On Cedric Mullins' Crohn's disease revelation, the fragility of a young career, and MLB's insistence on keeping it that way

The Orioles' All-Star disclosed his health issue from the 2020 season this week, making his climb to stardom all the more impressive.

It was shortly after on-field media access returned in 2021 and in-person interactions with the Orioles were available when my chance to ask finally came up.

Cedric Mullins came out of the clubhouse to speak to reporters on what had become a full-fledged campaign to get him to the All-Star Game, and I had to know for sure. Had he been holding out on me?

A week or so after the 2020 season, I set up a call with Mullins for a wrap-up story on what it was like to return to the major league fold and be a contributing member of a half-decent Orioles team given the depths his career sunk to the year before. We talked about what it meant to him to have gotten his game back on track, and what it would take to sustain and improve on that.

The part where he was going to abandon switch-hitting and be exclusively a left-handed hitter – which was the catalyst for the All-Star season that followed – never came up. It hadn’t occurred to me to ask, and probably would have been a fair (if not unkind) question to toss his way. Mullins didn’t offer it up, either, so I asked him last summer whether he knew then that he’d be a left-handed hitter and just didn’t mention it.

He grinned, and laughed, and told me he’d already decided but never would have told me. I don’t blame him.

Mullins on Wednesday added another layer of depth to his comeback that he kept close to the vest when, though a video posted by the Major League Baseball Players’ Association, he detailed how he spent 2020 dealing with intestinal issues that were related to Crohn’s disease and ultimately had offseason surgery to help alleviate that, losing 20 pounds in the process.

It makes how he rebuilt his career and made himself back into a big leaguer all the more impressive, and undoubtedly served to put the on-field struggles that preceded the ordeal in perspective. Credit to his family and fiance Erika Hardy for how they supported him, and to Mullins for how he battled through.

Hearing his story made me glad he overcame it, and in a roundabout way solidified this newsletter’s view that what the MLBPA is pushing for in collective bargaining with regards to raising minimum salaries and ensuring players are paid earlier in their careers is vital.

Before the 2020 season, which Mullins would have started in the minors were it not for the pandemic shutting down the game for months, he’d been in the majors for 51 days in 2018 and 25 days in 2019. 

All those were at the league-minimum salary of around $3,000 per day before taxes, which is more than most people make in a day but doesn’t reflect the value such players have in a multi-billion dollar industry. He signed for $100,000 out of college, and made below the minimum wage during minor league seasons for most of five years to that point.

He’d dedicated his life to professional baseball for five years and ended up making something akin to a low-level newspaper reporter in that time. It’s not easy to live that way.

The perception that players should give an inch in bargaining because those who make it end up with large salaries ignores how many players don’t get that chance, and never reach the level that makes their sacrifices worth it. Mullins overcame plenty to ensure he wasn’t on that list, and he’s fortunate for having come out on the other side.

The MLBPA is fighting hard for players at that station of baseball, and it seems MLB is fighting hard to keep things the way they are. The two sides are far apart on raising the minimum salary, and reports from The Athletic and ESPN Thursday about how MLB wasn’t making another offer and requesting a mediator to participate in bargaining shows how dug-in the league is to keep what it has with little give on their part.

(You’ll remember that a consequence of the league locking out the players in December was the removal of player images from their websites and the effective shuttering of MLB’s media properties, meaning the Orioles couldn’t even shout out their All-Star for sharing his story or amplify his message of not being too tough or proud for medical treatment. I think that’s a shame.) 

At risk of co-opting what he went through for a cause that’s not my own, what the league is trying so hard to avoid is make concessions to the Mullins types of the world. In his case, he played through what doctors told him should be extreme pain to play in a shortened season during a global pandemic, then rebuilt his body after offseason surgery so he could be the best player on a team that didn’t have a single pitcher make more than $1 million and as a result had one of the worst statistical staffs in baseball history. 

That’s not where the Orioles’ own interfacing with these CBA negotiations are most fraught, though. They’re investing in infrastructure and baseball as a whole is trying to make conditions better for minor leagues, yes. But even as someone who fully understood what they’ve been trying to build, their hiding behind the CBA’s incentives to lose and earn high draft picks or using the arbitration process as a reason to trade players was never my favorite part of it.

The union is led by tenured, well-paid players, but a cross-section of the organization’s rank-and-file exists in the Orioles’ clubhouse every day. Many of them will either run out of minor league options and be cast off to a transient career or altogether wash out before they make above the league minimum. Teams know their value is at its highest when their salaries are at their lowest, and act accordingly. They play a game, yes, but it’s not an easy way to go about life, especially considering what it takes to get there.

Mullins got to the big leagues, almost washed out entirely, dealt with this health issue, and now is almost assured of getting to arbitration and perhaps getting a bite at the carrot that’s ultimately unreachable for many of his peers. It’s a total credit to him that he did. Just remember these are the types of players MLB is trying to suppress the value of during the ongoing negotiations if the season doesn’t start on time.