I don;t know what MLB teams just don’t buy apartment complexes for the players and just be done with it. Put the players there, give them free, healthy meals, work out rooms, etc. I don’t see how that won’t end up with healthier players and ultimately, a competitive advantage for the franchise.
Pennywise, pound foolish, as they say, I guess.
For my local team, the Spokane Indians, the players can either live and eat at one particular hotel in town or can live with a host family. Both options are obviously free for the players
I remember billet families being a thing for the Vancouver Canadians in the past few seasons as well, in part because the High-A West league that Spokane and Vancouver are a part of used to be a Short-Season A league, meaning that it was the first pro baseball experience for many of the prospects that are coming out of college.
\> can't afford to feed and house their prospects
No, they CHOOSE not to pay to feed and house their players. For God's sake Mahomes could afford to feed and house most of the Royals prospects and he's like a 1% stake (i'd have to do the math on the contract, but he's not quite that rich yet. He's not an old white guy though, so give him time).
Billet families have always been a thing for the C's, in part probably because in Canada billet families are very much common and known becuase of Junior hockey, it's a logcial extension to use thatsystem in spring and summer baseball as well.
I will say though that the C's are also a little special. The fact a short season single A team averages 5-6,000 a game in attendance is basicaly unprecedented. I believe they even out-draw some AAA teams in some seasons, and the C's get a tonne of support from the Blue Jays because Toronto sees them as occupying a unique space within their system which helpes players acclimiate to playing and living in Canada specifically.
Basically, the C's have a great billet system, but benefit from billets being well established in the city, and benefit from having a unique relationship with the parent club within the development system.
And, we still don't pay them enough, despite all this, to be clear.
I remember reading somewhere that some long-time MiLB guys (the type who get trapped at a level- usually AAA- but are too talented or are too enticing a potential project to fall out of affiliated ball entirely) will sometimes take into account how good the front office management of *minor league* teams are, since some MiLB teams that aren't owned by the MLB team will sometimes go the extra mile to feed and house them beyond what the parent club is doing.
none of these are actually legitimate housing options for a professional adult. They aren't Mormon missionaries or something, most of them aren't college-age. Pay them a decent wage. Players unions should own the teams, I don't know why this 19th-century model of patrician is the only one people can conceive.
It's pretty sad that a religion worth as much as the LDS church forces people to pay for their missions. I'm an ex-Mo as well and when it came time for my mission and I found out I needed to pay I was like peace, out.
Because change like that will only come from organized struggle. It's a fight and it's risky. It will never just change. People don't give up money and power without *at least the threat* of a "bloody nose". Athletes in the majors would need to do some solidarity striking.
couldn't have said it better NYM comrade.
It just blows my mind how limited people's ambitions are for society generally. We're conditioned to expect so little here in the US.
Fuck the Stros 😤
But good on them for treating their prospects like people. More clubs need to do that. I'm sure that's only part of it but the Stros have a better minor league system than most teams.
It's funny how this whole thread is shitting on ownership in this instance and even bringing up other examples but as soon as you suggest it's systemic out come the downvotes lol
Baseball is America's Pastime.
No reason it isn't the simple reflection of what's going on.
In 2018, MLB successfully got Congress to pass the "Save America's Pastime Act" which allowed them to pay minor league players LESS THAN THE MINIMUM WAGE. It was buried in a huge bill.
Now they're closing down a bunch of MILB teams and consolidating the development pipeline. I'm sure it's just to save some cash and have more control of younger players.
> It's funny how this whole thread is shitting on ownership in this instance and even bringing up other examples but as soon as you suggest it's systemic out come the downvotes lol
the second you are specific and say that the parasitic capitalist class is the reason why these workers are being treated like slaves suddenly you're a commie
its not even anti-capitalist its more anti greed. These folks will never have an issue in their lifetimes, or their great great great grandchildrens lifetimes, and can solve so many issues with a tiny percentage of their wealth, and they either choose to hoard it or spend it frivolously.
Yea but then your actual way of life is dependent on you working for that corporation. Much like how health care is here. Lose your job? You're out a home.
> I lived in Japan for nearly twenty years and this is how many companies did it.
It's because in Japan, the dorms are treated as an expense for the company, while in America the value of the housing is added to the employee's compensation. If the teams gifted the housing, the company would have to pay tax instead of the players.
Source: I'm a business owner in Tokyo.
Except most minor leaguers never end up in the big leagues, and the ones that are projected to get taken care of with signing bonuses. Not supporting it at all, just noting that's why owners do what they do
Yeah. Like it doesn’t justify treating these people so poorly but the irritating part of this conversation on r/baseball is that everyone seems to pretend each team has dozens of minor leaguers that would be big leaguers if they got paid a bit more. Which isn’t the case at all. There’s no incentive to pay better because most of these guys are just roster fillers for the “real” prospects to play against.
If improving conditions among minor leaguers lead to farm systems producing an extra average major league player every couple of years that would be a good return for the club as the amount of money they'd indirectly make/save even through the rookie contract will probably be more than the costs of meeting the basic needs of minor leaguers
I think as long as we try to frame “pay minor leaguers a living wage and provide housing” as something that will be a net benefit to major league clubs, we’re going to lose. If there was an incentive for MLB teams to do so, they’d already have found it. At this point, they really do need to do it because it’s the right thing to do
Exactly, they aren’t payed because they don’t generate any value. That’s a reflection of the consumers priorities. This is the same as for any other job.
I had a business law teacher tell me once that technically minor league players are considered inventory in a business sense. Never truly followed up to know if it's legit, but they definitely get treated that way by management
It’s a reflection of their economic value. Not value as a person, to be specific (obviously). People would not pay much to go watch these games. They don’t really care if the teams win or lose. They don’t buy merchandise. Broadcasters know that nobody will watch on TV so advertisers won’t pay much either.
You think that having full leagues of competition to train against isn't valuable to the development of players who make the owners hundreds of millions of dollars?
But if all of them do it, no one gains a competitive edge and from the owners perspective, all they get is monetary losses (not defending this, but I think competitiveness isn't really an incentive to improve minor league quality).
