Ex-MLB executive, 'Survivor' loser, calls Jac Caglianone's promotion 'irresponsible'
When former Miami Marlins president David Samson was a contestant on Survivor 28, his biography on the show's website included one particularly audacious line: "I always win, because people underestimate me." (h/t True Dork Times)
Ironically, Samson is now openly advocating that a Major League Baseball team try not to win.
The Kansas City Royals broke an eight-year postseason drought in 2024, clinching a Wild Card berth and advancing to the American League Division Series before losing to the eventual pennant-winning New York Yankees.
The Royals have a franchise player (shortstop Bobby Witt Jr.) entering his prime years, and one of the league's best pitching staffs. Their championship window hasn't been this wide-open in nearly a decade.
If anything is holding the Royals back, it's their outfielders. Through Monday, they were a below replacement-level group (-1.0 fWAR). Top prospect Jac Caglianone, who had been getting his feet wet in the outfield at Triple-A Omaha, was slugging .723 for Kansas City's top farm team.
Naturally, Caglianone was promoted to the majors ahead of Tuesday's game in St. Louis. The Royals' fan base was electrified by the idea of their 2024 first-round draft pick coming to the rescue of their 31-29 team, on the fringe of the AL playoff race.
As for Samson, he's not a fan of the Royals trying to improve their chances of winning now.
"What Kansas City has done is the single-most irresponsible move I've seen in quite a long a time," Samson said, via CBS Sports.
The reason had nothing to do with Caglianone being unprepared for the big leagues, and everything to do with Royals owner John Sherman saving money.
"How do you call him up now, where he will hit (salary) arbitration a full year earlier than if they had waited til after around June 17?" Samson asked, before extolling the Marlins' ostensibly virtuous posture of manipulating Miguel Cabrera's service time nearly 20 years ago.
Service-time manipulation is the often-practiced, but rarely acknowledged, tactic of keeping qualified players in the minor leagues as long as possible. By waiting a matter of days or weeks before calling them up to the big leagues, teams can delay players' eligibility for salary arbitration or free agency — effectively, denying them enough time on a major-league roster to make more money.
The cost, of course, is a few days or weeks of putting a better, more entertaining team on the field. The cost savings are — or at least, should be — far from any rational fan's mind.
It's not the fans' money that is at stake whenever service-time-related decisions come into play, at least not directly. It's the team owner's money. Samson was the hired lieutenant (and former stepson) of owner Jeffrey Loria, both in Miami and Montreal. His job, in effect, was to put a cromulent team on the field while saving Loria as much money as possible.
Credit Samson for not varnishing the truth of how men in his position tend to think, but he couldn't have picked a more tone-deaf message for the Royals' fan base.
Small- and mid-market teams like Kansas City have been putting financial decisions ahead of winning for years. If Major League Baseball is serious about reducing the disparity in performance between major-market teams and small-market teams, prioritizing winning ahead of money is part of the solution, not the problem.
Diehard Survivor fans might already remember how Mr. "I always win, because people underestimate me" did in his foray into reality television. He was eliminated in the first week.
GET MORE TOP STORIES from The Big Lead by subscribing to TBL YouTube channel
NFL: Eagles Saquon Barkley recreates epic backwards hurdle during Madden 26 shoot
NBA: Giannis Antetokounmpo next team odds show he could surprise everyone
MLB: Royals top prospect has heartwarming reaction to his first MLB promotion
SPORTS MEDIA: ESPN announces plans for 'Inside the NBA' as show moves to home of Mickey Mouse
VIRAL: Kate Abdo, MMA legend Khabib Nurmagomedov go viral after handshake misunderstanding