The Dennis Nielsen Signing

The interesting saga of Dennis Nielsen starts as a 5’8 150lb senior at Clackamas High School in Happy Valley, Oregon (The things you find on Google). At age 20 in his second year at Oregon State, strictly as a student, Dennis started to grow. He sprouted up 6 inches in under a year and packed on 60 lbs. Suddenly, the manager of his high school team was now throwing 95 plus. Word of this newly minted athlete reached Sonoma Stomper special advisers Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller. Dennis jumped at the chance to play organized ball for the first time since Little League. Under the tutelage of Takashi Miyoshi, Dennis grew into a complete pitcher, and 2 seasons later decided it was time to leave the cozy confines of Arnold Field for the greener pastures of the CBA – and this is where the story gets interesting.

The CBA, as we all know, is a relatively young league. Those of us who follow the CBA like our lives depend on it forget that it hasn’t quite caught on everywhere, especially as places without CBA teams still depend on their local independent ball teams. While yes, the Sacramento Golden Bears have been promoted recently, there is a good portion of the Northern California area that are still loyal to the local Pacific League. It is for this reason that every so often throughout the season a new name hits the free agent market. This brings a new contingent of fans from Independent teams who are excited to see their hometown guy compete with the big boys. This also means that it takes the CBA Scouting Association (CBASA) a couple days to sift through tape (if there is any) and numbers (whose accuracy can vary). Then, they come out with a scouting report that most teams’ scouts take and make their own report out of. So, once the paperwork is filed, it usually takes a week or two to be processed and the player won’t be in the formal free agent pool. These two weeks are what the CBASA uses to create the report so that teams scouts then have a chance to make an evaluation and create their own report.

To this point the unwritten rule of the CBA is that you’re supposed to wait to make offers until that initial report is made and the player shows up in the free agent pool officially. Now there is no rule against a negotiating with a player as soon as the paperwork is filed – which is before it is processed. This is a bit of a crapshoot since an accurate report does not exist as of yet and a bit taboo. It is taboo because, unless you have an acute awareness of every transaction happening in the CBA, you would never know that the player actually exists officially in the CBA.

It was this way that DC signed Mr. Nielsen before he ever hit the pool itself. Coming in with an offer right away of $15 mil over 6 years. Now, imagine you’re an independent league pitcher who has decided to file with the big leagues. 15 minutes after making this decision you have an actual offer of 15 million dollars to chase your dreams. When you ask for time to think you wait 3,4 even 5 days and hear nothing from any other team. He has no clue that this unofficial 2 week buffer exists. So, in his mind, DC is the only team interested in him, and he signs with DC. All of a sudden the DC front office is waving around their new toy and everyone else feels duped. Did DC do anything wrong? No, technically not, and calls for reprimand from around the league have seemed to fall on deaf ears in the league office. Mexico City GM Alex Romero had this to say when asked about it: “This is a direct violation of the D-Bag rule. It feels like insider trading and makes it real tough to respect how DC does things. We know that their front office can be rather confident so it really doesn’t come as much of a surprise that they would do something like this.” After some research of the constitution this reporter couldn’t find the so called “D-Bag rule”, so this must be another of those unwritten rules.

Now that his CBASA report is out lets take a look at how Nielson compares to one of the most famous contracts in CBA history – that of Heri “Pop” Ortega. Nielsen compares favorably on all scouting reports, so the fact that DC is paying only 15 mil over 6 years – which is over 70 million dollars less than what Wichita paid Ortega originally, and then it is over 5 million less than what Cincy signed him to after his release. At this point in the season Nielson would have commanded a much higher salary. As teams are bumping and jostling, and with no one else on the market, I think he might have gotten Adam Jackson money. But since no other team even offered,  Nielsen signed the first real deal in front of him cause everyone else was waiting. Again, DC didn’t violate any rules, but they definitely didn’t make any friends. This also isn’t the first time this has happened with what happened with the aforementioned Jackson initially.

In Nielsen’s first start he gave up 3 earned over 5 innings  and recieved a no decision against a high powered warrior offense in that shoebox Miami calls home. One quirk is that he’s a pitcher wearing a single digit, anarchy. However, the most notable thing about the appearance was just how anti-Nielsen the crowd was.  It’s odd for a new player to get any kind of reaction, much less such a negative one for a rookie. But it looks like the signing has turned the 26 year old into a villain amongst other fans and DC a villain in front offices around the league. But something tells me that if they win promotion DC and the right hander will be just fine playing the bad guy.