In the latest drug scandal, there are a lot of interesting issues. The country’s overzealous pursuit of doctors who prescribe pain-killers to patients with chronic pain helps to create and sustain a grey market in those drugs (and Viagra, and…), David Bell possibly being snared and exposed as taking fertility drugs, which could be for entirely legitimate, personal reasons, or for nefarious, performance-enhancing purposes.
I’ve been watching the Moreno vs Matthews fight. Matthews, on advice of his lawyer, has shut up and intends to ride this out. The guy who signs his paychecks, though, says not only that Matthews should be open and forthright about what happened, but he’s making ominous sounds about “resolving” the situation.
It seems unlikely that Moreno’s going to void Matthews’ contract. Players have clauses in their contracts that say they can be voided if they do dangerous things like x, y, or z, and they generally also have a “morals” clause that could void the deal (this is what people talk about when a player gets a DUI or like arrest). But on the news leaking out of the prosecution, there’s nothing to tie Matthews to something he did while under the Angels’ contract, and there’s nothing he did that violated an MLB policy in place at the time.
Voiding contracts on much clearer grounds hasn’t been done yet: Jason Giambi might have come the closest of any player, and the Yankees, with all their money, lawyers, and cantankerous owner, still didn’t go for it. In general, teams are generally reluctant to go after even players they know have violated specific clauses in their contract (like Jeff Kent, with the Giants).
If Moreno’s serious about pressing this, it would a little amusing because he’d be the first to put a significant new pressure on players to not use - the fear that they’d see their contracts voided - while at the same time he’d just reinforced with the contract that there’s a huge incentive for players to do whatever they can to get ahead in their career year. Taking this a step further, it would seem like if you’re in a contract year, you might as well give it a shot. If you’re caught, you’re SOL trying to crank out a career performance, but you won’t have lost much compared to what you’d have made not trying. And if you’re caught later, say the lab’s busted or whatever else might happen, that’s a longshot but you’re still going to be able to fight the action and likely settle, and if not, you’re stilll not behind where you’d be not going for it.
It’s a minimal disincentive compared to the amount of money a player can make with a breakout contract year.
Moreno, of course, has received general applause from the press for his statements.
Three posts in a row on steroids. Time for a topic change.
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