Paul Skenes: "We are very united''
Pirates pitcher Paul Skenes, a member of the MLBPA's Executive Subcommittee, shared his thoughts on his role in player leadership and early collective bargaining negotiations in an extended interview with Collin Beazley of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Skenes reiterated the players' long-time opposition to a salary cap and characterized the owners' initial CBA proposal — which centered around a hard cap — as "very, very bad.'' He said PA members are motivated to stay unified by the sacrifices of previous generations of players, who held firm through multiple CBA negotiations in the effort to defend and advance player rights.
“They lost the World Series in ’94. Players went on strike for that because they said, ‘This isn’t good enough,’ ” Skenes said. “And there are players who have made sacrifices, lost careers because they want to make it better for everybody else, for everybody who’s coming after them, not necessarily themselves.
“And it would be a complete disservice, and it would be wrong, to cave on that. I think players as a whole understand that.''
Click the link below to read the entire Skenes interview.
