While we all wait…and wait…and wait for Major League Baseball to discipline Jose Reyes for the alleged domestic assault of his wife, all we can do is speculate as to what type of penalty he will receive. Realistically, it probably won’t be more than 50 games, which in the long run is not much. If the decision were made this week, he could still be back a week or so before the All-Star break. Yes, he has already missed 13 of the Rockies’ games this season, but let’s remember that he is still being paid while he is on administrative leave. If the suspension were 50 games, he would still make almost 70% of his $22,000,000 salary (over $15,000,000).
In the MLB world of guaranteed contracts Reyes will make his money regardless. Unlike in the NFL where Ray Rice was cut and never heard from again, Reyes will play because someone has to pay his salary. However, if there were a video of Reyes throwing his wife into a sliding glass door, similar to the Rice video, things might be different. The money aspect aside, is 30, 50, or 100 games enough penalty for a man who allegedly beat his wife?
Aroldis Chapman received a 30 game suspension for a situation very similar to Reyes’ that occurred during this offseason as well. Both cases allege that each player choked or grabbed a female by the throat and threw them up against a wall/door. The only difference in the two situations is that Reyes was actually arrested and Chapman was not. Chapman was not apprehended because of conflicting stories and different parties not wanting to cooperate. Reyes was arrested and charged, but the case was dropped because his wife chose not to cooperate with the police. The cases mirror each other, only Reyes has the mugshot to go along with his accusations.
So a terrible thing happened, what’s next? As I speculated before, I think his suspension will be somewhere between 30 and 50 games. Is that really enough though? If I were making the choice, he would not be playing until the beginning of the 2017 season. That may sound harsh, but I think necessary. In this case I think that the penalty has to be overly severe in order to help prevent more occurrences in the future.
For example, drunk driving is an epidemic in this country (I know neither Chapman nor Reyes were involved in drunk driving, but hear me out). Why do people drink and drive? They like to go out, have a good time, and have to somehow get home. Chances are if they are driving home drunk one night, it is because they have safely driven home drunk other nights. After seven Budweisers and two tequila shots they aren’t thinking of the chance that they will kill innocent people and/or themselves in an accident on their way home. They are thinking of the easiest route to Taco Bell and their bed. It’s not that they don’t know the dangers, they just aren’t necessarily thinking of them at the time of the offense. So they drive…
But what if the penalty for your first DWI was a mandatory minimum of one year in prison? What percentage of drunk drivers would be off the road? 50%, 70%, more? The “Don’t worry, I’m OK to drive” conversations at the end of the night would turn into calling for an Uber without hesitation. When you make the penalty overly harsh, it forces people to think twice.
I’ve been married nine years, I understand that couples are going to argue and fight. I want to say that decent people have the strength to do this yet not literally come to blows, but it is impossible to anticipate what could happen in any situation, especially very emotional ones. Although, if someone knew that if they crossed a certain line that it would result in them losing their livelihood for a full year, don’t you think that would prevent certain things from happening? If the precedent had been set, and Jose Reyes knew that if he choked his wife and threw her into a sliding glass door he would lose out on $22,000,000, do you think he would have just left the room? Maybe…we’ll never know.
We are on the second case in the history of Major League Baseball’s domestic violence policy, and I feel they are making the same mistake the NFL did in 2014. Ray Rice was initially suspended two games (the equivalent to a 20 game suspension in baseball) after being charged with aggravated assault. Five weeks later the league agreed that the penalty should have been more (after much criticism about the short suspension) and changed their official policy to six games (the equivalent to approximately 60 games in baseball). Chapman got half that. I worry that MLB will continue to give out these short, somewhat non-effective suspensions to players until something calamitous comes along to change their minds (i.e. their own version of the Ray Rice video).
One thing that the NFL did correctly was they admitted they got it wrong, and changed the policy very quickly. I think that MLB should emulate that and change their policy now, seven weeks after it gave out its first suspension. It has a history of this with the suspension for steroids slowly growing into what is now a pretty harsh penalty. Here are the steroid penalties over the years:
Year 1st offense 2nd offense 3rd offense 4th offense
2005 10 games 30 games 60 games 1 year
2006 50 games 100 games lifetime ban
2014 80 games 162 games lifetime ban
After only one season with miniscule penalties they bumped them up in order to appease the players/owners/fans, and to show that they are trying their best to get performance enhancing drugs out of the game. They now have the opportunity to show that they are serious about helping reduce domestic violence incidents in this country by raising their penalty, making the Aroldis Chapman suspension look as minute as a 10 game steroid suspension looks now.
Does MLB have the ability to stop all domestic violence in our country? Unfortunately, no. However, they do have some great power along with the NFL and other professional sports organizations to show they are behind the initiative to help reduce and prevent the harm that it causes in our communities. This starts with having strict rules for their employees (from players and owners all the way down to Assistant to the Traveling Secretary George Costanza), then moves into public service that will help inform the masses and help families affected by these instances.
I know that baseball players are not inherently bad people, many are great ambassadors for their sport and their communities. However, they are in the public eye. If your neighbor is arrested for throwing his wife into a wall, there is a decent chance it doesn’t end up on the news. Unless of course that neighbor plays shortstop for the Colorado Rockies. These players are in the public eye, and unfortunately have to be held to a higher standard at times. I hope that Jose Reyes and Aroldis Chapman have fixed the problems in their relationships, and they have learned from these situations. I’m sure both of them would do it differently if they had the chance to go back in time. But I think that the best way to help their colleagues from entering into the same type of situations is for Commissioner Manfred to change the policy to a one year suspension for the first offense. We may miss some of our favorite players on the field (watching Chapman throw 100 in person is amazing!) but it will be better for our communities in the long run.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.