Teixeira urges players to take deal to play 2020 MLB season

Former Yankee Mark Teixeira says MLB will deserve to lose fans if players and owners keep fighting over money while coming up with a plan for the 2020 season. Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

Mark Teixeira urges MLB players to take deal to play 2020 season

By Zac Wassink | Last updated 5/12/20

On Monday, agent Scott Boras told Sports Illustrated he was advising the MLB Players Association to reject an offer from club owners to begin the 2020 season that included a 50-50 revenue split rather than players receiving pro-rated salaries per an agreement the two parties made in March.

While speaking on the ESPN program "Get Up" on Tuesday morning, three-time All-Star slugger Mark Teixeira urged players to accept the deal for the good of everybody involved, including fans who have lost more than just baseball and other sports amid the coronavirus pandemic:

"If [a potential 2020 MLB season] blows up over money, they will lose fans that they will never get back. And they will deserve it."@Espngreeny and @teixeiramark25 are urging MLB players to accept the return-to-play proposal. pic.twitter.com/npOuO4kOFT
— Get Up (@GetUpESPN) May 12, 2020

"The problem is that you have people all over the world taking pay cuts, losing their jobs, losing their lives, front-line workers putting their lives at risk," Teixeira said during the segment. "These are unprecedented times. This is the one time that I would advocate for the players accepting a deal like this, a 50-50 split of revenues. It’s not that crazy."

"If this thing blows up over money," ESPN's Mike Greenberg added regarding negotiations between the league and the MLBPA, "they will lose fans they will never get back.

"And they will deserve it."

Also on Tuesday, ESPN's Jeff Passan reported negotiations between owners and the players will get "ugly."

From Passan:

So here's a little advice. Don't get too hung up on this week. It's easy to be a prisoner of the moment, to get high when it looks like baseball is coming back, to get low when the conversation turns to money. This is the beginning, and the beginning can be complicated and tumultuous and not particularly reflective of the actual state of play.

That's coming soon enough. And when it does, it will say as much about the future of baseball as it does the present.

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