Hello, Twins fans, my name is Jay.  Some of you may know me as one of the co-author of TwinkieTown's sister site for Indians fans, Let's Go Tribe, or perhaps from my role as Joe the Policeman in the "What's Goin' Down" episode of That's My Mama.  But before you throw anything based on my past work — it wasn't my fault, the writing on that show was simply not good — I want to make clear, I'm not here as a bitter Indians fan to antagonize you Twins fans.  Quite the contrary; I'm here with a message of hope, in common cause with our fellow fans of a small-market club.

That message is simple:  Greg Genske is wrong about everything.  That is, everything having to do with Liriano's service time.  Genske, as you know, has asked the MLB Players Association to investigate whether the Twins are keeping Liriano in the minors purely to suppress his service time, which would delay his becoming eligible for arbitration — and a raise in the neighborhood of $2 million — from the end of 2008 to the end of 2009.   What he's hoping for, as far as anyone can tell, is that the union will "investigate" this and file a grievance, and then an arbitration panel will award Liriano the extra service time he needs to be eligible for arbitration at the end of this season.

Here's what's really going on here.  Liriano was a golden goose for Genske's agency.  He came out of nowhere to dominate as a rookie, and a multiyear deal was likely to be offered in the near future — a deal that likely would net the agent upwards of half a million bucks.  Liriano's injury reduced or at least delayed those expectations severely, but still, Genske no doubt had his hopes pinned on his client recovering and prospering in 2008, reaching the cusp of arbitration at the end of the season.  A healthy and possibly dominant Liriano, already eligible for arbitration, would be in a position to command a much larger multiyear deal, as compared with a Liriano who didn't regain effectiveness until July and was still a full year away from arbitration.

So Genske is pissed.  And while he's not wrong to be pissed, he is wrong to be pissed at the Twins, because it's not their fault.  He's wrong about that, and he's wrong about pretty much everything else.  Let us count the ways:

1.  He's wrong that Liriano should have been promoted by now.

The Twins obviously wanted this guy in the majors, and they gave him a brief tryout back in April.  The results, as I'm sure you know, were disastrous:  13 ER allowed in 10.1 IP, over just three starts.  Back in Triple-A, the results were better but still awful:  7 ER in 8.1 innings over two starts.  Liriano obviously wasn't even close to ready.

Liriano allowed just eight runs total over his next four starts, but he's been unsteady since then, with total trainwreck performances on May 26, June 20 and June 25 — those last two within the last month — with mostly good games mixed in between.  While ESPN reports mindlessly that Liriano is "7-0 with a 2.73 ERA in his past nine starts," it's even more noteworthy to say that just a few weeks ago, Liriano's ERA was 4.85 over his past six starts.  Which one is the real Liriano now?  They both are, of course — he's been unsteady.  He looks great at the moment, and maybe he's now fully healthy and effective, but the fact remains, he hasn't gone more than four starts this season without coughing up a big hairball.  You can't fault the Twins for wanting to see some real consistency before inserting back into a pennant race.

2.  He's wrong that the Twins cost Liriano a year of arbitration.

So, just what would it have taken to get Liriano that arbitration?  So glad you asked.  Liriano entered the 2008 season with two years and 31 days of service time, often notated as "2.031."  He got another 13 days in April, bringing his current total to 2.044.

At the end of the season, any player with three years or more of service time (and not already under a guaranteed contract) is eligible for arbitration — by May 25, it was clear Liriano would miss that mark.  There's also a provision for players who are just a month or two shy of the three-year mark, and these are called Super Two players.  The exact cutoff for this status is determined by formula and is a little different every year, but it's always been more than 2.125 and less than 2.140.

Let's assume that Liriano would be called up on the day of his next regularly scheduled start — and let's further assume (as Genske obviously does) that he'd stay in the majors until the end of the season.  Based on those assumptions, here's how many days of service time he'd have ended up with, had he been called up on the day of one of his last few starts.

June 25 — 2.140.
June 30 — 2.135.
July 5 — 2.130.
July 10 — 2.125.
July 17 — 2.120.

Genske waited until Liriano took the mound for Rochester on July 17 to make his complaint, but even had he been called up to start for the Twins that day, it was already too late.  On June 25, Liriano was coming off four quality starts since his last trainwreck, and he been called up that day, he'd have been a lock for Super Two status.  Instead, he stayed in Rochester and produced two of his worst starts of the season on June 25 and 30, allowing 10 ER in 10.1 IP — and most troubling, giving up four home runs in those two games.

