ST is in Florida -- not that big a deal. I think it unlikely he would be brought from ST to Philly. He can practice proper behavior toward his gf in particular and women in general, along with PR groveling, and actually improving his game at Reading or Allentown. If he is a good citizen and shows he has gotten his game back together, then the Phillies could be faced with more attractive options than simply releasing him and paying him $millions to play for somebody else.
I mean "who else besides the Phillies?" It's different to stick with your own player, especially when you can say that the joint agreement requires them to suppport and continue to employ him. But nobody's going to trade for him and have that be the biggest story of their own spring training or early season. And it still will be a big story in Clearwater, just not for very long.
My guess is if he can't crack the roster they'll negotiate a buyout. His contract isn't really that odious (a decent chunk of change but low AAV). Even being sent down to AAA is something Herrera could challenge, if it doesn't truly appear to be for "baseball reasons." He's unlikely to do that. But what kind of message does it send as an organization if you've decided you don't want him on your team, and want to make a statement about domestic violence, and then you pack him off to Alllentown? That it's okay to keep him as long as he's only playing with minor leaguers?
The Phillies know the player and what happened in the incident better than anyone else. They have 2 decisions. One based on the player with the hope that they are fair (but firm if they have to). The second is related to baseball and the 2019 Herrera was not better than Haseley (or Quinn when healthy). If Herrera passed the first decision, he'd still have to win a job. It is on the player to get in better shape and do that to some degree.
If he fails the first decision they should release him. If he passes the first decision he still needs to make the team on merits. Hopefully he would be given that opportunity and even told that he might have to play well for a month or two in AAA to prove he was better than last year. I am not sure anybody would give him a major league job without proving himself in AAA anyway.
It will be interesting to see if he plays in Venezuela this winter. The league start looks delayed till early November as it can't be a stable place to play. MLB is steering all non-Venezuelans away from the league this offseason, but imagine it might be the ideal place for Herrera to show he can still play a bit.
I think Herrera committed serious domestic abuse and deserved his baseball punishment, but I wouldn't wish VZ league and the extreme dangers and instability of VZ on any player. Immersion back into what has become the culture of VZ is not something I would expect to improve Herrera's attitude or behavior going forward. Both regaining baseball skills, improving focus, and immersing himself in American standards of domestic and public comportment would best occur in the United States, away from such a heavily macho culture -- really, our media/liberal standards for proper domestic behavior and treatment of women are very far from being achieved in practice in America. Herrera is having to adopt that way of thinking and behavior under public spotlight. Let's not further confuse things by encouraging him to return to VZ. With so many players avoiding that nation, any stats he puts up will be suspect, anyway. This is also the winter to have him evaluated for ADD and get him on Adderall or similar, if he isn't already. It did wonders for Ruiz. Herrera should probably spend the winter in CLW with the training staff and rehabbers.
Unless something has changed since it was announced the MLB ban applies to all MLB-affiliated players, even if they're from there. He can go home, and probably will (maybe he already has), but he can't play in the league. Basically, MLB is an American company, American companies are no longer allowed to do business with the Venezuelan government (the league is sponsored by the government's oil company), and Herrera is employed by MLB.
From what we have observed of Herrera on the field and now off of it, he doesn't seem to be the sharpest guy. How many times has someone critiqued his play and said that he just doesn't seem to get it. Now with this off the field incident, we can see that he doesn't have a grasp of North American cultural values either.However, Herrera is not the only player in MLB to have these sort of issues. The Phillies do have an investment in him. I would like to think that they would make an attempt to turn him around both culturally and athletically before they totally give up on him. Counseling and medical evaluations are probably needed here. If he does have ADD as Atown has suggested, he'd need a thorough medical evaluation before being put on Adderal or any other such medication. Now if he refuses to comply with a plan for remediation, it would be a different story but he's worth giving a shot at rehabilitation.
You guys are talking about a bunch of completely separate issues though.
