball-teams-exchange-medical-information-after-agreeing-trade/Nu56T96T3GENiqQQs0amZN/story.html?outputType=amp

I read this already. Speier doesn't seem to be aware that the Twins publicly declared they intended to use him as a reliever. If you combine that with the NL evaluator saying he's a reliever, that should give you pause that there's a big uncertainty for his future. If you choose to believe the AL evaluator mentioned, shrug. That should have been part of the Red Sox due diligence prior to the agreement. If you second guess your due diligence prior, you shouldn't make it the problem of the other parties involved to make it up to you later. That goes for this case and basically any case in life. Bloom blew it and clinging to the medicals was a garbage tactic. 

You just made me read this article a second time. And I did a CTRL+F search to be sure Speier missed this crucial piece of the puzzle (that the Twins publicly revealed their plans for Graterol as a reliever) and he did miss it in this piece. Can I go now? Go ahead and take the last word. Just don't make me do anything else, please.