CC Sabathia is like the rest of us in that he’s frustrated about the MLB lockout.
But it’s one specific aspect of the negotiations that is grinding the former big league pitcher’s gears more than anything.
Many of the issues causing the current lockout are the result of players losing, as they would put it, in the last CBA. Now, they’re trying to get many of those big economic issues hammered out.
But Sabathia thinks they should be focusing more on ways to improve the game so that there’s healthy viewership and interest long-term. So adamant about this is Sabathia that he went on a foul-mouthed rant during his podcast “R2C2 with CC Sabathia and Ryan Ruocco.”
“This is a time to make some changes fundamentally to the game,” Sabathia said. “But the thing is that players are like most baseball ‘purists,’ they don’t want the game changed. Some of these guys still want a DH in the National League and all this different s–t like no pitch clock. Bro, have you been watching the f-----g games we’ve been watching?
“Everybody complains about the lack of action in the sport, how long the games are and all of this s--t, and then when you propose different rules, everybody's like ‘Aw, we can’t change baseball.’ F--k that, the NBA changes all the time, the NFL changes all the f-----g time. Let it f-----g go. The sport needs to get better and needs to grow, and we need to make some big-time changes. This is the time to do it, but now we’re fighting over stupid s--t that we lost in the CBA in 2016, it’s f------g dumb.
“I retired at the right time, because I think I would be, I don’t know, I think I would be going at players, to be honest.”
Sabathia’s comments are fascinating because he’s a recently-retired player. By all accounts the MLBPA is unified, which is imperative for them in order to get what they want. But if there are some out there – especially within the union – who align with Sabathia, that could be a problem for the MLBPA.
And at this point, making fundamental changes to the game seems like a longshot given how many economic issues there are to go through. That said, MLB during current negotiations is looking to institute a pitch clock, ban shifts and implement oversized bases.
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