Question 1 is whether the Phillies want to retain a player with Herrera's public relations/ethical baggage. Maybe the answer to that is yes, either because the Phillies don't want to take a moral stand, don't think the blowback would be that severe or genuinely believe in Herrera's innocence or that he merits a second chance. Not to mention thaty are stuck paying his salary. But it's the only question that matters for now, especially given the MLB rules.
And while almost every MLB team (but not all of them) with a player who has been suspended for DV has chosen to keep the player, the size of the fan base and media who will be less tolerant of that is growing, and what just happened in Houston only adds to that.
Whatever cultural factors or additional psychological issues Herrera may have are a separate thing - plenty of American men, including athletes, commit domestic violence. Also separate is what the Phillies might do with him baseball-wise once he's reinstated. If they want to take the heat and he's in shape, there's no reason he couldn't be on the Opening Day roster (even if you'd then have two LH CFs). That also depends on what other OF moves are made, but certainly, they will have a pretty good idea of what they want to do with Herrera long before the hot stove gets busy. I don't think having him in ST and sending him to AAA is going to be any better for them, PR-wise.
My money is still on a release, with Herrera's consent (since they otherwise have to go through the charade of cutting him for "baseball reasons.")
Of course I could also still be totally wrong about the willingness of another team to roll the dice on a cheap asset. He's obviously not Chapman or Osuna but if the Phillies kick in 2/3 of the money, a rebuilding/low-budget team would get an everyday major leaguer for little more than the cost of a middle reliever (and presumably a couple of lottery tickets).
If you had asked Odubel on the morning of May 28th if he could get away with assaulting his girlfriend (or anyone) in public, I'm sure he would have said "of course not". (I'm deliberately sidestepping the question of whether or not it felt like acceptable behavior to him, publicly or privately.) I doubt he was thinking that lucidly at the moment of the assault, I think he was just lashing out literally and figuratively. I don't believe there was much thinking involved.
Addressing relationship problems through threats and violence is acceptable to plenty of North Americans, sadly. It's not a cultural value unique to foreigners.
Yeah, I think this is the relevant point. I mean, one could argue that Herrera obviously hasn't internalized American cultural values.. or else he would have just shot his girlfriend. That kind of lethal domestic violence is probably more prevalent in the United States than in most other cultures in the world. I know we (Americans) like to believe we're "better" than anybody else, but objectively speaking, we're often just deluding ourselves.
Unfortunately, there's a certain predelicton to violence in the US that does not exist in other modern democracies.
We have no idea how Herrera has reacted to this incident and his suspension by MLB. If he has completed any and all requirements set down by MLB, he deserves a second chance. If his behavior in all areas of his personal and professional life is good, he deserves a full opportunity to continue to play as his ability and performance earn. The moral position is to support him in his efforts.
If his behavior is not good, then he should be out and his contract voided.
I'm sure I could find plenty of examples of violence from non sports people as well.
Violence against women is pretty much a global issue. I used to follow rugby league in Australia, and domestic violence cases are commonplace at the highest level of the game.
Sport, athletes, and violence against women (2007)
When rugby league or AFL players sexually harass women in pubs,pressure women into sex in hotel rooms, or make obscene phone calls, inone sense, they are acting just like thousands of other young men aroundthe country. Young women everywhere know that this behaviour is notconfined to professional athletes. For example, being groped or harassed isa common element of young women’s experience of clubs, pubs, and otherpublic places.One in seven women aged 18 to 24, or thirteen per cent, report unwantedsexual touching in the last 12 months, according to a national survey by theAustralian Bureau of Statistics (1996).
I may be stereotyping but rugby particularly has a tradition of misogyny. When I was in college, the university's rugby club got in trouble for not entirely voluntarily selecting a female student at a post-match party, sitting her on top of a keg and parading her around the room while they dumped beer on her. The club's stated defense was that it was a rugby tradition.
