SARASOTA—Chris Bassitt, the 36-year-old right-handed starter who was signed last week, is an executive subcommittee member of the Major League Baseball Players Association. On Tuesday, Tony Clark, the longtime union head, resigned less than 10 months before the expiration of the Collective Bargaining Agreement.

Bassitt spoke on Wednesday about Clark’s resignation, the future of the union, the upcoming negotiations and the owner’s push for a salary cap with a handful of reporters.

Here are excerpts:

Question: How surprised were you about Clark’s resignation?

Bassitt: “It’s just unfortunate news.”

Question: Do you think this changes the dynamic of the upcoming negotiations?

Bassitt: “Tony’s not our top lawyer. All of our lawyers are still the exact same. Tony was the face of the union when it comes to being the head, but Tony wasn’t anything with bargaining and things like that. Our stance is the same. We haven’t changed anything, really. It’s just obviously figuring out a new head. When it comes to the actual bargaining sense of it all, everything is the exact same thing.”

Question: The salary cap will be an important part of negotiations. Will this affect that issue?

Bassitt: “There’s a sense that there’s a chink in the armor, or there’s a weakness all of a sudden. The reality is that no matter who’s in charge, our strength is the players. I don’t think for a second that has changed. We will continue just to fight to protect our rights, and fight to protect what we deserve. Anyone who thinks that this is an issue or a big-time issue, that they’re going to get what they want now, they’re greatly mistaking the players within baseball.

“This is just a headache. It’s a headache for me being on the executive board. The reality is, I have full faith in the guys that we have still in place. I have faith in every big league player that we have.

“I have full faith in all of those guys. I’m not concerned long-term. It’s just frustrating right now. It’s a lot of time on my phone that I’d rather be spending with my kids and my wife, but at the end of the day, our strength hasn’t changed.”

Question: Should fans care about this?

Bassitt: “I think anybody that is a fan of he sport should have a little bit of care. We as players take a lot of pride in doing things the right way, doing things the right way in the community, doing things the right way off the field, doing things with the union the right way.

“So if there are any allegations or anything that’s not the right way, it looks really bad for baseball because we pride ourselves in being basically the pinnacle of all sports where we have the highest standard for ourselves. When things like this happen, it’s not great because we have the highest standard for ourselves.

“That’s the part that should care. We expect more out of you, but we expect more out of ourselves, too. That’s why we as a subcommittee, I wish I could say everything we have done, but we have worked tirelessly to turn over ever single thing possible, and work through everything, and honestly, I feel like it’s a massive blessing working with the [Department of Justice] and FBI because we have been able to look into absolutely everything, and are we doing everything the right way?

“Ninety-nine.99 percent of it is done the right way. There’s a lot of great people in baseball who genuinely care about the fans and genuinely care about the players. I’m very proud and happy for almost everyone in our union for doing the right thing, even when it’s hard … I hope the fans have the highest standard possible for us because we have the highest standard for ourselves.”

Question: Why do you oppose a salary cap?

Bassitt: “The salary cap doesn’t fix anything, If you look at every major sport with a salary cap, we have the best parity. The salary cap is not the issue. Having suppressed salaries across the league so owners make more money, is not the answer.

“The parity in our sport is better than any other sport. We will make changes to try to help the so-called bottom teams out, but a salary cap in suppressing salaries and taking from players in trying to the so-called bottom teams spend more. That’s not the answer because if you’re trying to make a competitive league across the board, we have proof that every single league has less parity than ours.

“How can you sit there and say, a salary cap is going to fix this when every single salary cap sport has less parity than ours? It makes no sense. The root of the answer is not the salary cap. The root of why the owners want a salary cap is not for competitive balance.”

Call for questions: I answer Orioles questions most weekdays. Please send yours to: [email protected].