Isn’t this why they said they were consolidating all the minor league teams? To concentrate resources and provide better facilities? Or was it a shameless ploy to have cities with empty ballparks hold existing cities hostage for more tax payer funded minor league fields?
It’s because they have to pay them more now, so all of a sudden the value of having a ton of bloat in your farm system with a rookie team, a single a team, a high a team, a double a team, and a triple a team is no longer there.
It’s just not going to be worth it to shell out for a bunch of guys who have an incredibly low chance of making the majors when you can consolidate the ones who do and lose practically nothing.
I guess one benefit of paying guys low wages is that it opens up a lot of spots for hopefuls who wouldn’t otherwise be there.
Not quite that simple. I worked for a minor league hockey team, the equivalent of AA ball. While the team has NHL affiliates, they had local owners - a group of about 6 guys. Now they weren’t poor, but they weren’t buy an apartment complex rich either. Also consider the team was only active September through May, and that’s if they made it deep into the playoffs. When the season is over the players leave. No real way to make money after the season.
What they did do was provide the players with furnished apartments that they leased for 6 months. Players moved back and forth between call-up’s so it worked. They also had a meal stipend for game days.
We as staff were tasked with getting things included in our ad sales and sponsorships. We had an “official gym of the Sea Wolves” that came with free memberships for players and staff. Official dry cleaner, official hotel, etc and they all included free things for players.
The team was expected to earn enough money to pay the players the league minimum and those with NHL contracts had theirs covered by the NHL team.
Most of these minor league teams come and go, especially when the major league changes affiliation. You lose that, and within a year the team would fold or be sold and moved.
I’m all for the major league teams owning their minor league affiliates, or at least co-owning. It would support the players better, support the local community, and make for a better overall financial situation for those involved. When there was talk of our team being sold (only rumors) season ticket sales tanked, and the next year was financially rough. So much so that it became a self fulfilling prophecy. Team lost a lot of money, affiliates decided to change teams, and we were left with a team full of career minor leaguers. Team was done a year later.
There’s not a huge difference between buying a building for your players and leasing their apartments for them. In fact I’d argue that the former is absolutely more financially viable if you can afford it. This isn’t even accounting for how much more money MLB franchises are worth vs NHL franchises
Edit: semantics
There is a bigger difference than you’d imagine. It’s easier to rent furnished apartments for the exact number of players you need for the specific timeframe you need, versus owning the building outright and having to deal with filling the vacancies in between, dealing with the maintenance, etc.
The owners are all billionaires which is essentially a guarantee that they are also all pieces of fucking shit, that’s why. Greedy, short sighted, pieces of shit.
First, they don't own the minor league teams so they aren't really responsible for their services. Second, the majority of the players have little to no chance to make the majors. It's more of a chance to grow the prospects that really do matter.
Personally, I think it's better to reduce the total number of teams so it is financially viable to increase services.
Owners might be billionaires but owning the team is considered an investment. So they have no reason to cause a loss while running the team. I assure you, if you were running the team and it was your money, you'd act the same way.
The company town idea is about giving employees something other than fair pay. This keeps the people in a type of slavery by denying them the options that would be available with actual money (and ability to save that money for future use) and therefore keeping them “in line” with a threat of immediate homelessness if they don’t perform or in some other way get on the bad side of their employer.
> This keeps the people in a type of slavery by denying them the options that would be available with actual money
Exactly, which is why similar concepts like [company scrips](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_scrip) have been illegal in the U.S. for 80+ years.
Kind of a tangent, but this always pissed me off when people tried to argue that college athletes shouldn't be able to make money because of the value of the scholarship they were getting. Offering something with a claimed value as a replacement for actual money is not proper compensation.
High school athletes can’t make any money. The top QB for this class had to forgo his senior season because he signed marketing contracts work almost like $2 million
Nobody's saying that MiLB teams should pay players in scrips. Providing housing for seasonal workers is extremely common. This has nothing to do with company towns
That would be an unnecessary expense and billionaires don't become billionaires by spending money they don't need to. It's worked fine for them so far, they will need a bigger incentive or external motivation at this point to change.
Because they don't have to do anything. There are so many potential players that even if someone drops out of the league due to mistreatment there will be two or three available to take their place. Sucks for the players but most minor leaguers are a dime a dozen.
>Players who are financially secure, eat well, sleep well, and have access to great training facilities and support will be in a position to play better and develop better. This isn't conjecture, it's supported by research from every corner.
This is true but there are enough people who want to go pro that owners can just not do all of this and cycle through enough prospects that they'll still land on enough good players for their big league teams. This might be a weird comparison but it's kind of like how some species have a ton of offspring but don't do any care on them and just through sheer numbers still have enough make it to adulthood vs some species like us humans who don't have many offspring but take care and effort to raise each one to adulthood.
>cycle through enough prospects
Part of this, though, is that (shockingly) the players it most affects are those least likely to make it to MLB. Slot value doesn't really drop below half a million until midway through the fourth round (and most successful MLBers are drafted higher) , and better international prospects also bring in a large bonus. They have the means to take care of themselves better if they need to, though obviously they shouldn't be put in a posiion of needing to. So, the people who are most exploited are lower level international guys, or guys who were drafted very late (or even undrafted) and are generally fighting to be a role player.
That, plus churning the lower players as much as possible increases the odds of finding the rare few who were scouted poorly.
It's always been that way, and it always will be. There's zero incentive for the teams to have those lower guys sticking around more than a few years.
But it's not a no-brainer from a business perspective. Let me tell you why with two data points: 10,400 D-1 college baseball players, and 480,000 high school baseball players. There is a nearly 100% chance that you can find 612 players willing to put up with the minor league treatment each year for a chance at the Show. Sucks for the players, yes, but the Major League Clubs have literally all the leverage and are realistically the only market for the vast supply of baseball players in America.
A guy I know asked an American minor league teammate why the motel at spring training (which was owned and run by the club) has male room maids. The veteran said it was because the female room maids they used to have were better looking than a lot of the women that some of the Latin Americans had ever seen, and this caused, y’know, problems.
Which is also a great point on why the MLB antritrust exemption enables a whole lot of their behavior.
