Chicago White Sox right-hander Evan Marshall was right to criticize MLB.
The Chicago White Sox are hoping that the 2020 season will actually happen, but Evan Marshall complained about MLB’s method of getting that to happen.
As detailed by Chuck Garfien of NBC Sports Chicago, Marshall isn’t happy about how the league has tried to frame the issue as the MLBPA is the one stopping the game from returning.
“We’re getting made out to be the bad guys in a lot of newspapers and online outlets because we didn’t agree to the pay cut,” Marshall said on the White Sox Talk Podcast.
This is obviously in response to the league’s proposal that would require players to take a pay cut, despite them already having agreed to take a pro-rated portion of their salaries earlier this year (Jeff Passan of ESPN).
Comments have emerged from players such as Blake Snell and Trevor Bauer as well, which has been considered controversial by many, to say the least.
Nonetheless, Marshall joining that group is the correct decision and MLB should really be embarrassed by the way they have chosen to handle this situation.
Making the players out to be “the bad guys” in this situation is absurd.
The players already agreed to take approximately half their salaries this season by having them be pro-rated.
And now, the league is essentially putting the power of the season into their hands and making it as if they are the ones who don’t want baseball to return if they reject the league’s proposal.
Meanwhile, this is coming at the same time as the league has decided to cut the MLB Draft to as little as five rounds (Mark Townsend of Yahoo Sports) and decided to gut the minor league system of 40 teams (J.J. Cooper of Baseball America).
Those decisions will make major differences for the Chicago White Sox and all of MLB.
Both actions were inherently set to save the league money at the expense of players, many of whom won’t have chances at major league careers now due to those two decisions.
It gets even worse when you add in what they are asking of the players now.
It’s one thing if those two moves were being done with the intention of using the saved money to improve conditions for the current group of players in the game better.
While removing teams comes with wage increases long term for minor leaguers, they are asking for even more concessions from players now.
“Us as players are just trying to protect ourselves and our futures and our values,” Marshall added. “Last year, profits had never been higher. Our salaries don’t change. It’s like when things are great, they get to keep that, but when they’re bad, they’re asking us to share in the losses.”
A common argument I see on Twitter as well is that these are millionaires fighting for more money and, while in some cases that is true, that isn’t the case for all players.
Marshall would be one of those players, who was set to make $1.1 million in 2020 at the start of the year as can be seen on Spotrac.
That is then cut to approximately $550K as a pro-rated salary and, if the league gets their way, he’d be a reduced to a $225 salary for the season.
While that is certainly a liveable salary, it’s ridiculous that they should have to concede more money on their contracts for riskier work conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic.
If the league simply doesn’t think having a season is something they can afford to do, then fine.
But, if there’s no baseball in the South Side or anywhere across the country, they have no right to blame the MLBPA and make it as if they were the ones at fault for this season not happening.