Ex-Jay Vernon Wells pitches hardball solution to MLB standoff

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This article was published 25/02/2022 (1668 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“You’ve got to be willing to shut the whole thing down.”

That’s what Vernon Wells, one of the greatest Blue Jays of the franchise’s Dark Period (1994-2014), had to say about the ongoing labour dispute that has seen, to this point, a delayed start to spring training and is just days away from threatening to push back the start of the regular season.

Wells, the Jays’ player representative during his 12 years with the club, was a guest on the latest episode of my “Deep Left Field” podcast and after reminiscing about his tenure with the team and sharing stories about Roy Halladay, Carlos Delgado, Jose Bautista, Reed Johnson and others, we talked about what’s going on with the game right now.

“I think you have a commissioner (Rob Manfred) who is emboldened by his owners, who is allowed to really try to put his imprint on this agreement,” said Wells, opposing the idea that Manfred is simply doing the bidding of MLB ownership. “And you have a union (that) has consistently been the strongest of any of the major sports.”

In 2002, his first full season in the big leagues, Wells was the Jays’ union rep as players and owners came to a midnight agreement on Aug. 31, averting a strike by hours. That left a mark.

“Me, being a first-year player,” he remembered, “having to tell guys, ‘You need to get ready to pack your stuff, we’re walking out of here,’ it educated me on just how hard it is to come to terms with one side (that’s) paying millions and millions of dollars to another side, and the side that’s getting paid millions of dollars has an extremely strong backbone for what we see as our value as a unit.”

The longtime Blue Jay understands the dire straits in which baseball finds itself.

“This already looks bad,” an exasperated Wells said. “The NHL is doing well. The NFL just probably had its greatest post-season ever. The NBA has constantly done such a great job of marketing its players and the game being so entertaining that baseball (had) already taken a step back. Now you add this on, we’re falling back even more.”

But the three-time all-star, whose name is still near the top of the Jays’ all-time leaderboard in several categories, believes that it’s all worth it.

“Each decision that (they) make as a union now affects the guys to come,” Wells explained. “It’s (the players’) responsibility to leave the game better than it was when we got here. And when you decide that you’re going to be a union rep, that’s a responsibility that you take, and you have to be willing to fight the ugly and nasty battles that come with it.”

According to various reports out of Jupiter, Fla., where representatives of ownership and the players have met this week, the sides are far apart money-wise on such items as a minimum salary, a bonus pool for players who aren’t yet eligible for arbitration, and how many teams would participate in a draft lottery. Not to mention the competitive balance tax, which has acted as a salary cap and expired when the last collective agreement did back in December.

Wells isn’t optimistic that owners are going to bend on their positions anytime soon.

“The owners know (they) have to pay the players millions of dollars during the regular season,” Wells pointed out. “The owners are going to make their money in the post-season. So why would the owners do anything at this point to budge off of anything?

“Owners always think that the game can survive without the players,” Wells continued. “I remember hearing someone in a front office saying that this league is bigger than the players. No, it really isn’t. You can go ahead and put some of these guys out there who think they’re big-league ballplayers and they’re just not. You can’t replicate that.”

The way for the players to make a deal that they see is fair is to make the owners understand what they’re willing to give up, hence the threat to sit out a long time.

“That’s what will start moving things, in my opinion,” said Wells. “When (owners) realize the players (are) willing to sit out this whole year: We lose out on our money and you lose out on your money, and it’s a lose-lose for everybody. It’s not just going to be a lose-lose for the players.”

Might as well call it a lose-lose-lose, the last one being for the fans.

Mike Wilner is a Toronto-based baseball columnist for the Star and host of the baseball podcast “Deep Left Field.” Follow him on Twitter: @wilnerness