Tampa Bay Rays: MLB stars come to Blake Snell’s defense

Tampa Bay Rays star pitcher Blake Snell recently ruffled some feathers with his stance against taking a pay cut to play the 2020 season. Other stars have spoken out in support of the former Cy Young Award winner.

Tampa Bay Rays ace Blake Snell took to Twitch earlier this week and declared during a live stream that he was not interested in playing at a reduced salary in an enhanced risk environment.

“I should not be getting half of what I should be getting paid because the season’s cut in half on top of a 33% cut of the half that’s already there, so I’m really getting like 25%, on top of that it’s getting taxed. So, imagine how much I’m actually making to play, you know what I’m saying? I ain’t making s–t.”

Snell went on to say, “I’m not playing unless I get mine.”

Many people have taken to their keyboards in anger and many in support of the Rays former Cy Young Award winner. Recently a couple of star players stepped up and spoke up.

Bryce Harper commented on Blake Snell’s comments while he himself was live-streaming himself playing a video game. The video can be found at NBC Philadelphia.

Harper said “Bro, he’s speaking the truth bro, I ain’t mad at him. Somebody’s gotta say it, at least he manned up and said it.”

Harper was able to provide this commentary while playing a video game in which he impressively chopped the walls off of an entire house. The other voice in the video was that of Bryson Stott who is a shortstop with the Phillies. We have been unable to confirm if he is in fact, a brother or half-brother, or any kind of relation to Bryce Harper.

Nolan Arenado also weighed in on Snell’s remarks.

“I think he was being honest, just being real,” he told The Athletic. “He made a lot of good points. There are some points he made that were true, that are facts. A lot of it gets misperceived. Trying to get the public to understand us, it’s not going to work very well in our favor.”

Nolan also said he could understand why the remarks could rub fans the wrong way.

“I guarantee if you read the comments, you’re probably thinking, ‘You don’t have to work 12 hours a day. You’re not the one without a job. You’re still getting paid.’ Those people have a right to say that.”

And recently, former player and current ESPN analyst Mark Teixeira urged players to take the deal on ESPN’s “Get Up.”

“Players need to understand that if they turn this deal down and shut the sport down, they’re not making a cent, I would rather make pennies on the dollar and give hope to people and play baseball than not make anything and lose an entire year off their career.”

Current Los Angeles Dodgers LHP Alex Wood responded to Teixeira on Twitter by calling his comments “stupid.”

The saga continues. Trevor Bauer recently took to Youtube to voice his opinion on the matter.

“The ask is basically: ‘Take more risk by getting back sooner and take less pay than we’ve already agreed.’ We’ve already agreed to take … 50 percent pay cut and now they’re asking us to take another pay cut,” Bauer said. “[A 50-50 revenue split] has never been done in baseball. It’s not collectively bargained. It would just be for this season. It doesn’t sit well with me. Slightly lighthearted, but if I’m gonna have to trust my salary to Rob Manfred marketing the game to make more money for the game, I am out on that.”

(h/t Foxnews for the transcription)

Conclusion

The players are not going to agree to a revenue split. We’ve discussed this already in previous articles, but it’s a salary cap and that’s a big no-no to the MLBPA. They are not happy that the owners took these negotiations public. The owners knew the players would decline this pay structure. They also knew that by making the plans for the season public, they would get everyone excited and then be able to blame the players for stopping the momentum to start the season.

Blake Snell was simply being honest with us. As Arenado said, it may be difficult for some people to sympathize, but at least they are being forthright with us. The owners made this a public debate. The players are just responding.

Hopefully, this gets resolved soon and we can get back to talking Rays baseball.