SF Giants: Evan Longoria and all players want fair pay during a potential season

SF Giants’ third baseman Evan Longoria recently voiced his displeasure about the MLB.

SF Giants‘ third baseman Evan Longoria took to Twitter to express his thoughts about the impasse in negotiations between the players and owners in Major League Baseball.

Longoria is just like you and me.

If he, his Giants teammates, and the other MLB players make their return to the diamond in 2020, presumably in a commissioner-mandated fashion at this point, they want to be compensated fairly for their efforts.

Following a statement issued by MLB’s league office regarding the “disappointment,” it felt that the players’ association would halt further negotiating, the Giants’ third baseman was quite terse in his response to the league via Twitter Saturday.

The 12-year major-league veteran is right, it is simple. At least it should be.

While it would be quite tedious to revisit the entire sequence of events that has led to the current impasse in talks between the players and owners, the gist of the negotiations can be summed up adequately in a recent tweet by Cubs utility infielder Daniel Descalso.

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Of course, we should provide some further explanation about what’s going on.

The league and the owners, who corroborate on one side, have sent forth multiple proposals in an attempt to entice their players to accept a deal to resume playing.

The one theme that has recurred in each of those proposals: calling for additional pay cuts on top of a formerly agreed to pro-rated salary in advance of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Both sides have expressed extreme stubbornness in refusing to establish a middle ground during these talks. The owners are attempting to somehow maximize their profits, with the obstacle of no fans looming large over their expected decrease in revenue for 2020.

SF Giants’ third baseman Evan Longoria and the rest of the MLB players are asking for a pro-rated salary.

The players are demanding full pro-rated pay for any amount of games played over the course of a season.

It’s quite evident how this stalemate has gotten both sides nowhere, and with no immediate solution in sight, it’s plausible (but far from certain) that we see commissioner Rob Manfred implement a shortened season that would result in approximately 50 games played (the exact number is still to be determined).

The abbreviated regular season would be followed by a normal postseason format that would conclude with the World Series sometime in late October.

Manfred was given the power to make and enforce these conditions as part of a March agreement between the owners and players.

What’s more, this falling out only looks worse when put in the context of the other major sports. For example, the NBA and NHL have approved plans to return to action by July.

The NFL, whose season doesn’t start until September, is expecting to proceed as normal with their plans as well.

Something important to note in the cases of the NBA, NHL, and NFL is that they all have a labor structure that is more conducive to approving restart plans.

Their respective CBAs call for measures that dole out regulated portions of the accrued revenue generated in a season to both the players and owners.

This makes their path to an agreement much easier.

In baseball, no such framework exists. Essentially, it boils down to the owners getting way more than their fair share in the event that profits exceed costs.

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Evidently, this will not be the case in 2020 for MLB if a season occurs, hence the rationale behind the owners’ collective impetus to have players take pay cuts.

This process has also drawn the ire of baseball fans everywhere, who are watching these proceedings stall out as other sports start to gain some semblance of clarity for now and for the future.

Not being able to attend games at the ballpark due to the pandemic is unfortunate enough, how much more can even the most loyal of fans take with respect to the future of the game?

Considering the net worth of many team owners in baseball, the demands of Evan Longoria and others don’t seem too outlandish.

Additionally, as would be expected, no MLB players are currently getting paid, as they haven’t played a game yet this season.

Therefore, when things do resume, the players want to earn their money. And that’s not the wrong feeling to have.

At the end of the day, they are merely employees, subjects of the larger encompassing system. In that sense, they’re just like the rest of us.