Tampa Bay Rays: Why Blake Snell is right to refuse reduced pay in 2020

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Blake Snell (Photo by Julio Aguilar/Getty Images) /

Tampa Bay Rays star pitcher Blake Snell stirred up some controversy by declaring he wouldn’t play for reduced pay in 2020. Here’s why he’s right.

Tampa Bay Rays‘ ace Blake Snell took to Twitch to do his thing and he’s got the baseball world buzzing from his comment. Snell declared that he would not play in 2020 for a reduced salary under increased risk due to the novel coronavirus, or “Rona” as he so eloquently put it.

If you haven’t read about it, you can do so here.

Fans have taken to their keyboards all over the world to call the players spoiled, compare them to healthcare workers, and express their overall outrage over Snell giving us a peek into the minds of the players.

Millionaires vs. Billionaires?

It’s not billionaires vs. millionaires. This is billionaires vs. a few millionaires and mostly guys making a lot less money. The Major League minimum salary is $563,500 in 2020. That is pro-rated over however many games a player plays. The minimum salary for a player on the 40-man roster is just $46,000.

So a player making the 40-man minimum gets called up for five games then he gets an extra $17,391.98 (before taxes), which is nice, but it’s not rich. It doesn’t make that player a millionaire by any means. These guys have a lot to lose right now.

Precedent

Agreeing to these terms would set a terrible precedent and the union is not going to accept it. I mentioned in a previous article how in 1994, the owners claimed they were losing money and wanted a salary cap. This was where the players drew the line in the sand.

Trevor Bauer called the owner’s proposal to split revenue this season “laughable.”

Players Union executive director Tony Clark said, “A system that restricts player pay based on revenues is a salary cap, period.”

He went on to accuse the owners and the league of attempting to utilize a health crisis as leverage.

This isn’t going to end well.

Blake Snell of the Tampa Bay Rays (Photo by Julio Aguilar/Getty Images) /

Backing Blake

He didn’t hide behind the union. He told fans straight up what his thoughts were. They are fair. Yes, when he cut a Scott Steiner-Esque promo about the math involved in his salary, some rolled their eyes and said: “what about normal people who don’t make millions!”

Guess what? Most major leaguers do not make millions of dollars. Here’s a great piece from Beyond the Box Score on the salaries of the 1,200 MLBPA members (40-man rosters x 30 teams + 67 IL at the time). They concluded that 31.4 percent of the union members were due to earn at least a million dollars in 2020. This was prior to the suspension of play.

There are far more players who earn less than a million dollars with small windows to do so than there are millionaires.

The Tampa Bay Rays only have two players that earn over $10 million a year. Charlie Morton was set to earn $15 million for the second-straight year and Kevin Kiermaier was due $10.17 million. After Snell’s $7.6 million the next highest-paid player is Mike Zunino at $4.5 million.

I applaud Blake Snell for his boldness. His confidence to tell fans how he really feels. Yes, there is a heightened risk. Yes, the league is trying to set a precedent for a revenue split. He didn’t have to share his real thoughts with us and he did. I appreciate that.

The players are not quick to accept that the teams will be operating at a loss considering the significant television deals. For example, the Rays’ TV deal is set to double this season over last. Check out this tweet from Jon Heyman quoting Scott Boras:

Regarding MLB plan to seek a 50-50 revenue split, Scott Boras, noting franchise value increases and previous profits (he mentioned a $476M gain in ‘19 for Braves, the one team owned by a public company), said on @JoeandEvan “You don’t privatize the gains and socialize the losses”
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) May 14, 2020

On the next slide, we’ll dive into whether or not he’s a Spoiled Snell or address the questions about whether or not these guys love the game.

Blake Snell of the Tampa Bay Rays (Photo by Tim Warner/Getty Images) /

Spoiled Snell?

If you want to call players spoiled or whiny for their stance on enforcing the standing CBA, then you will only shut them up. We are getting the type of candor and realism that we desire from our ballplayers. It makes them easier to root for to know, not only that they are human beings, but what type of humans they are.

Don’t forget how incredibly difficult it is to get to the major leagues. About ten percent of all NCAA players are drafted into the farm systems, and only 10% of minor leaguers ever touch a big-league field.

Blake Snell is not the only one taking a pay cut this year. Plenty of players whose salaries more closely resemble the fans who call them spoiled millionaires are also in this with him.

They Must Not Love the Game

You don’t make it this far without loving the game. You don’t become one of the best players in the world – the best at each level, grind and work your way to the highest level of baseball in the universe – without loving the game.

These guys live the game in order to get where they are.

Blake Snell is Not a Nurse

They aren’t firefighters, doctors, nurses, police officers, or even Costco or Wal-Mart employees. We do not depend on baseball to survive right now. Granted, we may feel like we do, but we don’t.

I think it’s unfair to compare these players to nurses when Snell is talking about the alteration of the collective bargaining agreement in order to violate it under the premise of a health crisis. Players are talking about risk management in non-essential roles.

Those are my two cents on Blake Snell’s two cents, of course since it’s 2020 we need to pro-rate those over 81 games, then multiply it by .67…. Uh oh! Here come the taxes!

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