DUNEDIN, Fla. — Daulton Varsho expressed confidence in the leadership of Bruce Meyer, who takes over as head of the Major League Baseball Players Association after being elected unanimously by the union’s 72-member executive board on Wednesday.
The Toronto Blue Jays centre fielder, acting as the club’s player-union representative while a full-time replacement for the departed Chris Bassitt is found, lodged his team’s vote, with teammate Davis Schneider also taking part.
“He’s great, I think he’s going to do a great job of leading us,” Varsho said Thursday of Meyer. “He was very humble (Wednesday) night when we elected him. I think he’s going to do a great job.”
Promoted from his role as deputy executive director, Meyer led the union in negotiations on the collective bargaining agreement signed in 2022 that’s set to expire after this season. He’ll again act as chief negotiator in what’s expected to be a contentious process, with a lockout by owners anticipated for Dec. 1 once the current deal expires as they seek a salary cap for the sport.
Matt Nussbaum, who joined the players association in 2011 after three years with the NHLPA, takes over as Meyer’s interim deputy executive director. He spent the past three years serving as general counsel.
Varsho helped lead a meeting Wednesday on how to vote among Blue Jays players after Bassitt, who is also a member of the union’s executive subcommittee, “kind of elected me for this” following Tony Clark’s abrupt resignation Tuesday morning, said the centre fielder.
“I told everybody, ‘Hey, this is what the plan is and if anybody has objections, just come talk to me and we’ll try to talk it out,’” Varsho said. “Nobody seemed to have any objections, but obviously had some questions from certain guys, which were great questions and I answered them as best as I could because, honestly, I don’t know all the specific information. But it was good. There were good questions from some of the younger guys, wondering what’s going on, especially with the minor-league union because their CBA comes up in two years, but ours comes up before them, so they had some good questions. Overall it was a good talk.”
Varsho and Schneider have previously served as alternate player-union reps, with Tyler Heineman and Trey Yesavage possibilities to get more actively involved.
“We’re going to try to choose who’s going to be our lead guy at some point, it’s not going to be me,” said Varsho, who also took part in a Tuesday call when the association decided on next steps before voting Wednesday.
“A lot of information to digest and go through. I was leaning heavily on Bassitt because he’s been through everything and trust his judgment. It was nice being able to be on those calls, be in tune with what’s going on and who’s all talking. It was good.”
