MLB: Cruz example that service time manipulation hasn’t gone away?

Oneil Cruz was called up to the majors by the Pirates over the weekend, which reminded me that one of the highlights of the just-signed collective bargaining agreement between MLB and MLBPA was supposed to be that teams would be incentivized to refrain from manipulating service time. So how is that going?

Has service time manipulation really slowed down among MLB teams?

Let’s start with Cruz, who was the third-ranked for the Pittsburgh Pirates prior to the season. Before Cruz was promoted, the Pirates were a mess at shortstop. Cruz was the seventh player to start a game at short for Pittsburgh. Most of the first 65 starts were split among Kevin Newman, Diego Castillo, and Rodolfo Castro. Of the three, only Newman posted an OPS above .600, and he is on the 60-day IL.

Clearly, Cruz was the best option at short for Pittsburgh when the season began, but he only had six games of experience at Triple-A going into the season, and if the Pirates held him back just to mess with his service time, they probably would have called him up in May.

A number of top prospects, such as Julio Rodriguez and Spencer Torkelson, did start the season on big league rosters, which could be construed as a success for the new processes. Of the other prospects brought up since Opening Day, which look like they were held back for reasons other than team needs or player development?

• Adley Rutschmann was called up on May 21 by the Orioles. Rutschmann was the consensus #1 prospect before the season, posted an .896 OPS in 185 plate appearances in Triple-A last season, and the Orioles were mostly using Robinson Chirinos (.552 OPS) at catcher prior to calling up Rutschmann, who was slowed on his way to Baltimore by a triceps strain suffered this spring.
• Alek Thomas posted a 1.091 OPS in 166 plate appearances in Triple-A last season, but was not brought up by the Arizona Diamondbacks until May 8.  Prior to the call-up, the bulk of center field innings went to Daulton Varsho, who moved to catcher. That move seems to have strengthened Arizona at two key positions. Better late than never, I suppose.
• George Kirby was called up by the Seattle Mariners on May 8. Prior to that, he made five starts in Double-A, where he had already pitched for most of 2021. The five starts that Kirby missed out on went to Matt Brash, another rookie who is ranked almost as highly on prospect lists. After signing Robbie Ray, the Mariners didn’t really have space for two rookies in the rotation.
• Royce Lewis was called up by the Twins on May 6 when Carlos Correa was injured, then sent back down when Correa came off the IL on May 18. Lewis was then called back up on May 29 and started in center field, where he ran into a wall and tore his ACL. Lewis missed the 2021 season with a similar injury, so the Twins might have been justified holding off on bringing him up, especially after signing Correa to a huge contract.

The real shame is that we even need to speculate about such things. Between the number of teams with a history of manipulating service time and those that, to be kind, aren’t showing much urgency to win games, there are a lot of front offices that haven’t earned the benefit of the doubt.

The incentives included in the CBA seem to have helped, but the problem hasn’t gone away.