Recruiting is a tactic most utilized by college programs on high school athletes. Many big programs rely on name and recognition alone to garner the attention of top prep products, but even powerhouses have to recruit to keep attracting top-level talent.
Major League Baseball is a different ball game, at least until players have enough service time to become unrestricted free agents. Players are under a club’s control for varying amounts of time, whether it is because of the youth of a player and having to get past arbitration years, or because of current contract obligations.
Is Aaron Judge recruiting Manny Machado to come to New York?
Players that are about to become unrestricted free agents, where their services can be openly bid for by any team, will start to here little birdies telling them about what place would be best for their career. This could include fans tweeting or posting on message boards, billboards being purchased to entice the athlete to take a closer look at a given city, or other players encouraging upcoming free agents about where to sign.
The latter is apparently what Aaron Judge did when talking to division rival Manny Machado before a spring training game in Sarasota. Judge told reporters, “I told him he’d look good in pinstripes.” Quite a rush to judgment that such a pitch would put ideas into Machado’s head that he didn’t already have.
This was no different than a couple of friends talking about baseball and one trying to convince the other to cheer for a new team. Except Machado is highly likely to be playing for a new team come next spring, if not sooner. Regardless of whom Machado plays for, it is an overreaction from MLB to even issue a statement about the comments made by Judge.
One would think MLB would encourage these kinds of comments. Spring training is the time of year when players are allowed to play a little looser on the field, at least guys who are a lock to make the Opening Day roster. Fans get talking about possibilities of what could be, even if it does involve the evil empire known as the Yankees. It is no secret that the Yankees are possible landing spots for upcoming free agents such as Machado and Bryce Harper. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that players on the Yankees and other potential suitors would want to throw the free agents-to-be a nugget here or there.
MLB is not happy about potential ‘recruiting’ being done on the field
The biggest problem MLB has with the comments of Judge is probably that it happened on the playing field. Had Judge sent out a tweet or social media message, it would have been different to deal with. What is stopping someone from creating an illustration or photo shopping a picture to create Machado in pinstripes? The ability to market and recruit Machado or anybody else is out there.
A bigger recruiting problem, while unrelated to baseball, would be collegiate football players during showcases and all-star games. The kids who have already signed to play try to recruit the undecided athletes just as hard as the schools themselves. It is not so much a ‘problem’ as it is an occurrence. It happens; everybody knows it happens.
The same is true of future free agents. They get recruited. It happens to a greater degree when the off-season free agency period opens up. Maybe that is the ‘correct’ time to pitch the players.
Either way, players are going to recruit each other when they feel it is in their best interest to do so. Or if they are just messing around with each other. At the end of the day, Scott Boras is the agent for many of the biggest names on the market. He knows what is in the best interest financially for the players and his word means a lot more than anything that Aaron Judge has to say. Money talks…
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