I was reading this article about how David Wright is still going to be making $12 million dollars in 2020, regardless of if any baseball happens or not, and it leaves me with a feeling of disgust for Major League Baseball for allowing shit like this to happen.
In this particular instance, I can’t blame David Wright for anything other than being a leech and not retiring four years ago, because the Mets and MLB allowed this contract to happen, and MLB doesn’t have the balls to reject the Players Association’s demand for guaranteed contracts, falling back on insurance policies to cover up for the sunk costs. But the reality is that David Wright hasn’t played in a meaningful game since 2016, missed all of 2017, played in two symbolic games in 2018 to signal his retirement, but didn’t actually retire and continued to get paid throughout 2019, and will get paid in 2020, the final year of his contract, in spite of the very good likelihood that there will be no MLB at all this year.
Also mentioned in the article is Prince Fielder, whom like David Wright, called it quits in 2016, but by virtue of not actually retiring on paper, continued to cash in over the last four years by virtue of the remainder of his contract. In fact, Prince Fielder stands to be the highest paid player in all of MLB in 2020, because unlike all the active players that are sitting home doing diddly squat on prorated per-diems, Fielder’s remaining $24M is 100% guaranteed, and I suppose there’s something in the literature that even protects it from complete work stoppage.
Let that sink in for a second; two guys that haven’t even played baseball in four years, will be making more money for not playing baseball, than guys like Mike Trout and Bryce Harper, who have the highest respective contracts in baseball currently, because even if some hackneyed season does come to fruition, it’s a safe bet that they’ll be on prorated salaries.
Speaking of prorated salaries, let’s talk about about Tampa Bay pitcher Blake Snell, who has boldly stated that he will outright refuse to play in 2020, unless he’s going to be receiving his full prorated pay, because the current proposal dictates that there be a 50/50 split between the owners and player salaries, meaning players would effectively be receiving 50% of their prorated salaries if a season were to occur.
So for example, if MLB gets their shit together and slaps together a season of 81 games, or half of a season, than Blake Snell should be contractually obligated to half of his $7.6M salary, which would be $3.8 million dollars. But with the 50/50 split coming into play, then that $3.8M is reduced to $1.9M.
$1.9 million dollars. To play baseball, ultimately a children’s game.
I think the best part of it is Snell’s attempts to justify his selfish, money-grubbing rhetoric by talking about how much of a risk it is to him and other players, how they’re putting their lives on the line and other bullshit, as if professional athletes weren’t already the most coddled, out-of-touch douchebags in the world already.
It’s like, uh hey, there are probably a million frontline medical professionals and essential workers all throughout the country who probably won’t even make $1.9 million dollars in their entire lives, much less a single year, and you’re complaining about not wanting to play baseball unless you get paid?
Man, fuck Blake Snell. Who in the fucking world really is Blake Snell anyway? He’s a flash in the pan pitcher who had one good season where he sure, won the AL Cy Young Award, but then again so has Bartolo Colon, so big fucking whoop on that one little accolade. He’s a guy that only receives a modicum of notoriety because he pitches on the Tampa Bay Rays, a team that always get a little bit of a pass from judgment because they’re a small market team that never spends any money on talent.
Outside of this terrible optic story, the only time I remember hearing anything about Blake Snell in the past, was when he was surprise, bitching about money, about how he was salty about how he won the Cy Young award, but then was set to go into 2019 making like $575K, or a little bit over the league minimum, because he was still under team control, meaning the team had every right to pay him that much, because every player in baseball goes through the same journey, trying to stick long enough to arbitration and then free agency.
Ryan Howard made $900K in 2007, and that was a year after he hit 58 home runs and won the NL Most Valuable Player award. Did he bitch? At least not publicly, but he kept his mouth shut, and then the Phillies extended him twice, and the guy ultimately ended up making almost $200 million in his career, even if the last $125M was a laughably bad deal.
But Blake Snell, this guy is pretty incredible. A no-name player playing for a no-name team, barely old enough to maybe have a full bush of pubes, constantly whining about money from the start of his inconsequential career. Most people understand that baseball players have short shelf lives, but damn, if he remained consistent and remotely as talented as his one Cy Young year, he wouldn’t ever have to open his mouth, and even if it weren’t the Rays, some team would be more than happy to overpay him for his misleading career 3.24 ERA.
In the grand spectrum of things, MLB doesn’t seem to realize the horrible optics they’re putting out, with all this bickering about money, when the rest of the country is in disarray. Big businesses are applying for small business loans, and getting them, billionaires are inexplicably getting richer amidst the pandemic, and the amount of insider trading going on, bloating the portfolios of white collar criminals is only dwarfed by the number of people getting fucked all around the rest of the country by the greedy cocksuckers of the world who can’t see past dollar signs, a small amount of them incapable of getting their heads out of their asses, and denying a country with a small distraction that is very much needed.
But that’s okay, because Korea has their shit together, and even if Jon Sciambi and Jessica Mendoza can’t stay on topic or actually do correct play-by-play, at least KBO is finally on ESPN, and giving the world some modicum of real, competitive baseball for baseball fans to enjoy.
