What a lock-out Nats team could look like….

Locked out; Photo by Sol Tucker for TalkNats

The NFL once played with teams made up with “Scabs” assembled during a player’s strike. What would happen if MLB and the MLBPA don’t agree on a new CBA? Could teams opt to play with rosters assembled from their minor league ranks of players not on the 40-man rosters since they are not part of the union? Teams could certainly sign a full roster, but some top prospects might not want to partake in anything like this. For instance, would Cade Cavalli and Brady House agree to play on a scab team? That NFL scab season was exactly 35 years ago. Not exactly ancient history. The Washington Redskins emerged that season as the Super Bowl champions and Doug Williams was the winning quarterback. They made an ESPN 30-for-30 about it. Any possibility of MLB going to a scab season is remote. But certainly MLB would have a much easier route to a scab team than the NFL did. All MLB would have to do is dip into their minor league system and unsigned free agents to see who would want to play. Players on the 40-man roster could opt out of their union. There was that time in 2003 when Barry Bonds infamously would not sign the union’s group licensing agreement. Again, this is all remote. Who wouldn’t want to play for $615,000 a year? I know I would. I am sure you would too. Okay, Max Scherzer would not play for $615,000 a year, and there are approximately 1,200 union members who would not do it. If the MLB regular season is delayed, the union has made provisions to pay players for paychecks lost. None of them will starve — but their biological clocks are ticking and any time lost, is big money lost for the highest earners. The average MLB salary was $4,170,000 a year per reports. Clearly those numbers are skewed by players like Scherzer who is set to make nearly 10X that amount this year as he signed a $43,300,000 deal per reports. Baseball, like life, is about the haves and the have-nots. For every Scherzer, there is a Jake Noll who signed for thousands out of college in the 2016 draft, and his career MLB earnings has been just over $30,000 for his two-week career. Scherzer probably makes over $30,000 in a day on earnings in his stock account. So, you would think plenty of players like Noll would jump at the chance to play in MLB stadiums again, and earn a big paycheck. Of course “big” is a relative word here. For fun, what could a Nats scab roster look like?

Starting Lineup

  1. Dee Strange-Gordon 2B
  2. Brady House DH
  3. Jake Noll 1B
  4. Rusney Castillo RF
  5. Maikel Franco 3B
  6. Nick Banks LF
  7. Drew Millas C
  8. Rudy Martin CF
  9. Jackson Cluff SS

Starting Rotation

  1. Cade Cavalli
  2. Sterling Sharp
  3. Sean Nolin
  4. Jackson Tetreault
  5. Tim Cate

Bench

  1. Adrian Sanchez
  2. Lucius Fox   Jake Alu
  3. Andrew Young
  4. Jacob Rhinesmith
  5. Alex Dunlap C

Bullpen

  1. Matt Cronin
  2. Alberto Baldonado
  3. Jefry Rodriguez
  4. Ben Braymer
  5. Andrew Lee
  6. Nick Wells
  7. Kyle McGowin

At this point, there is only a slim chance that Big League Camp will open on time in two weeks. Minor League camp per a source is set to open on February 20 for the Nats. At least all of the aforementioned names will be getting their work in during their Spring Training.
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