Today, MLB owners will present a proposal to the MLB Players Association, establishing terms and guidelines for a potential beginning to the 2020 season, believed to begin in early July. Among those guidelines is revenue sharing, something the union is staunchly against.
On Tuesday afternoon, Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker held his daily coronavirus briefing. He touched on the conflict between the players and ownership and very clearly took a side. Via Kelly Bauer of Block Club Chicago, here’s what Pritzker said:
I realize that the players have the right to haggle over their salaries, but we do live in a moment where the people of Illinois and the people of the United States deserve to get their pastime back — to watch, anyway, on television. If they’re able to come up with safety precautions, as has been suggested by Major League Baseball, that works, I hope that the players will understand that the people of our United States need them to recognize this is an important part of leisure time that all of us want to have in the summer: to watch them play baseball, to root for our favorite teams. We need that back. We need that normalcy. I must say I’m disappointed in many ways that players are holding out for these very, very high salaries and payments during a time when I think everybody is sacrificing.
First, people don’t “deserve to get their pastime back.” We are not obligated to professional sports during a pandemic. We are not owed athletes, their family/significant others, coaches, trainers, groundskeepers, broadcasters, bus drivers, hotel staff, cooks, et. al. putting their lives at risk because we’re bored, because business owners want to see cash flow, because politicians need a symbolic victory.
Secondly, the players aren’t “holding out.” They agreed to salary reductions in March, as their salaries were pro-rated based on games played. For instance, a player earning $5 million this year for a 162-game season ($30,864 per game) would earn $2.47 million if there were to be an 80-game season this year. The players already sacrificed. The owners want to renegotiate the deal the two sides virtually shook hands upon two months ago in favor of a more owner-friendly deal. It’s the owners who are “holding out.”
Even if the players were holding out (which they’re not), they would have every right to do so, as they are the ones putting their careers and lives on the line for the almighty entertainment dollar. The owners aren’t going to be in close quarters in the clubhouse with three dozen other people, sitting next to players who spit, discard chewed sunflower seed shells, and inadvertently cough and sneeze in their vicinity. The risk is being taken on entirely by the players. It’s easy for owners, for politicians, for fans, and for members of the media to suggest what the players should do when they won’t have to personally deal with the consequences of doing so.
Before COVID-19 interrupted the 2020 MLB season, Royals outfielder Alex Gordon was looking forward to his 14th season in the big leagues. The veteran inked a one-year, $4 million deal with the Royals in January.
Gordon, 36, is a three-time All-Star and seven-time Gold Glove Award winner, but has had four consecutive average-or-worse seasons. From 2016-19, he hit an aggregate .237/.320/.366 and was worth 4.1 WAR per Baseball Reference, an average of just over one WAR per season. Some believe it might be Gordon’s last season, but he put that notion to bed.
Gordon spoke with Lynn Worthy of the Kansas City Star, saying, “I feel like I still want to play at least a few more years, and I want to get back to not losing 100 games, pushing for the playoffs, stuff like that to get back to kind of what we’re talking about (the World Series runs in 2014 and 2015).”
The Royals haven’t been back to the postseason since winning the World Series in 2015. Whether Gordon can recapture his productive ways and help the Royals out of their rut remains to be seen, but it sounds like he still has the drive to keep on playing beyond 2020.
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May 13, 2020 at 04:20AM
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Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker slams MLB players for ‘holding out’ - NBCSports.com
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