Reds news: Players unhappy with the idea of proposed salary cuts

A few Cincinnati Reds players voiced their displeasure with MLB’s proposed salary cuts.

Major League Baseball’s initial proposal to the players was not well received. Even some Reds players took to social media to voice their displeasure. Amir Garrett and Trevor Bauer let it be known that MLB’s proposed salary cuts were probably not going to be a good place to start.

According to ESPN.com, Garrett and Bauer were not alone. The player’s union was particularly upset with MLB’s drastic cuts in salary. The structure adjusted player’s salaries based on sliding scale, allowing those players who make the least amount to keep the most, while those players making multi-millions would see the steepest cuts.

Amir Garrett took to Twitter with a post reading, “Man there is so much I wanna say, but ima keep quiet.” Trevor Bauer, as only he can, added a sarcastic remark to his Twitter account with a post reading, “Alright… y’all want another video of my thoughts on this or would you rather I just “shut up and play baseball”??”

Tucker Barnhart’s Twitter account was calm on Tuesday night. Unlike Bauer, Barnhart hasn’t been overly outspoken about the disagreements between MLB and the Player’s Association as to how the season should restart, however, the Reds catcher is the team’s player representative.

While the coronavirus pandemic has halted sports all over the United States, Major League Baseball has been working feverishly over the past few weeks to come up with a plan to restart the 2020 season that was halted during spring training.

However, health and safety protocols have become secondary to the economics of the discussions. According to ESPN, the drastic salary cuts proposed to the players on Tuesday would see a player who makes league minimum, let’s use Nick Senzel as an example, receive a 10% cut from the already reduced  prorated salary.

So, a player like Senzel, who was slated to take home $563,500 would instead receive $256,706 for the proposed 82-game schedule. Now, a player like Mike Moustakas, who signed a four-year/$64M contract would incur a bigger cut.

Players making $10M-$20M per season would see a 70% reduction in their 2020 salary. To put it in perspective, for an 82-game season, Moustakas would earn about $2.4M as opposed to the $16M he was supposed to take home this season.

The negotiations are just getting started, but many experts around the league believe that if an agreement cannot be racked by June 1, we may not see baseball return in 2020, which would be devastating for the league and tragic for the fans. My advice; figure it out!