I'm glad the Padres are taking action against Khalil Greene. His behavior was totally unacceptable and it certainly does not follow the philosophy of the Padres.
You may remember that Khalil punched a storage chest at the end of July and broke his left hand. As a result he was unable to finish the season. Let's not forget that he also damaged Padres property. He dented a storage chest.
This is the right thing to do. Khalil threw a tantrum, let the team down and he should face the consequences. As a result of his self-inflicted injury the Padres are saying that he didn't fulfill his contract and they probably lost more games than they should have.
"In a specific sense, it's about recovering payment for services not rendered based on contract language that legally supports our position," Alderson said. "In the larger sense, it's about deterring this kind of conduct in the future because the consequences can be critical to a team.
"In our case, I don't think it was critical to the outcome of our season, but I guess with Khalil we might not have lost 99 games."
I'm not necessarily buying that part of the argument. Khalil was having an absolutely atrocious year. I think it actually made the team better by having Luis Rodriguez at short.
The UT is reporting that if the Padres pro-rated his contract he could lose up to $1.47 million.
I'm 100% behind Alderson and the Padres on this call. I also love how Alderson plunges a dagger in Khalil's back with this quote:
"I hope he understands our position," Alderson said.
Gaslamp Ball discussed the possibility of the Padres not paying Khalil back when the incident happened. One side thought that Khalil Greene should not be paid for a self inflicted injury and the other side said that the Padres should let it go because it would discourage free agents from coming to the Padres.
Sandy Alderson commented then:
"Anything we decide or conclude with respect to Khalil and his contracted will be a private matter that we wouldn't comment on," Alderson said. "That will be true regardless of what transpires."
Tom Krasovic also wrote:
A player's agent said the players union would respond with a grievance against the Padres if the club attempts to deny Greene any salary.
Picture courtesy of Axion