You're no doubt referring to the heathen that play rugby union, rather than rugby league! College / university sports are notoriously misogynistic. The authors of the article that I linked make the point that this behaviour does not have its origins in sport. Rather, the conditions that characterise contact sports, such as male bonding, aggression, the sexualisation and subordination of women, celebrity status and entitlement, drug abuse, and 'groupie' culture, provide an environment that fosters misogyny AND gives expression to a much broader social problem.
My post was intended to expand the number of sports el-pietro associated with perpetrators of domestic violence and to support my position that domestic violence is a global issue that crosses sport and political / cultural boundaries. As DurhamBull and Julio remarked above, Americans are not above such behaviour or in any sense 'better'. Your reference to 'modern democracies' prompted me to think of India - the world's largest democracy - and how often women are subjected to violent and deadly abuse in that country.
My own part of the world isn't immune either. I just wanted to dispel the idea that the only reason we are talking about this is because Herrera is an immigrant and doesn't understand North American cultural values. Its also not just a sports problem. Sexual Assault seems to be rampant throughout hollywood and I'm sure it is prevalent in all kinds of industries.
That there have been a disproportionate number of Latin-American baseball players suspended (in what is still a very small sample) may say more about how law enforcement (and the MLB front office) works than any cultural prevalence.
But... "how law enforcement works" is also a function of a society's culture. If American law enforcement disproportionately targets people of color... that's because such behavior by American law enforcement is tolerated in too many places... and that's a comment on our culture, on our values (as lived, not necessarily as bandied about). It's arguably separate from the question of domestic violence... but not clear that it's separate from the issue of how violent American society is overall.
Yes. I'm just saying, of the 14 MLB players who have been investiged by the league for DV, 11 of them are Latin American, in a league that was 27.4% Latin American (as of 2017). So perhaps that is why Flyers felt comfortable asserting that Latin American baseball players are more prone to domestic violence, or that it is somehow more common in Latin American culture. A misguided assertion for any number of reasons, most of which have now been cited.
Perhaps worth noting: Herrera received the third-longest suspension in MLB history. The top two guys were both DFA'ed (but also weren't signed to a long-term contract). #4 is Osuna, though I suspect German is going to get into the Top 5 too (and he certainly won't get traded or released).
Without turning this into a sociology course, some of you posters need to do some studies into the amount of domestic violence that occurs in non NA cultures. In particular that of patriarchal versus gender-neutral societies. I don't see any "me-too" movements becoming as strong in LA nations or many other areas of the world as it is in NA. Perhaps some of you do. This discrepancy is an issue for those outsiders that come to NA.If eleven of the 14 MLB players investigated by MLB are Latinos, that means that eleven of the fourteen have done something that MLB found to be offensive and not in tune with NA/MLB values. To turn that around to indicate that MLB is being overly harsh on Latino players in disingenuous. Those that break rules/standards face consequences. Instead of questioning the enforcement of the rules, it might be better to examine why the rules were broken.MLB is becoming more aware by the day of what NA values are as it markets itself to the public. When employees of the sport get out of line, be they players or management, especially with gender related issues, they are getting hammered. Ask Brandon Taubman in Houston how that goes.As indicated in a post of mine above, it behooves MLB franchises to be aware of the cultural differences between this that exist in LA and those in NA. It is in the best interests of the game to help the Latinos that come into NA to play the game to understand that certain things, on and off of the field, that are acceptable back home are not equally well received in NA and may, in some cases put them in legal jeopardy or scrutiny/punishment by MLB. This summer, Pedro Martinez indicated that this adjustment was a problem and urged MLB to address the differences to avoid some messy situations.Both cultures can learn from each other and do more to expand the audience of the sport. The flair that many LA play with that was once considered to be over the top, is now seen by more fans and players as things that fire up the audience and add excitement to the game. However there are some types of play and/or behavior that don't work for anyone.