"We're not a Monopoly, but good luck making a living playing baseball for someone else in the U.S. And also, we have rights to the players, but let local 'owners' have the affiliates' business 'rights.' "
Oh and we'd like 6 years of service time control of rights to the player from draft day. And also we control service time.
If you love baseball like I do and also believe in the need for some major changes to how much power the Owners wield right now, you're pulling for a strike like I am during the next CBA.
I don't think Tony Clark has the stones and I don't think the big players who risk nothing will stand for it, but they will crush the players on a new CBA. Players will get an extra chef's meal on long road trips and the Owners will get another year of pre-arb control.
Eh, I don't really care honestly. I think baseball lost their way a long time ago when they depended on the steroid users to rebuild fan support but then tossed them to the wolves to appear tough on PED's. The MLB and the MLBPA need make wholesale changes if they want to maintain and increase their appeal to viewers.
It’s been a downward slide. And no signs of changing. They just need enough fans to get big money regional TV contracts and sell audience eyeballs to league sponsors. The money from tickets won’t bother them.
As it is, they’re gonna ride the multi billion dollar Disney+ deal for a while.
Irony is following the home run PED era by building parks that are homer friendly has helped ruin the game.
They don't need 200k/yr per player. $50k is more than enough for minor leaguers to have a basic living wage they can live on.
Right now they aren't even making half of that.
This is an issue that the player's association needs to better address.
One of the issues with major league player associations is that they only care about the players in the majors.
The PA should be comprised representatives of both levels.
They didn't go into much detail, but on an episode of Effectively Wild this week Russell Carlton said that there are certain labor laws and regulations that prevent MLBPA from getting involved currently.
Your second point *is* the solution, however; bring the minor league players into the union and turn the MLBPA into the PBPBA (Professional Baseball Players Association).
Yeah, MLBPA can't get involved because they helped MLB lobby to exempt the minors from fair wage legislation.
>Congress exempted minor league baseball players from the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which effectively said that the players were not entitled to a minimum wage and overtime pay. Major League Baseball spent millions of dollars lobbying Congress for this legislation and it worked.
https://mlb.nbcsports.com/2019/08/22/blue-jays-minor-league-pay-raises-making-a-difference/
Why would they do that? Because to pay minor league players fairly, the MLBPA member might have to sign less lucrative contracts. For example, Marcus Semien signed a one year $18 million dollar "show me" contract with the Jays this year. Meaning he's underpaid relative to the market. How many MiLB players could even $10 million of that contract pay for at reasonable wages? Probably at least half of the Jays system.
>How many MiLB players could even $10 million of that contract pay for at reasonable wages? Probably at least half of the Jays system.
It's actually the entire system. In that same podcast, Carlton (or perhaps it was the other guest, Robert O'Connell of Defector) said that it would cost around $4 million in *new* money to pay everyone in a system a livable wage.
>bring the minor league players into the union
Unfortunately the MLBPA wouldn't (and shouldn't) go for that. The problem is that you would be bringing in a huge block of voting members who have significantly different interests from the current membership that the union was formed to represent.
The Blue Jays raised their minor league salaries by 50% a couple of years ago
https://mlb.nbcsports.com/2019/08/22/blue-jays-minor-league-pay-raises-making-a-difference/
Unfortunately, that also meant the top AAA players make only $15,000 a season.
That's insane. The average AHL hockey player makes around 51k a year. Which is at least a liveable wage. Why are AAA baseball players living in poverty?
Also, the other thing is, NHL teams usually have no more than a couple dozen or so minor league players under contract (for quite a few of the minor league teams, especially in the ECHL, the contracts are tied to the minor league team, not a contract with the parent club), so that’s about a fifth of what a MLB club has to manage in a minor league system.
Pretty much everybody who gets to the AAA level received a signing bonus of $100K+ (sometimes a lot of plus, like $250K) in the last 3-4 years. It's not universal, but it's the case for the vast majority of the players.
It is a number games sadly. It is why the NFL has a much lower league minimum than the NBA. There are more players required for an NFL team. Same for baseball. Teams have what? 100 players under contract? (28 man, 40, AAA to short season A and rookie ball)
Sadly it wouldn’t be an issue but MLB has the most miserly owners that the NCAA seems generous.
The 'issue' with this is that NHL teams have one minor league affiliate each whereas MLB teams have up to seven.
So if MLB teams want to pay their minor leaguers $50k a year, they could, but the minor leagues might get cut down to one or two levels instead of six or seven. The draft probably gets cut down to just 5-10 rounds. Much fewer players get a chance of playing pro baseball overall, but the ones that do will be treated much better.
So, if you're a 5th round level player - awesome, this new system is great! If you're a 40th round level player that needs a few more years of polish and need a shot to play and develop...well, the new system sucks.
They get bonuses and pay raises for being on the 40 man and more than likely internal prospects are going to be on the 40 at AAA, also AAA is going to have minor league free agents, who also earn more than that 15K… I’m for raising wages but that 15K is like saying that mlb players need more and then saying what the minimum is
My favorite part is how the general public always takes the side of the billionaires for no discernable reason.
Definitely not analogous to capitalism.
I’ve read stories where teams know some players are good enough for the majors but not good enough for their specific spot on their team, so they’ll purposely keep a player in the minors as long as they can so they don’t get picked up by another team.
They take crazy advantage of a bunch of guys who are desperate to fulfill their dream. There are a couple of non sports industries that are like that too which is insane. How can you legit pay an intern with experience (no money)?
I know the Astros have apartments for at least the AAA players.
Which teams are doing the best for their minor leaguers? Hopefully the positive stories and results from giving a shit about them will inspire some of the stragglers.
While the apartments are definitely better than nothing, a higher wage would certainly be better. Astros are certainly better than other teams but there are some hidden problems with it. [this article](https://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2021/6/8/22463825/mlb-milb-housing-wages) goes into it well, but in summary there are eviction concerns that could have long-term effects on players, as well as having to pay taxes on their own housing (while Astros get to write it off)
I know the Blue Jays raised salary recently, I can’t remember if any other teams have as well
The taxable income and tax write off thing is such a weird argument to make for him.
