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“Do You Like the Padres–Would You Do This Deal?”

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it is the prerogative of the worker to dislike the boss.

It is the reason we have unions, and the age-old employer-vs-employee fight.

So the battle lines are drawn in the sand.  They may be blood in the water.

The owners salary cut proposal is massive, that coming on top of the decision the players would give back at least half their salary for half the season being cancelled.

But I am not taking a 67% pay-cut just so I can put on the Brown & Gold Padres colors this year.

That is what Commissioner Rob Manfred and the club owners (Ron Fowler-Peter Seidler etc) have presented to the Players Association.  Massive pay-cuts.

I did the math, with the help of a Player Agent, to determine the specifics of the 2020-Padres payroll, if players accepted what the owners proposed on Wednesday.

Are you ready for this?  Sit down.  Hold on.  Curb your tongue.

The Padres were projected to have a (144M) payroll this coming season.  If the players agreed to what was delivered to them by the Commissioner, the Padres major league payroll would be (33.8M) when baseball starts up..

That’s right.

The top 10-players on the roster, the big money stars from Manny Machado-Eric Hosmer-Wil Myers thru Craig Stammen and Drew Pomeranz, could make (24.8M).  They were supposed to make (112.6M this coming season.

Do you think Machado wants to go from (30M) to (4.97M)…Myers (20M-to-3.9M)…Hosmer from (20M-to-3.9M)….Garrett Richards (8.5M-to-2.1M)….Tommy Pham (7.9M-to-2M)?  And it goes on and on.

The mid-level players, from Austin Hedges to Luis Perdomo, 8-players in all, would get (5.4M) total in salaries instead of the original (13M) they were due..

The 14–players at the bottom of the roster, from Fernando Tatis to Trent Grisham and in between, would wind up with (3.6M) total in salaries.  Each of those players makes the minimum salaries of 285-to-300,000 a year based on service time.

Get your calculator out.  You do the math.

The Padres would be paying their players just 42% of the payroll they were supposed to get if we had a regular opening day.  The scoreboard reads…we pay you (33.8M)….not (144M).

So now we have all the rhetoric flowing from the players and the union.  Words stretching from ‘disrespect’…’livid’…..’corrupt’….’thieves’ etc-etc.

Baseball has to be played, and I am not talking just about the well being of the fans and the emotional needs, but the true reality.

If there is no revenue this year, next year’s revenues likely drop.  The free agent market plunges as bad as Wall Street just a month ago.

The givebacks and rebates to the TV partners will be huge.  They are not such good friends to give you truckloads of money with no games to be televised.

The NFL and College Football pull away farther in popularity.  Everyone between the lines will be a villain, including those people upstairs.

So now that everyone has had something to say, if I am the Union, I help the owners out, not be to be a good friend, but because we both know what we need, players on the field, games to be played, televised, and an expanded fall postseason.

I tell the owners, no further cuts.  We agreed on a pro-rated deal based on the 82-game schedule.  Because there will be no fans in the stands, we will take a 10% additional cut per player from the pro-rated shared.  But you pay us 50% of salary this year, and the other 50% to be paid to us in 2021 when things come back.  And we do get a cut of  the 1-B Television money for the expanded playoffs, and you pay us half of that this year, the other half next year.

The owners want the players to be partners, but the owners don’t want to open their books across the board to show the Union what the total revenues for baseball are.

You know things like Skybox revenue, stadium signage deals, MLB media income, non baseball stadium revenue.  That should all be part of the pie, if we are partners.

The NHL-the NBA did, they opened the books,  and they have labor peace.

You think an angry Donald Fehr went from hated in baseball to beloved in hockey?  He got to see it all.

David Stern did the same with the NBA Union, and you know how many 40M a year players there are now-everyone cashes checks.

Once the football players rid themselves of Gene Upshaw, DeMaurice Smith delivered the wealth to players. The NFL has a formula too that shares enormous amounts of money with the Union.

If I were King, that’s what I’d do.  I like the Padres, but I am not taking a 67%-pay-cut to play for you.

I will await your replies.

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