You may not like what he said, but that doesn't mean Blake Snell was wrong.
Snell, the 2018 American League Cy Young Award winner with the Tampa Bay Rays, was candid during a session Wednesday on his Twitch account.
"I love baseball to death," Snell said. "It's just not worth it."
It was a discussion about players getting paid and their safety if/when the Major League Baseball resumes its season. After concerns about COVID-19 shut down spring training, the owners and the Major League Baseball Players Association came to an agreement if the 2020 season was played, the salaries of the players would be pro-rated to the amount of games played. You play 50 percent of the games, you get 50 percent of your pay.
Seems simple. And fair.
Well, not so fast. Earlier last week, the owners approved a proposal to present to the union when it came to salaries if the season resumes. And in this one, it wasn't pro-rated. It was now a 50-50 split of all revenues.
You don't have to be a math major to figure out if fans aren't allowed into the stands, which likely they won't be, there will be a drop in revenue. There's a very good chance your 50 percent of the pie, which will be shared by what figures be in the neighborhood of 900 players, won't match what was previously agreed to by the owners.
Snell, who was supposed to make $7 million this season, wasn't the only Major Leaguer to call foul.
"He ain't lying. He's right," Phillies outfielder Bryce Harper said on his own Twitch account. "He's speaking the truth, bro. I ain't mad at him. Somebody's gotta say it. Good for him."
Then Thursday night, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred was talking about the owners' proposal on CNN. He said if the season is played and a player would test positive for COVID-19, his teammates would not necessarily be quarantined for 14 days as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends.
I know Snell would be safer on the mound than the general population during daily life. But if MLB did do the quarantine, you could logically assume that team would have to forfeit two weeks of games. And that's the last thing Manfred and the owners would want. The owners have to believe you can't stop all 30 teams for two weeks, then restart. Once you stop, there will be no restart until spring training in 2021.
Negotiations continue between the owners and the union. But the clock on the 2020 Major League Baseball season is ticking. If games are going to resume around July 4 as proposed, the second session of spring training needs to begin in about three weeks.
If players and owners can't reach a new agreement, it looks like there won't be baseball this summer. And there's no winner there - the players, the owners or the fans. Except maybe the National League fans that won't have to endure the horror of a designated hitter for a few months.