{"id":12799,"date":"2012-03-12T19:50:49","date_gmt":"2012-03-12T19:50:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=12799"},"modified":"2012-03-17T07:41:12","modified_gmt":"2012-03-17T07:41:12","slug":"baseballs-name-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=12799","title":{"rendered":"Baseball’s name game"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>One of the main headlines from Sunday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Spring Training games concerned the Miami Marlins\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 outfielder Giancarlo Stanton being hit on the left wrist<\/a> by a pitch.<\/p>\n

The hearts of Marlins fans and fantasy owners skipped a beat before reading on to find that the X-rays showed no real damage had been done; however this might not have been a typical \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcpanic\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 followed by \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcrelief\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 moment for everyone catching up on the story.<\/p>\n

For some baseball fans the process would have started with a few seconds of confusion about whether this related to the talented Mike Stanton or a Minor Leaguer of the same surname.<\/p>\n

Mike decided over the offseason<\/a> that he would prefer to be referred to by his actual first name. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a perfectly reasonable request rather than a case of a self-obsessed star trying to control their image, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still one that will take a bit of getting used to.<\/p>\n

Stanton\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not the only player who will be referred to by a different name this season, although he at least has a straight forward reason for the change. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nowhere near as simple for Fausto Carmona and Leo Nunez, indeed their situations are so complicated that they might not even be playing in the Majors this year.<\/p>\n

Both pitchers are in trouble for gaining residency and employment in the States using another person\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s identity documents. Fausto Carmona is actually Roberto Hernandez<\/a>, while Leo Nunez\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s real name is Juan Carlos Oviedo<\/a>. Their motivation for taking this risk was not specifically to change their name but to change their age. Oviedo is believed to be nearly a year and a half older than previously thought (born in March 1982 rather than August 1983) while Hernandez could be as much as three years older than everyone had previously known.<\/p>\n

A player\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s age is an important piece of information when trying to evaluate their talent and potential, especially when they are a youngster trying to earn a professional contract. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s precisely why these two players went down the route of using false identities. It created a false picture of where they were in their development curve, from their level of experience to their physical maturity.<\/p>\n

Hernandez\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s situation is particularly affected by such a large difference between his perceived and actual age. While his 2007 season (19-8 with a 3.06 ERA) still looks impressive, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s seen in a different light knowing he was 26 years old rather than 23.<\/p>\n

In April 2008 the Cleveland Indians rewarded his efforts with a four-year contract that guaranteed him $15m and could have been worth up to $43 million if all the bonuses and escalating clauses had been met. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s difficult to say for sure whether the Indians would have agreed to significantly different contract terms had they known Hernandez\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s true age, but it unquestionably would have factored into their decision-making process and the contract negotiations.<\/p>\n

There is a short video on ESPN.com<\/a> in which Rob Manfred, MLB Executive VP Labor Relations\u00c2\u00a0and Human Resources, discusses the problems surrounding identity fraud. He talks about some of the reasons why young players from countries such as the Dominican Republic would take the risk of using false documents and what MLB is doing to try to counteract this.<\/p>\n

Clearly there is much work to be done, not simply by MLB in respect of the causes of this situation but also by the respective authorities who are rubber-stamping the players\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 entries into the States. Both cases are a very public damning of their procedures and vigilance.<\/p>\n

Roberto Hernandez and Juan Carlos Oviedo now have to go through the legal processes and hope that they will soon be able to return to their profession and give us a reason to get used to their \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcnew\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 names.<\/p>\n

As for\u00c2\u00a0Giancarlo Stanton, his home-run hitting exploits for the Marlins will ensure that everyone will get to know his \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcnew\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 name very quickly once the regular season begins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Giancarlo Stanton was hit on his left wrist by a fastball on Sunday. The news stories about the incident were a reminder that he is no longer referred to as Mike Stanton and he’s not the only player whose name has changed recently<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[503,553],"class_list":["post-12799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb-2","tag-featured","tag-mlb-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12799"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12841,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12799\/revisions\/12841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}