Bleeding Yankee Blue: WILL AROD'S PLEA SAVE BASEBALL?

Monday, May 18, 2020

WILL AROD'S PLEA SAVE BASEBALL?

It's interesting to see Alex Rodriguez's mindset change from player to hopeful owner, someday. His bid to become MLB's newest owner may be over for now, but he has certainly transitioned from a player's mindset to an owner....and that isn't going to sit too well with some current players.

We all want baseball back, but I don't think his recent plea on Twitter is going to help build the bridge between players and owners. Mark Teixeira has already tried his own similar approach when he went gave his own opinion to the media. It didn't go over so well, in fact Dodgers Pitcher Alex Wood called his opinion about it "so stupid."

So now Rodriguez has made his own attempt by posting a video, more of a plea really. It's a nice sentiment but....would Rodriguez the active MLB player have this opinion?

It’s time for owners and players to step up to the plate ... together.

This is a huge opportunity for the game of baseball to take a huge leap forward and show leadership. We are in unprecedented times. pic.twitter.com/F8iMqTVyby
— Alex Rodriguez (@AROD) May 16, 2020

"Players want to play. Fans want to watch and at the end of the day, if you don't play today, you don't win tomorrow, because hopefully, we don't have another situation like this. This is like beyond anything we've ever seen before. I just urge the players and owners to think collectively. If there's $100 in the pie, like the NBA, players take $50 and owners take $50 and we give it to the fans. We thank the fans of baseball."

There's no doubt in my mind that these are athletes and they want to compete. I believe that many of these guys have incredible love for the game, but Mark Teixeira already cashed his check and so did Rodriguez. In fact, to date, Rodriguez is MLB's highest-paid player of all time. He made $455 million over the course of 20 seasons. That's a total he probably would not have reached if he played during a proposed revenue share that is currently being considered. Instead, he might share the same concerns as these current players who are worried that an agreed revenue share today may lead to a salary cap in the future.

Rodriguez made a ton of money without a pro-rated salary or revenue sharing. This is the same guy that did opt-out of his contract with the Yankees before re-signing a record deal. So is it fair for him to tell these current players that they should just take a 50/50 share and play baseball? Would he have had this same opinion if it also applied back in 2010?

I don't think so. We all want baseball back, we miss it terribly but I don't think these opinions from Teixeira or Rodriguez get us anywhere. It's only adding more fuel to the fire. It's only making these current players more angry and it makes the negotiation harder than it already is.

Rodriguez isn't a player anymore, and he's not thinking like one either. He's talking like an owner. His Twitter plea was all from an owner's point of view which is only going to make the salary negotiations even harder. It's time for him to stop trying to negotiate with other people's money. He wouldn't have liked it when he played.

Take a back seat on this one ARod, please.