Explaining Alex Kirilloff’s Service Time to Your Child

[RandBalls Stu]

Why Minnesota's brightest prospect likely won’t start the year with the team, explained.Alex Kiriloff is universally acknowledged as a major league-ready, day one starter. Yet he will almost definitely not be with the Twins as the season begins due to service time concerns. While this practical consideration may scan for adults, it might make less sense to the young baseball fan in your life. Twins Daily presents the following strategies for helping your child better understand the issue.

• The Waiting is one of Tom Petty’s best songs. You’re not against Tom Petty, are you? He died.
• The saying is “patience is a virtue.” Virtue is good. Ergo, service time is good. If the Twins were to keep Alex Kiriloff on the Opening Day roster, they would be bad. It’s just how logic works.
• If any other job tells you that you’re perfectly qualified for the position, but you need to spend the next three weeks in Wichita so you can spend another year in Minneapolis somewhere down the line, either turn it down or make sure you get a company car and good dental insurance. But baseball is different, and that's OK. (IF THEY ASK WHY BASEBALL IS DIFFERENT, DISTRACT THEM WITH A NEW VIDEO GAME OR STREAMING SERVICE.)
• None of us really know what next week is going to look like, much less 2027. However, one thing we can take to the bank is that Alex Kirilloff will be playing baseball in a Twins uniform in 2027. He might be doing it while being surrounded by fearsome Mermen, who invaded Minnesota in 2023 and rule as benevolent god-emperors of the upper Midwest entire. His teammates might have gills. Tridents may replace bats. The game may be played in a lake or bog of some sort. But we know for damn well certain Kirilloff will be a Minnesota Twin. That’s something we can all clap our hands and shake our dorsal fins for.
• You know how, even though we celebrate Christmas Eve, we don’t open presents until Christmas Day? Just think of it as Christmas Day, but you wait 3-4 weeks of one day. January 18^th isn’t that long to wait! Remember the year you didn’t get Christmas presents from Uncle Todd until summer because of the time he set off all those Roman Candles at Buffalo Wild Wings because he was a sovereign citizen? And he had to spend some time learning about making good choices? This is like that, only instead of Uncle Todd giving you a plastic bag full of his weekend aspirin in July, your favorite team is getting a potential All-Star outfielder.

Good luck! The children are our future!

 

Click here to view the article

[diehardtwinsfan]

as always... quite funny

[mikelink45]

I need to reference you in a running debate on another TD article.  Not a child, but who knows at 75 I might be entering a new childhood because I do not accept or understand the logic - that is until you gave us this excellent primer. Just like the LF before him we can not have an extra year of service - oh wait, we got rid of that LF because he was getting too costly even though he had not reached the extra years.  Please Mr Stu help me understand this nuance because I believe Mr Kiriloff will also be really expensive before the seventh year too. 

[ashbury]

Remember when you got held back a year in school, and had to repeat second grade? It was because you were so smart, and the teachers knew it, so they needed to evaluate some of the other students for third grade, and give them a chance, before you. It's kind of like that.

[Major League Ready]

Who here would opt to accept 3 weeks pay fresh out of college instead of an entire years pay 6 years post graduation when its fair to assume you will be more valuable? If this was considered in investment terms the return is 17X assuming you were not more valuable after 6 years experience. Your child may not understand this but people making asset management decisions better. 

[Trov]

I have asked this before and no responses, but who has Falvene duo manipulated service time to while they are in charge?  I cannot think of anyone.  People assume they will because teams are known to do it, but what evidence do we have they will here?  If Kirilloff rakes this spring and they do not bring him up claiming needs more time, then I will agree they did it.  If he does not rake in spring they will be in all rights to send him down.  I hope if he does show he is fully ready that he gets the start from the beginning.  Games in April mean same in standings as in September and you want the best team all the time.  

 

I am also not convinced they will do this in part, with the CBA coming up and this is a huge issue for union, and it should be, I think teams might try to not blatantly do this the year prior to CBA is up.  If they do, I hope Kirilloff never resigns with Twins as a lesson to them and any team that does it.  As much as I want him to be with Twins, provided he becomes what I hope he does, I would cheer for him to stick it to the Twins for messing with his service time.  It is up to Kirilloff to force their hand this spring though. 

 

Twins historically have not manipulated service time coming out of spring.  There may be some you could point to, but there are many times guys had hot springs only to fall flat on face in April.  Aaron Hicks comes to mind several times.  What happens if Kirilloff breaks with team, for first 2 weeks hits sub .200 with like 40% K rate, can they send him down without being called out for manipulating service time?  