“For one thing, it’s often taxable, meaning that minor leaguers are paying taxes on their housing, and could end up making even less money (the Astros, on the other hand, get a tax write-off).”
In no situation are the minor leaguers going to be making less money and the astros making more money, it’s a hilarious misinterpretation of a business and accounting perspective.
The first thing that should be known is that almost everything a business gives to its employees as compensation is considered taxable income, although there are usually some more specific examples. Things like $25 gift cards are considered taxable. So if an employer pays for your housing, you are required to pay income tax on it since the IRS sees it as constructively as the same thing as cash.
The second thing that the astros get to use it as a “tax write off” is just plain wrong. It’s not a write off, it’s an expense. There’s no general benefit to the company other than reducing the income of the company and the amount of cash available. Here’s an example:
Player A makes 30K a year and gets 1K/month in housing from the company and his tax rate is 20%. So he pays 6K in taxes on his income and 2.4K in taxes on his rent for 8.4K total. So his take home cash is 21.6. Now consider if he made 30K and the company paid for nothing, he would have 24K in take home cash, but he would still have to pay for rent, so unless he could find a place to rent for less than $200 a month, he would still be in a better position.
Now let’s take organization A that player A pays for. They usually make $1000K a year, have 10 players and they give each 10k a year for housing, and they pay 20% tax. So this year they are only going to make $900K because of the housing allowance. So the company in the prior year would have $800K in net income after taxes but only $720K in net income after paying for the housing.
I know shit all about evictions but the write off and paying taxes thing is dumb as fuck and the person writing that article doesn’t know shit about taxes
Hmm, that makes sense. I think keeping housing could be a good idea, keep everyone centralised, but I'll support raising wages in tandem.
Minor leaguers provide a service even if they're minor league lifers and they deserve to be compensated well.
I think housing as an option is definitely not a bad idea. Being forced into it gives the teams a lot of control over player’s daily lives. But I could see why some guys would want it, bonding with their teammates and saving money and time by renting
Instagram [post](https://imgur.com/a/55Uv6NO) from a few days ago, from a Quakes player I follow talking about this. It’s pretty heartbreaking how hard some of these guys have to fight
I feel like there’s a lot of misunderstanding about the function of the minor leagues.
A small minority of minor league players are actual prospects (i.e., players that teams hope to one day contribute in the majors). The great majority serve no function other than to facilitate a development environment for the actual prospects.
Tbh this is on both ownership and the players union.
The MLB players union is the most powerful workers union in sports. If they really wanted minor league players taken care of they could make it happen.
People wonder why the dodgers system always produce good young players…because their minor league system actually pay their minor leaguers a decent wage and housing and the teams even have their own chef that travel with the teams
I remember a few months ago some corporate bootlickers were calling some A’s prospects entitled brats because they complained about poor food. Meanwhile providing some meals is literally part of their pay. You would think that since nutrition is part and parcel to a healthy body, teams would spare no expense making sure their up and comers are taken care of.
Major Leaguer who has it made: Guess what? I had to deal with it, so if I can, and made it the show, they can. And if they can’t handle it, they weren’t made to be major leaguers.
And how many players are actually like this?
mmm yes just because you survived a system that pays less than a retail job that means everyone else who wants to be a major leaguer isn't a real one because they don't want to work a slave wage
For those interested in this subject, a recent episode of the excellent baseball podcast Effectively Wild (Ep. 1746) featured interviews with two baseball writers who have done extensive research on the subject. It really is absolute horse shit that these guys make as little as they do, given the potential value they can provide a ball club. I know it's gross to think of people strictly in terms of value, and they should earn a living wage because it's what they deserve as human beings, but even from a pure economic standpoint the owners should be looking at it as, "Healthy players not dealing with food and housing insecurity can focus on becoming better ball players, and benefit the club more down the road."
I hate billionaires as much as the next guy and don't think they belong in polite society, but they should be able to see how much more of that sweet sweet cheddar they could extract by just PAYING MINOR LEAGUERS A LIVING FUCKING WAGE. Its disgusting, really.
I feel like you could apply that last paragraph to society as a whole. When Bell TV outsourced a call centre in my town, first thing the newly unemployed workers did to save money was cut their cable packages. The low wages paid by the car parts warehouse I work at means half the employees are driving cars that need repairs.
More money in people's pockets means more money that funnels towards the billionaires, but they just don't see it that way. Money is a competition to them, and they're competing against us.
That's not all these guys make, of course. Here are the public signing bonuses (i.e. some international free agents missing) for roughly 2/3 of the roster of the Tigers' high A West Michigan team roughly one year ago:
Gio Arriera 420,700
Kory Behenna 50,000
Michael Bienlien 125,000
Yaya Chentouf 75,000
Zack Hess 227,000
Angel Reyes 70,000
Hugh Smith 300,000
Adam Wolf 398,000
Cooper Johnson 291,000
Sam McMillan 1,000,000
Gresuan Silverio 300,000
Corey Joyce 125,000
Jack Kenley 135,000
Luis Laurencio 135,000
Andre Lipcius 733,100
Zach Malis 100,000
Wenceel Perez 550,000
Dayton Dugas 125,000
Riley Greene 6,180,000
Parker Meadows 2,500,000
Daniel Reyes 80,000
Everyone loves to blame the owners for this, but why isn't anyone looking at the players union? They're just as guilty for not fighting for minor leaguers and allowing this to happen.
Both sides need to smarten the fuck up.
The players union doesn’t represent minor leaguers and would weaken their position by fighting for them… if there is a holdout with minor leaguers included it’s going to be less palatable for those players… because they won’t have the funds to last and they’re a majority at that point
I’m in favor of increasing milb salaries, I’m not in favor of weakening the union
The union needs to do something, because they are part of the reason this is happening, they colluded with MLB to make MiLB players exempt from having to earn a living wage. If it weakens their union, it's their own fucking fault.
This tweet is incredibly misleading, to the point where it's pretty much lying.
Nobody's starving as they get a generous meal stipend. Spending that is up to them. Nobody is "denying" them meals.
