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Nine Ponder Assignment to Indy
June 30, 2047: YELLOW SPRINGS – In March, star center fielder Arvin Duggan broke his kneecap sliding into second base during a meaningless spring training game. Seeing that Duggan was probably the only player in the organization for which there wasn’t a “Plan B,” it created the need to make an additional move in which the team swapped a bit of its future for center fielder Arturo Maes—a move that has yielded … well … not much. Maes has posted a tepid .186/.250/.303 line while stealing six bases in nine tries. His glove has been above average, but not by much.
Duggan Biting
At The Bit
At question is whether the club will assign Duggan directly to the parent club, or assign him to AAA Indy as a rehab. A third “option” is to option him to Indy—a step that is being considered simply to get the team an extra week of time.
“The problem is that the league structure doesn’t allow us to assign a player to rehab until he’s full ready,” said bench coach Lucas McNeill, but the docs want to take another day before they declare Arvin fit.” Given the staff’s disciplined approach, per league structure the team cannot assign Duggan to rehab until July 7th. “We wouldn’t pressure our medical staff to do anything they felt was unethical,” McNeill said when asked if pressure had been applied to accelerate the schedule. Optioning Duggan would get him active earlier, but would use up one of the center fielder’s two remaining options.
Some immediately jumped to conversations around service time manipulation, as the option route would also stop Duggan’s clock for acquiring major league service time. “I think that ship has sailed,” McNeill—who knows a little something about what it’s like to have service time fiddled with. “To cause Arvin to lose a year of free agency would require him to be down there for probably a month or two, and it’s pretty clear we could use him around now.”
“I’m ready to go,” Duggan said. “I don’t care where the team sends me to start with. I’m just tired of sitting on the sideline while there’s baseball to be played.”
