Major League Baseball is expected to send its latest economic proposal to the MLB Players Association Tuesday in hopes of salvaging a 2020 MLB season.
The current issue is money. Owners want players to take a reduced salary due to the coronavirus pandemic wiping out major sources of revenues for teams. No fans in the stands means no gate revenue, no concessions, less sales from merchandise, etc., and somebody has to help eat these costs. While the players’ union agreed back in March to a prorated salary — meaning, for example, they’d get 50 percent of their salary to play 50 percent of the games — the owners now want the players to absorb additional cuts due to the ongoing crisis and its effect on revenue.
The owners believe verbiage in the original March agreement left the door open for additional changes depending on the scope and the severity of the pandemic. Players believe that original agreement sealed the deal and left no room for adjustments. Now, the two sides need to find a middle ground before a realistic return to the diamond can be discussed.
Where that’s concerned, former Braves No. 1 overall pick, eight-time All-Star, NL MVP and Hall of Famer Chipper Jones isn’t feeling too optimistic.
“In all honesty, I’m a little less optimistic than I was say, 10 days, two weeks ago, having listened to some key players come out and speak out on it,” Jones told JR SportBrief on CBS Sports Radio. “It’s made me a little less optimistic that they continue to squabble over dollars and cents, salaries, revenue sharing, all that kind of stuff. Blake Snell came out last week, and as a former player, it was not a great look for the players. I think if he had stuck to the narrative of the health issues and concerns over that as opposed to ‘I’m not going to play because I’m not going to get my money,’ that was a little bit of a bad look.”
Jones’ Braves teammate for the majority of his 19-year career, Tom Glavine, echoed those sentiments in a recent interview.
“If it were to come down to an economic issue and that’s the reason baseball didn’t come back, you’re looking at a situation similar to the strike of ’94 and ’95 as far as fans are concerned,” Glavine recently told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Even if players were 100% justified in what they were complaining about, they’re still going to look bad.”
It’s a delicate situation with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake on both sides. While top-level players like Snell, Clayton Kershaw and Bryce Harper have already voiced their concerns, Jones takes a different route with his thinking. To him, it comes down to getting the game of baseball back in a safe manner, however that may be.
“If they can come out and assure that teams and individuals on those teams, as well as some of the older coaches who might be 60, 70 years old – this virus poses a huge threat to those guys,” Jones said. “If they can assure everybody that clubhouses and stadiums and airplanes and hotels are all going to be completely safe, then I say we get back to it.”
To Jones, every second that passes without an agreement just compounds the situation.
“And if that is the case and the squabble continues to be over money, then the players are going to look real bad,” Jones said. “But I think there’s going to be enough players out there that say, ‘You know what? Those who don’t want to play don’t have to pay. We’ll field our teams, we’ll field our rosters, and we’ll make the best of it because nobody wants to sacrifice a full season. I was in the league the last time we sacrificed the last two months of the season and the postseason, and the players paid for that for many years after that.”
The Pirates, meanwhile, have remained relatively quiet throughout the coronavirus pandemic. Unlike Jones, word out of the Pirates’ camp has remained optimistic and hopeful.
“There’s no doubt that it’s doable,” Pirates bench coach Don Kelly told our Alex Stumpf of the potential for Spring Training 2.0 to take place at PNC Park.
“However we were gonna do it, wherever we’re at, we would be able to figure out and facilitate a schedule that would work,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton added on the subject. ” … We’re going to do whatever the health guidelines [are], regardless of the state we’re in, and abide by them.”
Right now, it’s all about that upcoming economic proposal and both sides finding common ground within it.