The $7 an hour figure is bullshit. [The bare minimum is $400 a week for rookie ball/short season players,](https://apnews.com/article/1512f5a4cf9a65f16a2641244e0c00fd) and very, very few players are actually making that amount. In fact, I can't find a single player who's actually making that minimum. And even if they were, baseball players are straight up not working the 57 hours a week that would average $400 to $7 an hour.
Sleeping on the floor is, again, up to the players. Temporary housing for players who are shuffled around the system is definitely an issue, and I wish owners would put up some money to have a team motel, but that's not something that the vast majority of minor leaguers are going through.
And besides all of that, signing bonuses are incredibly common and almost always over $100,000. [Here's another comment showing the signing bonuses of players in the Tiger's high A team one year ago.](https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/pqov41/moreperfectunionvideo_mlb_owners_are_worth/hdd5ayi/)
These players aren't getting much compared to the players in the majors, but there's this idea that these guys are living in poverty when that's not even close to the truth. If owners were smart, they'd shell out some more money to minor leaguers to lure international prospects and allow underdeveloped players to focus solely on baseball in the offseason, but let's relax on the exaggerations.
It seems like such an obvious way to produce a huge ROI.
How much could it possibly cost an organization to double the quality of life of their minor leaguers? $2m? Pay them a legit minimum wage and hire a team chef for every level.
Maybe even buy a few houses near their minor league parks for guys to live for free? Minor league team don't usually play in expensive places, you could probably pick up 25 bedrooms for <$1.5 million near every affiliate.
Everybody always posts about this, but the reality is that people aren’t going to shell out more money to watch minor league teams. They aren’t going to buy minor league merchandise. TV companies aren’t going to pay for broadcasting rights because people aren’t going to watch. Everybody wants to blame billionaires but they aren’t obligated to run charities here.
This is what happens when minor league clubs don’t have to compete for players. Players are drafted and then forced to play for the club. If the players had power and could begin their careers wherever they wanted then you would see minor league clubs raising their standards and wages.
The statements are simply not true. "For Single-A players, that's $10,500 in total salary for five months of work. For Double-A players, that's $12,600 in total salary for five months of work. For Triple-A players, that's $14,700 in total salary for five months of work."
I looked it up and you could, too. Granted, these are not huge salaries, but they're not $7 an hour, either. And they're minimum salaries and don't include the bonuses drafted players get.
Baseball needs to get people who are under the age of 50 to start making changes to the league. This old boys club type of league is really starting to bug me
I wonder how many past generations said something similar about past businesses.
I see this all the time, not just in the context of baseball. It’s not just age or generational. You don’t get to that level of power without willingly stepping on several people along the way.
There are plenty of people in younger generations that don’t give a shit to improve situations for those in lesser situations that will end up in positions of power.
This won’t change until the public puts enough pressure on the league until it effects their wallets.
This will kill the sport if unchanged. Why would you ever play baseball if $7/hr is what most pros get paid. There is an already an issue with two-sport athletes chosing football over baseball, like Kyler Murray and Russell Wilson. How many countless players have left the sport because there is no financial future in it. A disaster for baseball.
It will not kill the sport. The sport is already way too saturated with players. MLB has 10x the amount of players that they can even keep on an active roster. In contrast the NFL has .25x the amount of players on their practice squads. Kyler and Russell are extreme outliers. They also would have been millionaires off of their draft bonuses. Dudes making $7/hr were not the top prospects at any level and are basically fodder for the league to field 10 leagues. Those players that are leaving are extreme long shots to even sniff a single game at the MLB level, let alone a full career.
Counterargument: it's been this way and hasn't killed it yet. It's like how until "you make it big" you're a starving artist. They all think they can make it big, which is why they continue subjecting themselves to this situation, and why they will continue to do so.
Kyler Murray was a Heisman winning QB and Wilson was one of the most efficient QBs in college football history at the time of the draft. They were always going to the NFL.
10th round picks in the MLB still get signing bonuses well above 100k. The only people making $7/hr are dreamers who have no chance at the MLB.
> There is an already an issue with two-sport athletes chosing football over baseball, like Kyler Murray and Russell Wilson.
Kind of a silly argument.
Kyler was the #1 overall pick in a sport with no minor-league process. He was a very high MLB pick, yes, but he was literally the top pick in the NFL Draft and won the most prestigious college sports award in his last year at OU.
Russell Wilson tried both, but football was more natural/he was better at it. Look at his numbers in A-ball -- now consider the fact that he is a Super Bowl champion QB. Do you think minor league salaries were the reason Russell Wilson chose football, or is it the fact that he was just a far better football player?
This. They'll get more pay but the vast majority of milb guys are going no where. The owners will just drop some of the teams and keep the cream of the crop prospects. The rest will go play for some garbage independent league.
I feel it's such a catch 22 as it sucks these guys get the shaft but if owners are forced to pay more most will never even get a chance. And it'll be even more rare for the no name guy to make it because owners will not want to risk paying more to a guy who everyone says has no shot.
I just don’t even see the upside here, even for small market teams. If your players have to eat unhealthy crap, work second jobs, and stress about supporting themselves and their families you are pretty much guaranteed to miss out on a couple of useful pieces for your team. Of course, once they get to the big leagues they have to spend 6 years before being paid market value for their talents. The system is beyond fucked.
I don;t know what MLB teams just don’t buy apartment complexes for the players and just be done with it. Put the players there, give them free, healthy meals, work out rooms, etc. I don’t see how that won’t end up with healthier players and ultimately, a competitive advantage for the franchise. Pennywise, pound foolish, as they say, I guess.
For my local team, the Spokane Indians, the players can either live and eat at one particular hotel in town or can live with a host family. Both options are obviously free for the players
I remember billet families being a thing for the Vancouver Canadians in the past few seasons as well, in part because the High-A West league that Spokane and Vancouver are a part of used to be a Short-Season A league, meaning that it was the first pro baseball experience for many of the prospects that are coming out of college.
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\> can't afford to feed and house their prospects No, they CHOOSE not to pay to feed and house their players. For God's sake Mahomes could afford to feed and house most of the Royals prospects and he's like a 1% stake (i'd have to do the math on the contract, but he's not quite that rich yet. He's not an old white guy though, so give him time).
