Sources: Frustrated players want MLBPA exec out
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Jeff Passan, ESPN
Player leaders expressed frustration at Major League Baseball Players Association executives during a videoconference call Monday night, the culmination of a week in which players advocated for the ouster of the union’s chief labor negotiator, sources told ESPN.
On a call with dozens of player representatives from the major and minor league units of the union that lasted nearly three hours, a majority of players in an informal vote told MLBPA executive director Tony Clark they wanted to replace deputy executive director Bruce Meyer with Harry Marino, the lawyer who spearheaded the unionization efforts of minor league players, sources said.
Clark, who has the ability to hire and fire staff members, declined to levy a judgment on Meyer’s future during the call, according to sources.
Clark, Meyer and Marino declined comment when reached by ESPN.
Clark did follow up with all players Tuesday, noting in a memo obtained by ESPN that the call was done to “ensure that there is complete transparency” regarding player concerns and noting that in the coming days, the union and player leadership will reconvene to continue to “work through how best to move our organization and Player fraternity forward.”
The move by players came amid an offseason that has seen a billion-dollar decrease in spending by major league teams and the extended free agency of World Series standout Jordan Montgomery and reigning National League Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell, the latter of whom agreed to a two-year, $62 million contract with the San Francisco Giants on Monday.
Over the previous 24 hours, 21 major league player representatives, after consulting with the rank and file, agreed on a text chain, sources said, to back the appointment of Marino, who joined the MLBPA in September 2022 when it formed a minor league unit recognized by MLB. Marino, who was hired as an assistant general counsel at the union, left in July 2023, less than three months after negotiating the first collective bargaining agreement for minor league players, who on the call were overwhelming in their support of him and who hold 34 of the 72 voting positions on the union’s executive board.
Marino, 33, had generated support among players to take over the union’s labor unit — which he pledged to expand with veteran lawyers — in recent weeks. Players, sources said, lined up behind Marino, also calling for an audit of the MLBPA’s spending. Multiple high-powered agents backed Marino’s candidacy, sources said, with the perception that Meyer, 62, was ideologically aligned with agent Scott Boras.
On the call, players told ESPN, Meyer vociferously denied that being the case and advocated for his work since being hired in 2018. The discussion about Meyer’s future, players on the call said, was animated and at times argumentative — and the lack of a resolution frustrated some who had backed Marino. Late in the call, sources said, players requested that Marino be looped in to make his case as deputy executive director. Clark did not accede to the request, sources said.
The potential appointment of Marino was not supported by all the players on the call, sources said. Some questioned his age and installing someone with a relative lack of experience in a high-ranking position to negotiate with a veteran labor team at MLB. The case against Marino had circulated among a small group of player leaders leading up to the call, which Clark called for about two hours before it took place, sources said.
Meyer oversaw the stalled return-to-play negotiations during the height of the pandemic in 2020, prompting commissioner Rob Manfred to implement a 60-game season. Meyer routinely clashed with the league during its 99-day lockout of the players after the expiration of the 2016 CBA. Against the advice of the eight-player executive council that serves as the highest-ranking members of the union, the rank and file voted to agree to a deal in March 2022 that included an increase in luxury tax thresholds and minimum salaries, added a draft lottery and other anti-tanking measures, implemented a $50 million pre-arbitration bonus pool, expanded the playoffs from 10 to 12 teams and gave MLB the right to change on-field rules.
After lavishing a record $3.9 billion on free agents in the winter of 2022-23, MLB teams pulled back this offseason as questions about the future of local television rights roiled the industry. More than one-third of the $2.9 billion in free agent spending this winter went to two players: a record $700 million for Shohei Ohtani — $680 million of which is deferred for a decade — and $325 million for Yoshinobu Yamamoto, both with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Two historical financial behemoths, the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, committed less than $50 million to free agents. Eight teams — the Oakland Athletics, Baltimore Orioles, Washington Nationals, Tampa Bay Rays, Minnesota Twins, Miami Marlins, Cleveland Guardians and Colorado Rockies — guaranteed less than $15 million.
Disillusionment among players, sources said, burbled in recent days after the Giants released veteran infielder J.D. Davis, who had beaten the team in an arbitration hearing for a $6.9 million salary. Because salaries won in arbitration cases are not guaranteed — a long-standing rule that was not changed in the most recent labor negotiations — the Giants were required to pay Davis only one-sixth of his salary ($1.15 million). He signed a one-year deal with Oakland for an additional $2.5 million.
The cases of standout left-handed starting pitchers Snell and Montgomery as well as the below-expected salaries of other veteran free agents further irritated players, they said, and prompted disillusionment.
“Guys are just trying to figure out what we’re going to do with the next CBA,” Detroit Tigers pitcher and MLBPA executive board member Jack Flaherty told reporters Tuesday. “How are we going to make improvements?
“Things are just not working out (with free agency) as well as they had the first two years. Guys are trying to figure out how to get ready for the next one.”
The MLBPA had hired Meyer, who had served as a lawyer for the other three major men’s professional sports unions, as its senior director of collective bargaining in September 2018, following a slowly developing free agent market during the 2017-18 offseason. The five-year labor deal struck between the league and the union in November 2016 was widely seen as a win for MLB, pressuring Clark to create the position.
