MLB and the players are in a labor dispute over compensation for a shortened season, and at least one player pointed out some hypocrisy coming from the side of the league.
St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Jack Flaherty responded to a proposal from former MLB pitcher Dontrelle Willis, who suggested MLB play a season of 70-82 games and expand the playoffs. Flaherty took some shots at MLB in response, saying that the league was more concerned with cutting the pay of minor leaguers and other players taking pay cuts.
Flaherty pointed out that MLB’s sliding scale pay-cut proposal would cut the pay of top earners like Mike Trout by around 70 percent. By comparison, he encouraged people to check what MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred’s pay cut is.
According to what ESPN’s Jeff Passan tweeted in April, Manfred and other senior staffers at MLB are taking pay cuts of around 35 percent on average.
It just seems flat-out wrong to ask other highly-paid people to take significantly larger pay cuts than what senior league staffers are taking. That is the point Flaherty is making.
Flaherty, 24, was fourth in NL Cy Young voting last season and led the league with a 0.968 WHIP.
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