Myt1, please don't stop. Probably a moot point now, with the NOP seemingly deciding to play him. But your opinion on this--even as a hypothetical--would be appreciated, were you able to see past the church farts.
Edit: thx to mauf also
It’s basically what Mauf says. Here are a couple of additional generally applicable premises:
Labor arbitrators can do almost anything they want. Honestly, the deference they are afforded is almost unfathomable.
A lot of labor arbitrations come down to some level of splitting the baby or, “Dude. So uncool.”
Absent precedent to the contrary, there’s a pretty easy, straight-faced “This is some fucked up shit,” argument to be made for sitting a top 10 player who is perfectly healthy, outside of the generally applicable disciplinary mechanisms. You don’t really need a ton more.
Is it possible that a labor arbitrator would say, “Sitting a healthy player to maintain his trade value is perfectly acceptable”? Sure. I’d say that the likelihood of that is directly related to the scope of the action: day of trade deadline, Yeah, obviously. Week of? Uh, OK I guess. Months before the offseason? Meh.
I’m a guest in the parlor here, and was honestly hoping that someone might have more real, specific info than I did. That’s why I waded in before.