The union promoted Meyer to deputy executive director in July 2022, strengthening his position as second-in-command to Clark, the All-Star first baseman who became the first former major league player to lead the union. Clark, 51, joined the MLBPA in 2010 and in 2013 was voted as the union’s sixth executive director after the death of Michael Weiner. The MLBPA gave Clark a five-year contract extension in November 2022.
Marino, a former minor league player in the Orioles and Arizona Diamondbacks organizations, grew to prominence as the executive director of Advocates for Minor Leagues, the group that leveraged the collective force of minor league players to secure improvements in housing before coalescing into a union. In the minor league collective bargaining agreement — negotiated by a group that included Marino and Meyer — players at all domestic levels received pay increases of at least $15,000 a year and codified an array of other benefits not previously offered by teams.
The deal came in the wake of MLB’s $185 million payout to settle a class-action lawsuit filed by minor league players who alleged the league had committed minimum wage violations.
MILWAUKEE — The Cincinnati Reds lost 1-0 to the Milwaukee Brewers on Thursday night to become only the second team in the live-ball era (since 1920) to lose three consecutive 1-0 games.
The Reds joined the Philadelphia Phillies, who lost three straight in the same fashion in 1960, according to ESPN Research.
“Nobody’s happy with what’s happened the last three games,” Reds manager Terry Francona said after the string of 1-0 losses continued in the opener of a four-game series at Milwaukee. “We’ll figure it out together. I feel strongly about that.”
Cincinnati’s lineup showcased its potential Monday in a 14-3 victory over the Texas Rangers, but the Reds haven’t scored since.
Texas’ Nathan Eovaldi outdueled Carson Spiers on Tuesday. Jack Leiter and four Texas relievers combined for 10 strikeouts Wednesday as the Reds wasted a brilliant performance from Hunter Greene.
Milwaukee’s Nestor Cortes shut down Cincinnati on Thursday, allowing one hit, striking out six and walking two over six innings.
Cincinnati’s Nick Lodolo gave up four hits and one unearned run in 6⅔ innings Thursday, but he took the loss because the Reds mustered just two hits.
“It’s part of the game, you know?” Lodolo said. “I’ll be honest with you. Obviously I want us to score, but I’m not really thinking about it. I’ve got to do my job at the end of the day, regardless. We’ll turn it around. I guarantee that.”
That’s the attitude Francona wants to see from his pitchers as Cincinnati’s hitters try to break out of their slump.
“We’re not going to have a situation where it’s ‘us’ when we win and it’s ‘they’ when we lose,” Francona said. “We’ll do this together.”
Francona said there’s no common thread between the games that explains his lineup’s struggles. The Reds have faced different styles of pitchers each time.
Eovaldi is a veteran right-hander who went the distance while allowing four hits and no walks. Leiter’s a hard-throwing rookie right-hander. Cortes, a veteran left-hander, doesn’t have the velocity of Eovaldi or Leiter but effectively mixed his cutter and changeup with his fastball.
Cincinnati’s struggles Thursday may have been particularly frustrating because Cortes looked so awful in his last start, a 20-9 loss to the New York Yankees. Cortes allowed homers on each of his first three pitches that day and ended up yielding eight hits and five walks in two innings of a game that drew attention to the Yankees’ use of “torpedo bats.”
The Reds made Cortes look like an entirely different pitcher.
“It was embarrassing, what happened to me last time,” Cortes said. “I think, as a starter, you’ve got 30 or 32 of these. There’s going to be a lot of bad ones throughout the way. You’ve just got to learn how to brush them off and go to the next one. That’s what I did.”
The Reds’ lone hit off Cortes came from Jose Trevino, who delivered a one-out double in the third off his former Yankees teammate. Cincinnati’s only other hit Thursday was a single by Jeimer Candelario off Elvis Peguero in the seventh.
Cincinnati has a combined nine hits, three walks and 27 strikeouts during the skid.
“To be totally honest, you see this all the time throughout a baseball season,” Trevino said. “Pitchers will pick up the hitters and the hitters will pick up the pitchers. It will all switch at some point. We’re going to need them. They’re going to need us. And at some point, we’re all going to be together. That’s just how the baseball season goes.
“Right now, our pitchers are doing really well and our hitters, we’re grinding. It’s not like we’re out there trying to give outs away. We’re out there putting some good at-bats together. We’re going to turn this thing around. I have full confidence in this team.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Los Angeles Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman, who slipped and fell in the shower Sunday morning, was put on the injured list for his ankle injury, the team announced Thursday.
The move is retroactive to Monday. He hasn’t played since Saturday and is 3-for-12 this season with two home runs and four RBIs.
The incident happened at home during the Dodgers’ off day. Freeman’s wife had to drive him to Dodger Stadium on Sunday for a three-hour treatment session. By the time it was over, he was able to drive himself home. An X-ray showed no serious damage.
Freeman sprained his right ankle on a play at first base in late September and struggled in the first two rounds of the postseason, but it was hardly evident during the World Series. He homered in the first four games and had 12 RBIs, earning the World Series MVP award as the Dodgers beat the New York Yankees in five games.
He had debridement surgery in December to remove loose bodies in the ankle.
The Dodgers (8-0) begin a three-game series at the Philadelphia Phillies on Friday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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