While the calendar nears June and an unofficial deadline to restart Major League Baseball approaches, one tweet illustrated the chasm between the league and its players association over salaries, casting doubt on whether a 2020 season can be salvaged.
Washington Nationals ace Max Scherzer, a member of the players union’s eight-member executive subcommittee, tweeted Wednesday night that “there’s no reason to engage with MLB in any further compensation reductions” because “there’s no justification to accept a second pay cut.”
Scherzer’s declaration arrived one day after the league proposed to the union an economic plan that included drastic salary reductions for the sport’s highest-paid players. The sliding pay scale was met with “disappointment” by the union.
Multiple reports suggested the union will counter the league’s most recent offer later this week. Players will propose a longer season than the approximately 80-game slate in the owners’ plan. The union, Scherzer suggested, will not accept another pay cut, insisting on the prorated salaries it agreed to in March.
Owners are seeking a further pay reduction to offset the gate revenue lost from playing in empty stadiums. Players apparently have not seen enough proof that this future financial burden warrants a second cut.
“We have previously negotiated a pay cut in the version of prorated salaries, and there’s no justification to accept a (second) pay cut based upon the current information the union has received,” Scherzer wrote Wednesday night on Twitter.
“I’m glad to hear other players voicing the same viewpoint and believe MLB’s economic strategy would completely change if all documentation were to become public information.”
A large group of players discussed the proposal Wednesday, leading to Scherzer’s late-night statement. Scherzer’s agent, Scott Boras, advised his clients to reject the league’s proposal, writing in an email that owners want players “to bail them out of the investment decisions they have made.”
“Players should not agree to further pay cuts to bail out the owners,” Boras wrote in the email, which was obtained by the Associated Press. “Let owners take some of their record revenues and profits from the past several years and pay you the prorated salaries you agreed to accept or let them borrow against the asset values they created from the use of those profits players generated.”
The game’s most recognizable agent, Boras has been accused by some of wielding too much power within baseball’s current negotiations. Reds pitcher Trevor Bauer tweeted Wednesday he was “hearing a LOT of rumors about a certain player agent meddling in MLBPA affairs.”
“I have one thing to say,” Bauer wrote. “Scott Boras, rep your clients however you want to, but keep your damn personal agenda out of union business.”
Boras represents Astros second baseman Jose Altuve, who was due $29 million in 2020, and the team’s MLBPA representative, Lance McCullers Jr. Boras negotiated more than $1 billion in free-agent contracts this past offseason, including Gerrit Cole’s record-breaking nine-year, $324 million deal with the New York Yankees.
“If this was just about baseball, playing games would give the owners enough money to pay the players their full prorated salaries and run the baseball organization,” Boras wrote in his email. “The owners’ current problem is a result of the money they borrowed when they purchased their franchises, renovated their stadiums or developed land around their ballparks. This type of financing is allowed and encouraged by MLB because it has resulted in significant franchise valuations.”
Scherzer and Cole are among a group of players who’d be drastically impacted by the league’s latest proposal. Figures obtained by ESPN called for a player with a $35 million salary to make $7.84 million in a 2020 season of about 80 games. If Scherzer or Cole were to get a prorated salary — like the two sides already agreed on — it would be around $17.5 million.
Four Astros were scheduled to make at least $21 million in 2020. Justin Verlander and Zack Greinke each had average annual values exceeding $32 million, while Altuve’s Boras-negotiated extension kicked in, paying him $29 million. George Springer was set to receive $21 million in his final year of club control.
That both sides still seem at an impasse is concerning. If the league wants an early July season opener, teams must be in spring training again by mid-June at the latest. Bear in mind, too, that the sides have not agreed on MLB’s health and safety proposal. Many tasks and talks remain, with time starting to run out.
chandler.rome@chron.com
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