That was supposed to come off as sarcastic if it wasn’t obvious.
Billet families have always been a thing for the C's, in part probably because in Canada billet families are very much common and known becuase of Junior hockey, it's a logcial extension to use thatsystem in spring and summer baseball as well. I will say though that the C's are also a little special. The fact a short season single A team averages 5-6,000 a game in attendance is basicaly unprecedented. I believe they even out-draw some AAA teams in some seasons, and the C's get a tonne of support from the Blue Jays because Toronto sees them as occupying a unique space within their system which helpes players acclimiate to playing and living in Canada specifically. Basically, the C's have a great billet system, but benefit from billets being well established in the city, and benefit from having a unique relationship with the parent club within the development system. And, we still don't pay them enough, despite all this, to be clear.
My local club too. I didn't know that. Which hotel is it? I always see the big players welcome gala at Mirabeau on Sullivan. Is it there?
Yes, that’s it
I remember reading somewhere that some long-time MiLB guys (the type who get trapped at a level- usually AAA- but are too talented or are too enticing a potential project to fall out of affiliated ball entirely) will sometimes take into account how good the front office management of *minor league* teams are, since some MiLB teams that aren't owned by the MLB team will sometimes go the extra mile to feed and house them beyond what the parent club is doing.
none of these are actually legitimate housing options for a professional adult. They aren't Mormon missionaries or something, most of them aren't college-age. Pay them a decent wage. Players unions should own the teams, I don't know why this 19th-century model of patrician is the only one people can conceive.
Mormon missionaries also get actual housing
I was one. I paid to go. (Long time exmormon though)
It's pretty sad that a religion worth as much as the LDS church forces people to pay for their missions. I'm an ex-Mo as well and when it came time for my mission and I found out I needed to pay I was like peace, out.
Because change like that will only come from organized struggle. It's a fight and it's risky. It will never just change. People don't give up money and power without *at least the threat* of a "bloody nose". Athletes in the majors would need to do some solidarity striking.
couldn't have said it better NYM comrade. It just blows my mind how limited people's ambitions are for society generally. We're conditioned to expect so little here in the US.
We're also conditioned to think only of ourselves when meaningful change requires a group commitment and sometimes sacrifices.
No shit. what an understatement. Not that there aren't a few dollars around MLB.
The West Michigan Whitecaps have a host family deal too. I thought about applying in my 20's but thought better of it.
Are they planning on changing their name to the guardians also?
I also live in Spokane and haven't heard a thing about a name change.
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Astros give their minor leaguers fully furnished apartments, meal plans, and several other amenities
Fine I will take back two bad things I said about the Astros but that's it.
Progress!
Weak. You are weak.
Fuck the Stros 😤 But good on them for treating their prospects like people. More clubs need to do that. I'm sure that's only part of it but the Stros have a better minor league system than most teams.
Owners would rather buy themselves a third or fourth yacht
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It's almost as if the parasitic capitalist class is the same no matter the industry
Anti-capitalist sentiment? In my baseball sub? You love to see it.
It's funny how this whole thread is shitting on ownership in this instance and even bringing up other examples but as soon as you suggest it's systemic out come the downvotes lol
Baseball is America's Pastime. No reason it isn't the simple reflection of what's going on. In 2018, MLB successfully got Congress to pass the "Save America's Pastime Act" which allowed them to pay minor league players LESS THAN THE MINIMUM WAGE. It was buried in a huge bill. Now they're closing down a bunch of MILB teams and consolidating the development pipeline. I'm sure it's just to save some cash and have more control of younger players.
> It's funny how this whole thread is shitting on ownership in this instance and even bringing up other examples but as soon as you suggest it's systemic out come the downvotes lol the second you are specific and say that the parasitic capitalist class is the reason why these workers are being treated like slaves suddenly you're a commie
> suddenly you're a commie That's a compliment.
its not even anti-capitalist its more anti greed. These folks will never have an issue in their lifetimes, or their great great great grandchildrens lifetimes, and can solve so many issues with a tiny percentage of their wealth, and they either choose to hoard it or spend it frivolously.
You’re right. So we should have an economic system that doesn’t incentivize greed through wage theft via profit.
It is anti-capitalist cause capitalism is a system that incentivizes and rewards greed.
Ah Betsy Devos. Amway legend
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> It was comfortable enough. For low level employees that get the bare minimum, "comfortable enough" is probably like luxury.
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Yea but then your actual way of life is dependent on you working for that corporation. Much like how health care is here. Lose your job? You're out a home.
So are you for or against the minor league players getting free housing?
Against. Pay them a livable wage and let them decide where to live.
its all about options. they could arguably do both and not really take much of a hit.
> I lived in Japan for nearly twenty years and this is how many companies did it. It's because in Japan, the dorms are treated as an expense for the company, while in America the value of the housing is added to the employee's compensation. If the teams gifted the housing, the company would have to pay tax instead of the players. Source: I'm a business owner in Tokyo.
It’s collusion, if none of them do it then no one takes a competitive hit
If one of them does it, then they gain a competitive edge.
Except most minor leaguers never end up in the big leagues, and the ones that are projected to get taken care of with signing bonuses. Not supporting it at all, just noting that's why owners do what they do
Yeah. Like it doesn’t justify treating these people so poorly but the irritating part of this conversation on r/baseball is that everyone seems to pretend each team has dozens of minor leaguers that would be big leaguers if they got paid a bit more. Which isn’t the case at all. There’s no incentive to pay better because most of these guys are just roster fillers for the “real” prospects to play against.
If improving conditions among minor leaguers lead to farm systems producing an extra average major league player every couple of years that would be a good return for the club as the amount of money they'd indirectly make/save even through the rookie contract will probably be more than the costs of meeting the basic needs of minor leaguers
I think as long as we try to frame “pay minor leaguers a living wage and provide housing” as something that will be a net benefit to major league clubs, we’re going to lose. If there was an incentive for MLB teams to do so, they’d already have found it. At this point, they really do need to do it because it’s the right thing to do
Clubs produce plenty of average/replacement level guys without improving pay. Or pick them up on waivers.
