Will MLB’s Latest Settlement With the Players’ Union Cost Athletes Their Salary?

Major League Baseball’s decision to shorten the season will cost some athletes more than $100 million of their wages!

Although MLB and its players’ guild exchanged views, they have not settled the issue. The Union reps even shunned MLB’s offer to compensate players with a 33-5 Vote. However, the League’s commissioner Rob Manfred plans on inflicting a shortened season—the usual 162 games are expected to drop to 60 games!

Alan Tan Photography/shutterstock: MLB has a new settlement with the players’ union

This is definitely not what the baseball fans are used to as the sport usually dominates the month of July overpowering all other big shot sports leagues. These negotiations seem like it will be over by the induction of the games in 2021; that is how intense these discussions are!

Maybe there will be a halt of current games following the bitter back and forth negotiations, and that would be a big blow to baseball fans everywhere.

With MLB’s up-to-the-minute scheme, all participants will receive only 37% of their usual salary. That is understandable because they will be contending in only a fraction of the routine number of matches.

Joseph Sohm/shutterstock: MLB reduced their players’ salaries

Still, it is much better than the zero income of the 40 million Americans who stand jobless with the global pandemic.

Even the lower percentage we talked about earlier adds up to $2.5 billion, while their typical wage is a whopping $4 billion.
The comprehensive plan will nick the sport’s most prominent players (including Mike Trout, Gerrit Cole, Nolan Arenado, Justin Verlander, and David Price) of a collective sum of $108 million!

Gerrit Cole was endorsed for the highest-paid contract in Baseball history as per the average annual value. The pact was signed for nine years, and the deal was supposed to pay him $36 million every year until 2028, which sums up to $324 million.

The annual salary even tied him up with the 3-time MVP who topped the games for several years. Now the game’s superstars will receive a relatively “smaller” $13.3 million.

Like all pro players, Cole and Trout earned a reimbursement of $286,500 in April and May. Other players were also compensated amounts ranging from $16,500 to $60,000. They’re lucky since they got paid whether the season was played or not!

Keeton Gale/shutterstock: Baseball players are lucky that they are getting paid

Cole and Trout do have the bulkiest wages among the current players, but another player who last contended in 2016 is expected to receive the biggest paycheck this year. Ken Rosenthal, a.k.a Prince Fielder was compelled to retreat after undergoing a couple of neck injuries back then, but he’s back on the field now.

MLB is set to commence around the 24th of July, although the rapidly increasing Corona Virus cases across the country greatly impact all sports events. Training sites in places like Arizona and Florida have closed after some players were tested positive for the virus.

Let’s just hope that training will begin soon, so we can sit back, and binge watch some baseball matches, shortened season or not!