Don't expect big leaguers to ever fight for Kris Bryants of the world
After the Chicago Cubs sent spring sensation Kris Bryant to Triple-A on Monday, the Major League Baseball Players Association said it would address the practice of service-time-related demotions through “litigation, bargaining or both.”
The response was reasonable and strong. I agree with the union’s statement that Bryant’s demotion is “bad” for baseball. It could be bad for the Cubs, too, if the move negatively impacts their record or the atmosphere of a ballyhooed (and supposedly meritocratic) farm system.
Clearly, the MLBPA leadership is ready to make an issue of service-time manipulation for top prospects. But what about the MLBPA membership?
Bryant is not currently a member of the MLBPA, because he’s signed to a minor-league contract and hasn’t been added to the Cubs’ major-league roster.
Mike Olt, now the Cubs’ presumed starter at third base, is a union member.
If Olt and Bryant constituted a precinct in a referendum on this aspect of the collective bargaining agreement, the tally wouldn’t be 1-1. It would be 1-0. And while I profess no knowledge of Olt’s political leanings, I assume he’d support the status quo -- the arrangement in which he has a job.
The union is likely to advocate for a Kris Bryant Rule, in some form, when the current CBA expires after the 2016 season. But at some point, major-league players will ask themselves: Is this really worth jeopardizing those two decades of labor peace?
In 2017, the gross pay on Clayton Kershaw’s biweekly paycheck will be roughly $2.75 million. Miguel Cabrera’s will be about $2.3 million. Think they’ll go on strike for even one pay period so the next Kris Bryant doesn’t need to spend two weeks in the minors?
The same logic applies to another common complaint among player agents: the soft cap on amateur signing bonuses, a concession MLB won during the last round of bargaining.
Undoubtedly, many players empathize with Brady Aiken, who didn’t sign with the Astros as the No. 1 pick in last year’s draft and recently underwent Tommy John surgery. (There’s probably even greater sentiment for Jacob Nix, a fellow 2014 draft pick whose deal with the Astros was scuttled because of how the lack of a deal with Aiken impacted the team’s bonus pool.) But it may be difficult for MLBPA executive director Tony Clark to convince a middle reliever earning a very comfortable living at the league minimum ($507,500) that the plight of a future Aiken or Nix is worth threatening a walkout.
Current big leaguers have known nothing but labor peace and mostly booming times in the only major North American pro sport without a salary cap. And it’s hard to imagine major-league players will empty the benches for mostly minor-league issues.
Would the union strike over the Bryant issue? No. The Aiken case? Certainly not. How about the qualifying offer, which was not as severe of an impediment to the 2014-15 free-agent class as in previous years of the current CBA? The league’s aggressive Biogenesis investigation, which is already fading from the memories of many players? The leaks about Josh Hamilton’s possible drug suspension, which prompted a terse statement from the union?
The answer to each, individually, is no. And so, for there to be real labor strife in baseball -- the kind we have not seen in 20 years -- players will need to be convinced that a system that has made them extraordinarily wealthy is, in fact, flawed. The argument is difficult to make, yet I wonder if someone is going to try, anyway.