[Danchat]

I have asked this before and no responses, but who has Falvene duo manipulated service time to while they are in charge? I cannot think of anyone. People assume they will because teams are known to do it, but what evidence do we have they will here? If Kirilloff rakes this spring and they do not bring him up claiming needs more time, then I will agree they did it. If he does not rake in spring they will be in all rights to send him down. I hope if he does show he is fully ready that he gets the start from the beginning. Games in April mean same in standings as in September and you want the best team all the time.

 

I am also not convinced they will do this in part, with the CBA coming up and this is a huge issue for union, and it should be, I think teams might try to not blatantly do this the year prior to CBA is up. If they do, I hope Kirilloff never resigns with Twins as a lesson to them and any team that does it. As much as I want him to be with Twins, provided he becomes what I hope he does, I would cheer for him to stick it to the Twins for messing with his service time. It is up to Kirilloff to force their hand this spring though.

 

Twins historically have not manipulated service time coming out of spring. There may be some you could point to, but there are many times guys had hot springs only to fall flat on face in April. Aaron Hicks comes to mind several times. What happens if Kirilloff breaks with team, for first 2 weeks hits sub .200 with like 40% K rate, can they send him down without being called out for manipulating service time?

There was quite an uproar here when Buxton wasn’t called up in late 2018, which caused the Twins to gain an extra year of control. That’s the only one that comes to mind.

[Darius]

I just can believe there isn’t more outrage about this.

 

There’s been significant outrage regarding the NBA about sitting a player a few games while they find a trade partner. There’s been endless leftist protests regarding “billionaires” and their evils.

 

But, nobody seems to give a rip about robbing a baseball player of multiple seasons and potentially tens of millions in earnings to save some crusty billionaire from having to pay before he’d like to. Or, better yet, under the pretense that these crusty billionaires, in Minnesota’s case, fully intend on never paying the player and milking their prime before they walk.

 

In fact, if you bring up how backwards it is, you’re told “you just don’t understand,” by the baseball intellectuals.

 

Very interesting socio-political anomaly.

[Andrew Bryzgornia]

 

I just can believe there isn’t more outrage about this.

There’s been significant outrage regarding the NBA about sitting a player a few games while they find a trade partner. There’s been endless leftist protests regarding “billionaires” and their evils.

But, nobody seems to give a rip about robbing a baseball player of multiple seasons and potentially tens of millions in earnings to save some crusty billionaire from having to pay before he’d like to. Or, better yet, under the pretense that these crusty billionaires, in Minnesota’s case, fully intend on never paying the player and milking their prime before they walk.

In fact, if you bring up how backwards it is, you’re told “you just don’t understand,” by the baseball intellectuals.

Very interesting socio-political anomaly.

 

My counterargument would be that if you're not hearing people complain about the current system, then you're not looking in the right place. I've seen plenty of baseball people on Twitter and on FanGraphs point out that it makes far more sense to pay the good young rookies more during their most productive years, but MLB isn't set up to reward those players until they've already accumulated 6 years of service time. 

 

Surface level argument: It's good to keep your top prospects in the minors to start a season to gain an extra year of control.

 

Deeper argument: It would be better to fix the system so teams don't exploit that anymore. 

[Joey Self]

 

There was quite an uproar here when Buxton wasn’t called up in late 2018, which caused the Twins to gain an extra year of control. That’s the only one that comes to mind.

That's the one I thought of immediately.  And I understood it, because the Twins weren't in contention.  First time I heard of it was with Kris Bryant, and I thought "short term gain, but long term pain for the Cubs--he'll leave as soon as he can."  

[Trov]

 

There was quite an uproar here when Buxton wasn’t called up in late 2018, which caused the Twins to gain an extra year of control. That’s the only one that comes to mind.

Now that you mention I do recall that, but that was after having terrible first part of year and not like he tore up minor leagues either.  Sure they could have brought up in September, but not like he was forcing their hand to do so.  

[sampleSizeOfOne]

Well... having recently caught up on many marvel movies, Spiderman didn't get to be an Avenger until Captain America quit. Just think of Kirilloff as our friendly neighborhood Spidey. Unless of course Cleveland takes their old mascot back.

 

And don't worry. Now we can cross the river to see him play in St. Paul.

 

Would Rooker then be Ant-man?