Washington Nationals owner Mark Lerner expressed his position regarding the recent controversy over Stephen Strasburg’s retirement.안전놀이터
Runner released a statement regarding the recent situation through local media such as ‘USA Today’ on the 9th (Korean time).
The Nationals were known to have agreed to the retirement of Strasburg, who has been unable to play due to an injury, but suddenly reversed their stance, causing controversy.
“Strasburg is and will always remain an important part of the Washington Nationals organization,” Lerner said. “We will support whatever decision he makes and we guarantee that he will receive the amount he has agreed to receive,” he said, first expressing his support for the player.
However, he expressed regret that the contents of the internal discussions were leaked through the media, saying, “It is unfortunate that private discussions were made public through an anonymous source who tried to use the media as a means of negotiation.”
On August 25, the Washington Post, a leading media outlet in the Washington DC area, reported the news of Strasberg’s retirement, citing sources.
According to this, Strasburg was scheduled to hold a retirement press conference at his home stadium, Nationals Park, prior to the home game against the Los Angeles Dodgers on the 10th. But this all came to nothing.
After leading the team to victory in the 2019 World Series, he agreed to a seven-year, $245 million contract extension, but has since pitched only 31 1/3 innings in eight games due to injury. It is reported that there is still more than $100 million left on his contract, and he has not been able to reach an agreement with the club regarding this amount.
The Runner team owner said, “We were preparing according to joint labor-management collective bargaining. “It is true that preparations for the press conference have begun internally, but there is no schedule officially confirmed by the team or announced to the public,” he said.
He then expressed regret again, saying, “It is unfortunate that the information leaked to the outside world led to incorrect explanations of these events.”
“We hope that conversations will continue to remain private for the parties involved going forward,” he said. Until then, we will be looking forward to having him join spring camp.”