BATTER UP: MLB and the Players Association need to resolve money issues

Arte Moreno has a net worth of $3.3 billion.

The principal owner of the Anaheim Angels is wealthy beyond our wildest dreams. Moreno could spend $1 million every day for the next three years and still have more than $2.2 billion to his name.

It’s important we put this in context when we consider what’s to come in the next week. Major League Baseball’s owners and players will exchange financial proposals with the game’s immediate future at stake. [...]

Arte Moreno has a net worth of $3.3 billion.

The principal owner of the Anaheim Angels is wealthy beyond our wildest dreams. Moreno could spend $1 million every day for the next three years and still have more than $2.2 billion to his name.

It’s important we put this in context when we consider what’s to come in the next week. Major League Baseball’s owners and players will exchange financial proposals with the game’s immediate future at stake.

Whether or not clubs take the field for a curtailed 2020 season depends on reaching some sort of agreement. Certain actions over the last week have helped set the tone for why a deal could prove difficult to strike. According to a report from The Athletic, Moreno is set to furlough a significant chunk of his full-time scouting staff and other employees beginning on June 1.

Such deep staff cuts seem impossible to frame as necessary when dealing from such a position of strength. Moreno could certainly withstand losses at the gate both through this season and into 2021 while still maintaining his financial viability. The person uncovering future talent for Anaheim in Florida or Texas or on the Pacific Rim would certainly seem to have less security.

But perhaps we’ve stumbled upon just how dreadfully the MLB Players Association has managed its messaging throughout recent decades of labor relations. It certainly feels like most of the public would blame the players if there is no season. The reasoning, of course, is that they would be the ones withholding services in the midst of a global pandemic.

The players are the most visible part of the equation. They’re the ones we see on television both during games and commercials. We know their salaries and use those against them when they underperform for our teams of choice.

But what of the owners? Those record profits they raked in over the last three fiscal years can’t possibly be gone. These growing assets they hold — the clubs, the ballparks, the concessions, the surrounding land — can’t possibly be depreciating in value anytime soon.

Look no further to assign blame than MLBPA executive director Tony Clark, who ceded the high ground to the owners by allowing them to make the first proposals regarding both health and economics. Clark allowed their vision of how baseball should resume to shape public opinion first. He refused comment when information could have been offered regarding how and when the players could and would return to the field.

Then there’s Blake Snell. The talented Rays left-hander offered himself up as the face of entitlement for comments made on his personal Twitch stream in early May. Snell delivered a series of sound bites that couldn’t have been more tone deaf, considering his $50-million contract and the 35 million fellow Americans currently unemployed.

"I want all mine."

"I’m risking my life."

"I’ve got to get my money."

That’s nightmare messaging to refute if you’re the MLBPA. And it’s allowed to fester in the court of public relations because the MLBPA has set such a poor precedent. Snell’s general premise that owners shouldn’t be allowed to demand more salary relief from the players is the correct one.

Aren’t the players just like us? Remove the numbers from our pay stubs and we’re all just the managed, not the managers. Our bosses all have far more money than we do. They’re all trying to preserve what they’ve built instead of allowing us a chance to ascend to their level.

Red Sox principal owner John Henry was shamed into returning public funds in the United Kingdom to help pay employees of his Liverpool soccer club. Never mind that Henry’s two principal assets, Boston and the defending European champions, are worth roughly $5.6 billion. Henry’s first instinct was to take money that could have been allocated elsewhere.

Couldn’t folks like Moreno find other avenues of raising funds? Angel Stadium is located on priceless tracts of land in Southern California. His financial portfolio isn’t strong enough to secure a line of credit over the next 18 months? Other MLB owners couldn’t do the same before their financial fortunes ultimately turn?

Those are the questions the MLBPA should have you asking. Instead, we’re comparing ourselves to the millionaires in their midst and wondering why they deserve their fair share.

bkoch@providencejournal.com

On Twitter: @BillKoch25