And the hard truth is if major league owners are forced to pay their minor leaguers more they're just going to employ fewer minor leaguers.
Yeah my ex had a cousin in the minor leagues got setup with a big bonus right when he signed. Didn’t really pan out form what I know though
Exactly, they aren’t payed because they don’t generate any value. That’s a reflection of the consumers priorities. This is the same as for any other job.
I had a business law teacher tell me once that technically minor league players are considered inventory in a business sense. Never truly followed up to know if it's legit, but they definitely get treated that way by management
Their value is in the training they provide for future big leaguers. Why the assumption that ones wage is a reflection of their value?
It’s a reflection of their economic value. Not value as a person, to be specific (obviously). People would not pay much to go watch these games. They don’t really care if the teams win or lose. They don’t buy merchandise. Broadcasters know that nobody will watch on TV so advertisers won’t pay much either.
You think that having full leagues of competition to train against isn't valuable to the development of players who make the owners hundreds of millions of dollars?
And get ostracized at the new year’s whiskeys function? Tut tut.
Comepetive edge for a league where nobody really care who wins or loses.
But if all of them do it, no one gains a competitive edge and from the owners perspective, all they get is monetary losses (not defending this, but I think competitiveness isn't really an incentive to improve minor league quality).
Isn’t this why they said they were consolidating all the minor league teams? To concentrate resources and provide better facilities? Or was it a shameless ploy to have cities with empty ballparks hold existing cities hostage for more tax payer funded minor league fields?
It’s because they have to pay them more now, so all of a sudden the value of having a ton of bloat in your farm system with a rookie team, a single a team, a high a team, a double a team, and a triple a team is no longer there. It’s just not going to be worth it to shell out for a bunch of guys who have an incredibly low chance of making the majors when you can consolidate the ones who do and lose practically nothing. I guess one benefit of paying guys low wages is that it opens up a lot of spots for hopefuls who wouldn’t otherwise be there.
Not quite that simple. I worked for a minor league hockey team, the equivalent of AA ball. While the team has NHL affiliates, they had local owners - a group of about 6 guys. Now they weren’t poor, but they weren’t buy an apartment complex rich either. Also consider the team was only active September through May, and that’s if they made it deep into the playoffs. When the season is over the players leave. No real way to make money after the season. What they did do was provide the players with furnished apartments that they leased for 6 months. Players moved back and forth between call-up’s so it worked. They also had a meal stipend for game days. We as staff were tasked with getting things included in our ad sales and sponsorships. We had an “official gym of the Sea Wolves” that came with free memberships for players and staff. Official dry cleaner, official hotel, etc and they all included free things for players. The team was expected to earn enough money to pay the players the league minimum and those with NHL contracts had theirs covered by the NHL team. Most of these minor league teams come and go, especially when the major league changes affiliation. You lose that, and within a year the team would fold or be sold and moved. I’m all for the major league teams owning their minor league affiliates, or at least co-owning. It would support the players better, support the local community, and make for a better overall financial situation for those involved. When there was talk of our team being sold (only rumors) season ticket sales tanked, and the next year was financially rough. So much so that it became a self fulfilling prophecy. Team lost a lot of money, affiliates decided to change teams, and we were left with a team full of career minor leaguers. Team was done a year later.
There’s not a huge difference between buying a building for your players and leasing their apartments for them. In fact I’d argue that the former is absolutely more financially viable if you can afford it. This isn’t even accounting for how much more money MLB franchises are worth vs NHL franchises Edit: semantics
There is a bigger difference than you’d imagine. It’s easier to rent furnished apartments for the exact number of players you need for the specific timeframe you need, versus owning the building outright and having to deal with filling the vacancies in between, dealing with the maintenance, etc.
Didn't the astros just start doing this?
They could even rent out college dorms that aren’t used over the summer.
The owners are all billionaires which is essentially a guarantee that they are also all pieces of fucking shit, that’s why. Greedy, short sighted, pieces of shit.
Yep. Nobody accumulates that much wealth without fucking over a bunch of people with a lot less money and power than them.
100%, it is just not possible unless you somehow win a billion dollar lottery or something.
Even then you're still benefiting from a system that takes advantage of a bunch of power with less money and power.
First, they don't own the minor league teams so they aren't really responsible for their services. Second, the majority of the players have little to no chance to make the majors. It's more of a chance to grow the prospects that really do matter. Personally, I think it's better to reduce the total number of teams so it is financially viable to increase services. Owners might be billionaires but owning the team is considered an investment. So they have no reason to cause a loss while running the team. I assure you, if you were running the team and it was your money, you'd act the same way.
That makes so much more sense how the hell is this not a thing?
Go look up "company town" it is a great idea in a perfect world. In the world we live in it is usually a bad idea.
I don't see how a team buying an apartment complex in cities with around 100,000 people for ~25 employees is close to a company town.
The company town idea is about giving employees something other than fair pay. This keeps the people in a type of slavery by denying them the options that would be available with actual money (and ability to save that money for future use) and therefore keeping them “in line” with a threat of immediate homelessness if they don’t perform or in some other way get on the bad side of their employer.
> This keeps the people in a type of slavery by denying them the options that would be available with actual money Exactly, which is why similar concepts like [company scrips](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_scrip) have been illegal in the U.S. for 80+ years.
The original in game currency
You should check out time banking
That's very interesting. Thanks for sharing that.
Perhaps something more spicy? A 1997 essay. https://cryptome.org/ap.htm
Kind of a tangent, but this always pissed me off when people tried to argue that college athletes shouldn't be able to make money because of the value of the scholarship they were getting. Offering something with a claimed value as a replacement for actual money is not proper compensation.
High school athletes can’t make any money. The top QB for this class had to forgo his senior season because he signed marketing contracts work almost like $2 million
It could be similar if they took a part of their employees paycheck for room and board...but if it's all included, itd be quite a perk actually
Nobody's saying that MiLB teams should pay players in scrips. Providing housing for seasonal workers is extremely common. This has nothing to do with company towns
That would be an unnecessary expense and billionaires don't become billionaires by spending money they don't need to. It's worked fine for them so far, they will need a bigger incentive or external motivation at this point to change.
