Earlier this week, Braves Hall of Famer Tom Glavine laid things out pretty blatantly for the current players. Even if the players are 100 percent justified in fighting over money with the league, they are going to be viewed as the bad guys, Glavine said. Another Braves Hall of Famer, Chipper Jones, has a similar message.
Jones was on CBS Sports Radio on Wednesday night and said he's not as optimistic about seeing a 2020 season as he was before talks between the league and players union began. The two sides are currently negotiating how a shortened season could work, and player compensation has been one of the key issues.
Here's part of what Jones had to say:
"In all honesty I'm a little less optimistic than I was 10 days, two weeks ago after listening to some key players coming out and speaking out on it. They continue to squabble over dollars and cents, salaries, revenue sharing and all that kinda stuff. There's 30 million people out there that's outta work and the last thing they wanna hear is a bunch of millionaires and billionaires squabble over maybe getting 30-35 percent of their salaries this year.
"Squabbling over money is probably seventh or eighth on the list of most important things to talk about first. Obviously the health measures and whatnot are the most important thing."
Jones, who retired after the 2012 campaign and was set to be an ESPN analyst during the 2020 season, also weighed in on Blake Snell's comments. The Rays ace said that players compromising their safety to return to the field for a further reduced salary was not worth the risk last week on a Twitch stream.
Jones, 48, said the comments were "a little bit of a bad look."
"Blake Snell came out last week and, as a former player, it was not a great look for the players," Jones said. "I think if he would've stuck to the narrative of the health issues and his concerns over that as opposed to 'I'm not gonna play because I'm not gonna get my money,' that was a little bit of a bad look.
"I'm still hopeful that we can get something started the first week of July, July 4th, something like that, 80-90 ballgames by October and a strong postseason. This season's always gonna have an asterisk by it, but the bottom line is the American people clamor for baseball on TV whether fans are present or not."
I laid out my opinion on the matter here and my colleague Dayn Perry explained the problems with a 50-50 revenue split here.
The simple reality, however, is that Glavine and Jones together have seen first-hand that you just can't win on the player side. For whatever reason, a lot of fans -- and we've seen as much with reactions on social media -- often seem to come down on the side of the owners.
There's also the honest and simple reality that Jones mentioned about how many people are unemployed right now. In fact, the MLBPA might have been wise to tell players from the get-go to never publicly mention money. Even if they are right, fans don't want to hear them to argue about money, as Jones said multiple times.
Having no season in 2020 with money being part of the reason why would likely be devastating to the game moving forward. Former players -- like Mark Teixeira -- continue to put pressure on the current players to take a deal. It looks like the players are going to have to give concessions to do so.
