This MLB stuff is getting a little crazy. We’ve got Max Scherzer out here asking owners to open up the books. Marcus Stroman is tweeting that the season “doesn’t look promising.”

Then here comes Trevor Bauer, dropping napalm from a low-flying plane onto a field that was already doused with gasoline and ignited via Elon Musk flamethrower:

Boras was in the news two weeks ago when he triumphantly declared that his clients would not accept anything less than the prorated salaries agreed upon in March. He reps about 100 Major League players, including Bryce Harper, who sided with Blake Snell when the Tampa Bay pitcher said he wasn’t interested in playing for a reduced salary.

“The risk is way the hell higher and the amount of money I’m making is way lower,” said Snell back on May 13th.

Both sides are negotiating through the public right now, which is not atypical, though it still comes off as tone deaf to the average fan, who would love to make $440,000 instead of $1,000,000 to play baseball with the understanding that we’re just trying to figure out a compromise during a global pandemic.

The players keep harping on the fact that they already agreed to a prorated salary back in March, but Chris Carlin I think is 100% spot on when he writes this:

Correctamundo!

This is like agreeing to work 50% of your work week and only being paid 50% of your salary. That’s not a pay cut. You are being paid for the amount of hours you actually do work, which is how we define the word “prorated.”

If players think the MLB proposal is whack, then so be it, but the “prorated” thing keeps missing the strike zone because it’s not even close to a blanket reduction or furlough, which is what the average American accepted during the pandemic.