Hello, Twins fans — I'm Jay.  Some of you may know me as one of the co-authors of Twinkie Town's sister site for Indians fans, Let's Go Tribe, or perhaps from my role as Joe the Policeman in the "What's Goin' Down" episode of That's My Mama.  But before you throw anything, let me be clear:  I'm not here to antagonize you as a bitter Indians fan — not today, anyway.  Quite the contrary.  I'm here in common cause with Twins fans, as a fellow fan of a small market club, of another organization that has to execute on every level and play every angle within the rules in order to be successful on the field.

My message to you is simple:  Greg Genske is wrong about everything.

That is, Genske is wrong about everything — literally everything — having to do with Francisco Liriano's service time.  Genske, as you know, has asked the MLB Players Association to look into whether the Twins have kept Liriano in the minors purely to suppress his service time, which would delay his becoming eligible for arbitration — and a raise in the neighborhood of $2 million — from the end of 2008 to the end of 2009.   What he's hoping for, as far as anyone can tell, is that the union will "investigate" this and file a grievance, and then hold a hearing in front of an arbitration panel, and then that panel will award Liriano the extra service time he needs to be eligible for arbitration at the end of this season.

Here's what's really going on here.  Liriano came out of nowhere to dominate as a rookie, and a multiyear deal was likely to be offered in the near future — a deal that would have netted Genske's agency upwards of half a million bucks.  His injury delayed those expectations, but it didn't necessarily reduce them.  Genske no doubt expected his client to recover and prosper in 2008, and to be eligible at the end of 2008 to have his 2009 salary set through arbitration.

Had Liriano finished this season healthy, dominant and already eligible for arbitration, then Genske would have been in a position to negotiate a very sizable multi-year deal.  With Liriano not recovering fully until this month, and not eligible for arbitration, the value of that deal will now be much lower — if it happens this coming offseason at all.  For players who have never reached arbitration (and weren't major bonus babies), the greatest leverage a team has in negotiations is the player's long-term financial security — sign the deal, get the security now.  A player who already eligible for arbitration, however, is already a millionaire almost by definition, so security is not so much of an issue for the player and his family.  The team's leverage is severely reduced.

Since that didn't happen, Genske is looking at a significantly smaller multi-year deal for his client this offseason, or at the same deal delayed for yet another year as Liriano's arbitration year and walk year have both been pushed back.  Either way, Genske is looking at either a smaller commission or a year-long delay in his commission — and who knows what can happen in that year?  So obviously Genske is pissed, and while he's not wrong to be pissed, he is wrong to be pissed at the Twins, because it's not their fault.  He's wrong about that and pretty much everything else, but to understand fully why he's wrong, you might need to be the kind of person who would enjoy a long, dry esoteric article on the subject of baseball's contract rules.  If that's not you, then you might want to just take my word for it — he's wrong about everything.

If that is you, however, then read on — and let us count the ways that Genske is wrong:

1.  He's wrong that Liriano should have been promoted by now.

The Twins obviously wanted Liriano in the majors, as they gave him a brief tryout back in April with minimal reason for optimism.  The results, as I'm sure you know, were disastrous:  13 ER allowed in 10.1 IP, over just three starts.  Back in Triple-A, the results were better but still awful:  7 ER in 8.1 innings over two starts.  Liriano obviously wasn't even close to ready.

Liriano allowed just eight runs total over his next four starts, but he's been unsteady since then, with total trainwreck performances on May 26, June 20 and June 25 — those last two within the last month — with mostly good games mixed in between.  While ESPN reports mindlessly that Liriano is "7-0 with a 2.73 ERA in his past nine starts," it's probably more significant to note that just a few weeks ago, Liriano's ERA was 4.85 over his past six starts.  He's been unsteady, that's all.  He looks great at the moment, and maybe he's now fully healthy and effective, but so far, he hasn't gone more than four starts this season without coughing up a big hairball.  You can't fault the Twins for wanting to see some real consistency before inserting him into a pennant race.

2.  He's wrong that the Twins cost Liriano a year of arbitration.

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