For a while there, it was possible that Josh Hamilton would not be seen on a Major League Baseball diamond in 2015.
Now we know he'll be playing ball as soon as he can, and that has ramifications for the Los Angeles Angels and, eventually, for MLB and the MLB Players Association.
Various outlets, including ESPN, reported in late February that Hamilton had suffered a relapse earlier in the offseason, which was said to involve cocaine and alcohol. In light of the 33-year-old's history with substance abuse, the word a few weeks back was that a yearlong suspension was in play.
That won't be happening. MLB announced Friday that an independent arbitrator ruled Hamilton will not be punished at all:
If for no other reason, this announcement is surprising for its timing. It's only been a day since MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said in an MLB Network Radio interview (via Mike Oz of Yahoo Sports) that he expected a decision on Hamilton's situation "shortly after" the season opens this Sunday.
But the real surprise? That Hamilton is getting off scot-free.
That seemed unlikely in light of how, unlike his alcohol relapses in 2009 and 2012, Hamilton's latest relapse involved cocaine. That's forbidden as a drug of abuse in baseball's Joint Drug Agreement.
There was also Hamilton's past to consider. As Nathaniel Grow noted at FanGraphs, MLB hypothetically had grounds to treat Hamilton's latest relapse as the fifth offense of the drug treatment program that he first entered in 2003. As such, it did indeed have grounds to consider a suspension as long as a year.
But while all of this is worth acknowledging, let's be real. It may be surprising that Hamilton is getting a free pass, but it's not outrageous.
Morally speaking, letting Hamilton off the hook is the right call. There were many who argued as much when word of his relapse first came out, and their arguments had an overarching message.
Hamilton's relapse was the latest reminder that he's an addict. If the idea is to help addicts get over their addiction, retribution isn't going to get you anywhere. Helping them is more effective, not to mention more compassionate.
Not punishing Hamilton is also the right call from a practical perspective. This case hinged on the arbitrator's interpretation of Section 4(C) of the Joint Drug Agreement, which Craig Calcaterra of Hardball Talk summed up like so:
Under that section, a player is said to have committed a violation if the player (a) refuses to submit to evaluations and followup tests; (b) “consistently fails to participate in mandatory sessions with his assigned health care professional”; (c) his health care professional tells Major League Baseball that the player is not cooperating; or (d) the player tests positive for a drug of abuse.
As Calcaterra noted, none of these applied to Hamilton. Baseball didn't catch him either in the act or through a positive test. What happened instead was he gave himself up and has been cooperating with MLB ever since.
As a result, he'll get to play baseball in 2015. And while that's news that doesn't necessarily make the Angels' year, it should at least help them on the field.
Hamilton is most certainly not the player he once was. After averaging a .912 OPS and around 30 homers a season between 2008 and 2012, he has only a .741 OPS with 31 home runs in the first two campaigns of his five-year, $125 million contract with the Angels.
He's also coming off of a season in which injuries limited him to 89 games, and his health woes are ongoing. He had surgery on his right shoulder in early February, and the team put his recovery period around 12 weeks. He's going to miss at least the first month of the 2015 season.
But as dire as Hamilton's situation appears, he can still help.
Though his bat has declined mightily in the last two seasons, the 110 OPS+ he's racked up qualifies him as an above-average hitter. And even if the Angels can't or don't want to use him as an everyday player, his recent track record against right-handed pitching says he would actually make a solid platoon player.
The Angels are already loaded with quality hitters even without Hamilton, of course. But because they have the look of a team that will need to hit a lot to make up for a pedestrian pitching staff, having even so much as an extra part-time bat can't hurt their quest for a second straight AL West title.
As for Hamilton's relationship with the Angels, it seems the repair work that needs to be done there goes beyond whatever he can do on the field.
The Angels don't sound thrilled about Friday's ruling. Though general manager Jerry Dipoto vowed in a statement issued on the team's official website to do "everything possible to assure he receives proper help for himself and for the well-being of his family," Dipoto also made it clear they "have serious concerns about Josh's conduct, health and behavior and we are disappointed that he has broken an important commitment which he made to himself, his family, his teammates and our fans."
That doesn't sound like a team brimming with relief. That sounds like a team that was already fed up and is now annoyed that it's missing out on saving some money on a suspension.
Per Alden Gonzalez of MLB.com, here's Angels president John Carpino to drive the point home:
This recalls the conversation everyone was having about Hamilton before news of his shoulder surgery and relapse hit. Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports and Gonzalez both opined that him actually serving out the three remaining years of his contract with the Angels was unlikely.
That sounded reasonable at the time. It sounds even more reasonable now. The bridge between Hamilton and the Angels already appeared to be weakening. After the Angels' remarks about Hamilton's suspension, you can practically hear it cracking.
Speaking of which, another thing you can hear cracking right now are the knuckles of Manfred and MLBPA Executive Director Tony Clark. Not that they needed another battle, but now they have one to fight when the war over the next collective bargaining agreement begins, a pact that expires Dec. 1, 2016.
MLB indicated as much in its initial statement when it vowed to "seek to address deficiencies in the manner in which drugs of abuse are addressed under the program in the collective bargaining process." If the outcome of Hamilton's case is any indication, that points toward the league pursuing more precise language that puts the final decision in similar situations squarely in the hands of the commissioner and the commissioner alone.
That would mean a big fight for Clark to go with the other big fights he's already set for.
Those include a revision of the service time rules that the union (rightfully) thinks have screwed over Kris Bryant and so many other young players. They also include possible changes to the qualifying offer system, and a dispute over the players' share of league revenue. As Grow noted at FanGraphs, player salaries have gone from 56 percent of the league's revenue in 2002 to just 38 percent last year.
Surprising though it was, the decision to not punish Hamilton is justified from a moral and practical standpoint. Though it's likely to forever be referred to as "controversial," the arbitrator made the right call.
But make no mistake, real controversies are coming in the fallout. Though things will die down when the focus shifts to baseball upon Hamilton's return, shortly after is when Friday's decision figures to spur heated action in the Angels front office and in the offices of both Manfred and Clark.
The league has a decision on Hamilton's fate, but this saga isn't over.
Note: Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.
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