Newsweek: Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder reveals having a very specific no-trade clause; refusing to go to the Yankees, Mets, Blue Jays, Dodgers, Giants or Padres
Call me naïve, but I’ve always had the belief that it’s probably in our best interests to not put our employability at any sort of disadvantage, by doing things like putting in legal writing, refusal to go work for specific employers. I have a wife and kids, and when the day is over, my obligations is to provide and support and I don’t really think I’m above any particular task or duty in order to accomplish such.
Sure, there are lots of things I’d rather not do, or places or companies that I’d probably hope to have a superior alternative to, but when push comes to shove, I’ll shovel shit eight hours a day if it meant being able to provide for my family, and do my best to be the absolute best at it.
Then again, I am not a professional athlete, paid exorbitant amounts of money to play sports originating from children’s games. I have not lost touch with poverty, living paycheck to paycheck, and the constant vigilance of every penny spent.
I am not Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder, Bryan Reynolds, who for whatever reason is very adamant about not wanting to play for a specific list of teams, effectively implying to 1/5 of Major League Baseball that he’d rather be unemployed than play for any of them. Which to someone like me, is mind-blowing that any player would have no-trade clauses in the first place, because unless they’re true MVP-caliber talent (which Reynolds is not), they’re not going to be endearing themselves to organizations by being inflexible.
What the internet is fascinated by is the list of teams; typically lots of guys who have had no-trade clauses in the past, they typically tend to list off teams generally perceived negatively by the masses; be it that they’re cheap teams, not good teams, in smaller markets, or any combination of the above. After all, professional athletes play to win, to make money, enjoy their lives, or, any combination of the above.
But the teams Reynolds listed: the Yankees, Mets, Blue Jays, Dodgers, Giants and Padres – very few of the negatives really apply to them, and very much of the positives do. Currently, all of them are either division leaders or are very much in the postseason picture, and they’re all squads based out of major New York and California markets or Toronto. All of these teams are very liberal with their spending and all have budgets north of the median MLB payroll.
The immediate joke was that Bryan Reynolds has no actual desire to win, or be a part of a championship squad, seeing as how he plays for the perpetually middling Pittsburgh Pirates, and seems to only refuse to go to squads known for contending. And the funniest thing is that when called out for such, by once-peers, Reynolds has gone out of his way to defend himself on the internet, validating the idea that he does in fact pay attention to the internet and what others might be saying about him, thus making him owned, but that’s beside the point.
Nerds on the internet were quick to point out that the list of teams Reynolds refuses accept trades to, correlates with high income tax rates, which New York and California do have, and Toronto being in Canada, is subject to massive taxation, which I guess does suck for an American paying Canadian taxes and getting no benefits for it.
However, Bryan Reynolds is a professional athlete, making professional athlete money, netting $12.25M this season and will continue to make more, over the next five years, as he signed an eight-year, $108M deal back in 2023. Yes, it sucks to know that 40-50% of your income is immediately lost to Uncle Sam, but when the day is over, he’s still pulling in $6M+ a year after that motherfucker takes his pound of flesh.
It’s hard to feel much empathy for any professional athlete making millions of dollars to play children’s games, and it’s extra puzzling how stingy it would be if income taxes really were the reason why he would block a trade to six of the upper tier of MLB franchises, where he would not only continue to make the contractually obligated millions he’s owed, but he could improve his general brand and parlay it into higher earning opportunities in stronger markets.
What’s funny to me however, is the fact that I don’t know if it’s ignorance or maybe he only does want to play for non-contending losers, but the Oakland Las Vegas Sacramento The A’s are not on his list. The Dodgers, Padres and Giants being on it makes it sound like he’s avoiding California, but for the next three years, the A’s are still in the state, playing in a very fitting minor league ballpark, considering how the franchise is operated, and it would be hilarious if Bryan Reynolds were to get shipped out there, and his no-trade clause wouldn’t be able to prevent it from happening. He would then be subject to California’s 13.3% income tax rate, and he’d be playing in a minor league ballpark, for a glorified minor league franchise.
Furthermore, I knew nothing about the guy before finding out about this story, but it’s interesting to deduce his journey through his statistics alone. He debuted in 2019, had three well above average seasons with one injury-marred flop in the middle, but impressive enough to make the Pirates offer him a huge nine-figure deal to buy out his arbitration seasons and secure him for the next eight. And in classic, got-the-bag player performance, he has two okay seasons but aren’t even close to the heights he reached in his 6.0 bWAR 2021 season, but apparently the man has fallen off a cliff in this 2025 season, already worth a horrendous -0.7 bWAR at the time I’m writing this.
He’s still going to be due nearly $75M over the next six seasons, and considering the downward trend he’s headed now, it’ll probably be the last big money he’s going to make in his career, so I suppose he should be trying his best to avoid getting shipped off to somewhere where nearly half of it is going to be assimilated by the IRS.
Either way, my final word on Bryan Reynolds is that man be dumb, blacklisting some of the richest and contending teams in the league. There’s nothing inherently wrong with being in it just to make money, but me personally, anyone who doesn’t want to win while getting rich is missing something, and I’d rather them get the fuck out and make way for someone who wants everything including the bag.
When the Pirates do inevitably move him, because he still fits the mold of a good trade chip, I hope he gets shipped off to The A’s, Rockies, White Sox, Marlins or some other shitty mid franchise who have no desire to win. To which, at this point in time, the Braves would actually be a club that might work with him, but here’s hoping that doesn’t happen, because I sure as fuck don’t want a dork like him.