Yahoo Sports senior MLB analysts Jake Mintz reacts to Tuesday’s surprising news and what it means for the MLBPA’s upcoming negotiations on a new labor deal. Check out the full conversation on the “Baseball Bar-B-Cast” podcast – and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.
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Video Transcript
Big news out of the baseball world today as Tony Clark, the executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, is stepping down.
This is shocking news.
It is sudden, unexpected.
Clark has been atop the union since 2013. he was the first union head to have played Major League Baseball, which was a significant development for the organization, and, you know, most importantly, he was expected to lead the union as they entered bargaining negotiations this upcoming winter.
The collective bargaining agreement, the CBA, expires at the end of the season, and everybody is anticipating a particularly contentious set of negotiations as owners in the league, are likely to push for a salary cap.
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Clark, as the head of the union, was going to be the loudest and most important voice in that room for the players.
To have the executive director of the union step down out of nowhere, months before the most important negotiations in years, in decades even, and that’s not a positive, right?
Bruce Meyer, who is the number two at the union, he kind of does a lot of the, the nitty-gritty lawyer stuff that goes on with bargaining.
He had been at the NHL.
He’s kind of the overwhelming favorite to take over.
If there was a player in the organization that I could see having a bigger spotlight, it would be former big league pitcher Kevin Slowey, who is currently in charge of player outreach at the union.
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Now, what the Players Association is going to argue during bargaining, that strategy might not change with Clark’s departure, but the people that are arguing it certainly will.
This is an ongoing situation, a developing story.
It is stunning, it is shocking, and it is only the latest example of a players’ association in major American sports kind of getting themselves into hot water, with the NFL having a similar scandal going on during the season.
I’m Jake Mintz with Yahoo Sports, and that is the — that’s what you need to know about Tony Clark’s stunning resignation here on Tuesday.