Had the Twins called up Liriano for his next start on July 5, he still would have had a good chance to reach Super Two status — but what team calls up a pitcher after two straight trainwrecks in the minors?   Only a team desperate for starting pitching, which the Twins obviously were not.  Liriano bounced back with a solid start on July 5, and another on July 10, but by then it was already too late.  Even had the Twins promoted him to start on July 10 — following his one good start after the two trainwrecks — he still would have ended the season with at most 2.125 days of service time, almost certainly under the Super Two threshold.

In short, what Liriano really needed in order to reach arbitration was to be called up by July 5 — and unfortunately for him, on that date, he was coming off his very worst two minor league starts of the year.  No wonder Genske is frustrated.

3.  He's wrong that Twins don't have the right to do whatever they want.

Liriano is not on the Disabled List, entitled to return as soon as he's healthy.  He's on optional assignment.  Like all players on the 40-man roster, he's on a major league contract, but during a player's option years, the organization is entitled to optionally assign him to a minor league club — a right the teams have held onto through decades of Collective Bargaining Agreements.  Most of you know this already, but I'm stating it using the official terms to make the meaning plain.  The team has the option to assign those players to the majors or minors as they see fit.

As fans, we tend to obsess over individual roster moves as they pertain to one player, but teams make these decisions based on all the available options among their players under contract.  In another organization, or in another season, Liriano would already be in the majors, if he isn't ready.  In this organization, the Twins are enjoying a well stocked rotation and have no need to rush Liriano.  The only starter not doing all that well is Livan Hernandez, and as a veteran, he can't be optionally assigned to the minors — he can only be released or traded or moved to the bullpen.  Some players have options remaining and some don't, and every player and agent understands that this distorts roster decisions somewhat.

But even if the Twins didn't have good reason to keep Liriano in the minors — even if they came right out and said, "We're doing it to save the money" — it doesn't appear that there would be anything Liriano or Genske could do about it.  The last time a minor leaguer made headlines with this complaint was another Twin, Delmon Young, then with the Devil Rays.  At then end of 2005, he complained bitterly to the media that he was being held back in Triple-A purely to suppress his service time.  Although his complaints got a lot of media coverage, they certainly weren't well founded — though he'd had a very fine season in Double-A, he's spent only two months in Triple-A, where he posted an uninspiring 750 OPS, and he was still days away from his 20th birthday.

On the one hand, Young's comments seemed to have had little effect, as no action was ever taken and he spent most of 2006 in the minors.  On the other hand, his eventual callup was almost conspicuously devoid of service-time considerations — the Rays could have reserved a whole extra year of Young's services by keeping him in the minors just five weeks longer.  Moreover, Young's bitter comments at that time no doubt played a part in the Rays' eventual decision to trade Young (and not some other young player) for other talent.

As an aside, while Young was off-base about his own promotion situation, he was absolutely right about B.J. Upton's.  Upton finished 2005 with 218 career games in Triple-A and an OPS over 900, and yet he too was denied a September callup that year.  Upton will finish the 2008 season with 2.126 service time — probably just a few days short of Super Two status.  This was as blunt of a purely materialist denial of service time as we're ever likely to see, and no corrective action was ever taken.  Teams simply have every right to do this under the CBA, and there is no precedent for a player having any right to be promoted based on the quality of his play.

The only deterrent is the possibility of damaging the club's relationship with a talented young player — but how many millions of dollars is that worth?

4.  He's wrong to try to make this about moral outrage.

An arbitrated salary is a right given only to players who have served three years (or just short of that) in the major leagues.  Although Liriano may come close to that threshold by the end of this season, that's purely a technicality.  The reality is, Liriano has spent barely over one season on the active roster, and he'll have spent at most 1.4 seasons contributing to the Twins' major league club.  In other words, most of his service time has been accrued while sitting on the Disabled List.

Now, this is all well and good — it is his right under the CBA, and it's not like he wanted to be on the DL.  But isn't it more than a little cheesy to be complaining about not getting all your service time, when most of your major league service time has been accrued while making absolutely no contribution to the major league club?  I think it is.  I don't know who Genske is trying to impress, but I doubt his public whining about this is going to move anyone — and I know it's not going to help his client.