re: Astros Drama Continues......

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but it's likely that they never told the player they needed Aiken to sign before Nix could get his $1.5 million.

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I've been quite vocal about the Astros treatment of draftees Brady Aiken and Jason Nix, both of whom received offers that were later rescinded. In Aiken's case, the impetus was an "abnormality" in an MRI. There was no tear, no fraying -- it simply appears that Aiken's UCL is smaller than the average person's. It hasn't stopped him from being healthy or throwing 97 mph in his last start. And there is no data to suggest that the size of the UCL puts him at any greater risk of injury or that it increases the difficulty of repairing it should there be an injury down the line.

The Astros lowballed Aiken, offering instead the $3.1M required for them to get a compensation pick next year. Later, they reportedly "upped" the offer to over $5M, which they say the Aiken camp ignored. But here is the thing: If you are willing to get that close, why not just give him what you promised for a little bit more than $1M? That isn't exactly a huge amount of money in the world of elite player signing bonuses.

The reason is simply this: The Astros attempted to capitalize on a gray area (at best) concern to strong arm Aiken, save money, and use it to diversify their risk by signing the previously thought to be unsignable lefty Mac Marshall, a 21st round overslot. It wasn't about the money, it was about getting greedy. It was about using favorable rules to minimize risk at the expense of amateur players. It was about trying to have your cake and eat it too.

The guy who really gets burned here is Jason Nix, a 5th round pick who agreed for $1.6M but the Astros reneged on the offer when they lost the pool money that comes with the #1 slot in the draft. They would have lost their next 2 draft picks and rather than be accountable for their own miscalculation, they preferred to go back on their word and pass the cost down to a high school ballplayer.

What's more, they took some cheap shots on the way out, deliberately outing Brady Aiken and Jason Nix as having negotiated with agents, something the NCAA would be sure to investigate, thereby jeopardizing their college eligibility. Their strong arm tactics rebuffed, the Astros took it a step further by potentially further diminishing their remaining options. How petty.

We can blame the system here if we want and surely the MLBPA sold out amateurs in the new CBA so that they could protect free agency and established players. That may be true, but they aren't solely to blame here. The owners pushed vehemently for this CBA and were set to lock out the players over these very rules. How many of you would have sacrificed a season of baseball for amateur baseball? How many of you think that the average player had any chance of outlasting ownership in this kind of standoff? The MLBPA may have made a questionable choice, but in reality, they were backed into the corner on this. They had a choice, but it would have been an extremely costly one for them.

Business is business but that should work on both ends. If you make a commitment, you should be prepared to honor it and not weasel your way out of it at the expense of others, especially innocent bystanders like Jason Nix. The Astros could have just paid Aiken the extra million or so they promised, honored the Nix commitment, and dropped their pursuit of Marshall. It would have worked out fine. It would have cost them just a little extra money to avoid this debacle.

But the CBA as negotiated gave them little incentive to do that. They get the 2nd overall pick in next year's draft as reward for their questionable actions along with all the pool money that goes with what stands to be the 2nd and 3rd pick in the 2015 draft next year. Given that they freaked themselves out over the UCL and had buyer's remorse over Aiken, the Astros decided they were willing to make that trade. They have already talked about drafting a college arm to make up for lost development time. The careful calculation continues.

Their only chance to truly lose out on this is if players and their agents stick together and refuse to make pre-arranged deals with a team that is clearly prepared to abandon them at their convenience. But I won't hold my breath on that. The system favors ownership on this and they will probably come out of this just fine.

I hope we can someday say the same for Aiken and Nix.

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My only question is whether the Astros had any indication of the issue before the draft.

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