Ex-Marlins exec blasts KC Royals as 'irresponsible' in valuing wins over service time

Jac Caglianone made his official major league debut for the KC Royals on Tuesday night, and the energy in the stadium, despite the game being in St. Louis instead of Kansas City, was palpable. The young slugger, called up just a day earlier, didn’t get a hit, but showed off his brute force and offered up something for fans to be excited about for the rest of the season.

While most people saw what Caglianone could do in Double-A and Triple-A, there is at least one former MLB exec who thinks the Royals were “irresponsible” for calling up the prospect so soon. However, David Samson doesn’t believe the issue is that the team is hurting the player’s development, it’s that they are worried too much on winning now.

Samson, the former Florida Marlins President of Baseball Operations from 2002 to 2017, appeared on CBS Sports and blasted the KC Royals for calling Jac Caglianone up too soon because he believes it means the slugger will enter free agency sooner. Samson believes the Royals blew Caglianone’s “Super Two” status.

“What Kansas City has done is the single most irresponsible move I've seen in quite a long time,” Samson started. “If he's going to be that good, how do you call him up now where he will not hit arbitration a full year earlier than if they had waited till after around June 17th?”

The former Marlins executive then admitted to messing with service time, making it clear that, as the president of a team bashed on an annual basis for not spending or competing for postseasons, he cared more about controlling players than making the playoffs.

“We waited to call up Miguel Cabrera until after June 17th and therefore we got an extra year at the minimum," he said. "I have no idea how a team that's not in the top 10 of payroll is not paying attention to dates.”

It’s important to note here that the Super Two date changes every year, so Samson claiming it’s June 17 is almost certainly not accurate. The Super-Two dates are also not known until the end of the year, but there are reports it might have been at the latest, June 5. 

In short, it’s possible the Royals called up Caglianone before the deadline, it’s also possible they waited just long enough. 

Either way, the KC Royals did something Samson wouldn’t do, mainly because he didn’t put winning first. They called up a player they believed could spark the offense, knowing full well that even if it was several weeks until the Super-Two deadline passed, those two weeks could be incredibly important for their chances to compete for a playoff spot.

So far, so good on that point. While Caglianone went 0-for-5, the KC Royals are 1-0 with him in the lineup.