When the Astros failed to agree to terms with No. 1 overall pick Brady Aiken earlier this month, many speculated that the next step would be a grievance against the team from the Major League Baseball Player Association. According to two reports this evening, that’s exactly what has happened.
Can confirm union filed grievance against #Astros, as 1st reported by Murray Chass. Argues team tried to manipulate signings of Aiken, etc.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) July 24, 2014
Here’s the link to the original report from Chass.
While the specifics of the grievance aren’t yet known and aren’t required to be made public, you have surely heard the details of the situation by now. The Astros originally agreed to sign Aiken to a $6.5 million bonus, but they later attempted to leverage him into signing an underslot deal due to questions about his elbow. While a bonus of $3,168,840 was thrown around, their final offer reportedly came in at $5 million. Much of the attention has been focused on Aiken’s plight, but the breakdown between the two sides also affected fifth-rounder Jacob Nix, who had a verbal agreement to sign for $1.5 million contingent on the team also signing Aiken. The Astros’ draft pool shrunk without signing Aiken, so they would have faced penalties had they gone ahead with the deal for Nix.
Casey Close was the adviser for both Aiken and Nix during the process and he offered some pretty strong criticism of the Astros in the media. However, it’s unclear whether they did anything to break the rules. The system isn’t the cleanest in the first place and it actually invites this sort of manipulation with the current draft pool set-up. If anything, Nix got screwed the most by this situation and perhaps the MLBPA will be able to make the case that his agreement should be honored. Or nothing will come of it. Either way, it should be interesting to see how it plays out.