DUNEDIN, Fla. – The Toronto Blue Jays are between player-union representatives now that Chris Bassitt is with the Baltimore Orioles, so Tony Clark’s abrupt resignation as Major League Baseball Players Association head pushed Daulton Varsho, at least for the time being, into the void.
An alternate rep dating back to his days with the Arizona Diamondbacks, the centre-fielder found himself both absorbing Tuesday’s developments and preparing to deal with the fallout as part of an afternoon board call.
The Blue Jays have been spoiled in recent years with Bassitt, who is also on the union’s influential executive subcommittee; two past subcommittee members in Max Scherzer and Marcus Semien; and Ross Stripling, the rep during the lockout ahead of the 2022 season.
They’ll decide on a new full-time rep in the coming weeks, and Varsho will remain involved, believing that, “especially when you’re a young player, you need to be a part of it to better understand what’s going on behind closed doors.”
“It’s nice to understand both the business side of baseball and the playing side of baseball,” he continued. “We’re going to try to get Trey (Yesavage) into being trained as an alternate rep, so he has an understanding. (Tyler) Heinemann is going to be a big part of this, Davis (Schneider, an alternate last year), and obviously, you have the older guys who are all going to be a part of it. But it’s nice to get the younger generation to be like, ‘hey, we should start knowing this.’ It’ll be good.”
Clark’s resignation – ESPN’s Jeff Passan and Don Van Natta Jr. reported that an internal investigation revealed an inappropriate relationship between Clark and his sister-in-law, a fellow union employee – comes as another lockout looms once the current Collective Bargaining Agreement expires Dec. 1.
Commissioner Rob Manfred has been both subtly and overtly messaging the owners’ desire for a salary cap for about a year, anchoring the idea of a concession-seeking negotiation in the minds of both players and fans. The competitive imbalance narrative spawned by the free-agent largesse of the Los Angeles Dodgers has dovetailed nicely into the case for a cap, leaving the players facing a rocky path to a new deal.
Barring a change of plans, this will be Manfred’s last CBA negotiation before his planned retirement when his contract expires in January 2029, so getting a cap could be a legacy piece for him, too. One blueprint for how to get it comes from the NHL, which broke its union during a lockout that blew up the entire 2004-05 season, but baseball Armageddon already came once during the failed labour talks that led to the 1994 World Series’ cancellation, and it would surely have to go even more nuclear this time.
Between Clark’s resignation and the expected labour upheaval, the next generation of Blue Jays player reps will have plenty on their plate. Varsho and George Springer approached Schneider about working as an alternate ahead of the 2024 season and this spring, have talked to him about taking on more responsibility.
“If they’re saying it, I can’t really say no to them. Being involved in the game, not just on the baseball side, but the business side, is important,” said Schneider. “Now, with everything that’s going on, I feel like this will be a good time to get a little bit more into it. We’ll see when the union comes here and talks to us, see where we’re at with everything. I don’t want a lockout, I don’t think anyone does. Hopefully we’ll come to a good decision for both sides.”
Schneider closely watched how Bassitt and Scherzer handled union matters last year and wants to apply what he learned from them. He long admired the duo for their on-field accomplishments but “respected them even more looking out for us, not just our team, but every single player in the league.”
“They were so good at it,” said Schneider. “I want eventually want to get to that level for looking after other players and not just yourself, trying to grow the game the right way.”
Varsho learned plenty about that at home from his dad, Gary, an outfielder who spent eight years in the majors and later coached. A foundational tenet was that players always “fight for each other and fight for the next generation that’s coming up,” he said, although he admits that during the 2022 lockout, he didn’t understand all the issues the way he wanted to.
Afterwards he approached Nick Ahmed, then Arizona’s player-rep, and “I was like, ‘I’d like to know more,’” Varsho recalled. “He was like, ‘You should start being alternate so you can get that information and then you can start having conversations with guys in the clubhouse on what guys are thinking and be able to ask questions in the meetings.’”
The business end didn’t come naturally to Varsho, “but I’m always interested in what we’re doing and what we are fighting for,” he said. “Being able to have mature conversations of like, ‘OK, why are we doing this’ or ‘What are we doing it for,’ you can have a better understanding … of how to explain it to guys.”
The type of understanding sure to be needed for the stormy days looming on the not-so-distant horizon.