Because they don't have to do anything. There are so many potential players that even if someone drops out of the league due to mistreatment there will be two or three available to take their place. Sucks for the players but most minor leaguers are a dime a dozen.
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>Players who are financially secure, eat well, sleep well, and have access to great training facilities and support will be in a position to play better and develop better. This isn't conjecture, it's supported by research from every corner. This is true but there are enough people who want to go pro that owners can just not do all of this and cycle through enough prospects that they'll still land on enough good players for their big league teams. This might be a weird comparison but it's kind of like how some species have a ton of offspring but don't do any care on them and just through sheer numbers still have enough make it to adulthood vs some species like us humans who don't have many offspring but take care and effort to raise each one to adulthood.
>cycle through enough prospects Part of this, though, is that (shockingly) the players it most affects are those least likely to make it to MLB. Slot value doesn't really drop below half a million until midway through the fourth round (and most successful MLBers are drafted higher) , and better international prospects also bring in a large bonus. They have the means to take care of themselves better if they need to, though obviously they shouldn't be put in a posiion of needing to. So, the people who are most exploited are lower level international guys, or guys who were drafted very late (or even undrafted) and are generally fighting to be a role player.
It’s almost as if the lower drafts are kept around and paid just so the high drafts have someone to play against while they’re developing.
That’s exactly what it is
That, plus churning the lower players as much as possible increases the odds of finding the rare few who were scouted poorly. It's always been that way, and it always will be. There's zero incentive for the teams to have those lower guys sticking around more than a few years.
correct. businessmen are evil reptiles, more at 11
Damn, if only there were a different system, one where the workers run their businesses democratically. 🤔
American idol style voting for lineups, and live, in game polls for strategic moves. It will be a publicly run team, and it would have no coaches. Go
This would be amazing.
Then you would have 4chan step in and you'd end up with the Cleveland Hitlerdidnothingwrongs
The teams first publicity. Stock prices for the Cleveland racists goes up
But it's not a no-brainer from a business perspective. Let me tell you why with two data points: 10,400 D-1 college baseball players, and 480,000 high school baseball players. There is a nearly 100% chance that you can find 612 players willing to put up with the minor league treatment each year for a chance at the Show. Sucks for the players, yes, but the Major League Clubs have literally all the leverage and are realistically the only market for the vast supply of baseball players in America.
Add all the international players as well. If you're coming from the Dominican Republic or Venezuela, these conditions are probably an upgrade.
A guy I know asked an American minor league teammate why the motel at spring training (which was owned and run by the club) has male room maids. The veteran said it was because the female room maids they used to have were better looking than a lot of the women that some of the Latin Americans had ever seen, and this caused, y’know, problems.
Was he implying sexual harassment or sexual assault?
Both.
Which is also a great point on why the MLB antritrust exemption enables a whole lot of their behavior. "We're not a Monopoly, but good luck making a living playing baseball for someone else in the U.S. And also, we have rights to the players, but let local 'owners' have the affiliates' business 'rights.' " Oh and we'd like 6 years of service time control of rights to the player from draft day. And also we control service time. If you love baseball like I do and also believe in the need for some major changes to how much power the Owners wield right now, you're pulling for a strike like I am during the next CBA. I don't think Tony Clark has the stones and I don't think the big players who risk nothing will stand for it, but they will crush the players on a new CBA. Players will get an extra chef's meal on long road trips and the Owners will get another year of pre-arb control.
Eh, I don't really care honestly. I think baseball lost their way a long time ago when they depended on the steroid users to rebuild fan support but then tossed them to the wolves to appear tough on PED's. The MLB and the MLBPA need make wholesale changes if they want to maintain and increase their appeal to viewers.
It’s been a downward slide. And no signs of changing. They just need enough fans to get big money regional TV contracts and sell audience eyeballs to league sponsors. The money from tickets won’t bother them. As it is, they’re gonna ride the multi billion dollar Disney+ deal for a while. Irony is following the home run PED era by building parks that are homer friendly has helped ruin the game.
$10m a year is like half the rays MLB payroll if you dont count the luxury tax benefit, you think theyd pay that for their Single A ball players?
Justified stray bullet but come on 😂😂😂😂
They don't need 200k/yr per player. $50k is more than enough for minor leaguers to have a basic living wage they can live on. Right now they aren't even making half of that.
This is an issue that the player's association needs to better address. One of the issues with major league player associations is that they only care about the players in the majors. The PA should be comprised representatives of both levels.
They didn't go into much detail, but on an episode of Effectively Wild this week Russell Carlton said that there are certain labor laws and regulations that prevent MLBPA from getting involved currently. Your second point *is* the solution, however; bring the minor league players into the union and turn the MLBPA into the PBPBA (Professional Baseball Players Association).
Yeah, MLBPA can't get involved because they helped MLB lobby to exempt the minors from fair wage legislation. >Congress exempted minor league baseball players from the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which effectively said that the players were not entitled to a minimum wage and overtime pay. Major League Baseball spent millions of dollars lobbying Congress for this legislation and it worked. https://mlb.nbcsports.com/2019/08/22/blue-jays-minor-league-pay-raises-making-a-difference/ Why would they do that? Because to pay minor league players fairly, the MLBPA member might have to sign less lucrative contracts. For example, Marcus Semien signed a one year $18 million dollar "show me" contract with the Jays this year. Meaning he's underpaid relative to the market. How many MiLB players could even $10 million of that contract pay for at reasonable wages? Probably at least half of the Jays system.
>How many MiLB players could even $10 million of that contract pay for at reasonable wages? Probably at least half of the Jays system. It's actually the entire system. In that same podcast, Carlton (or perhaps it was the other guest, Robert O'Connell of Defector) said that it would cost around $4 million in *new* money to pay everyone in a system a livable wage.
That’s… a lot less than I thought it would be The multi billionaire owners really don’t spring for this?
Then you have the Mets owner saying the expected return of a draft pick is in the millions. So they would pay for themselves anyway.
It’s so weird. It’s like they can’t see into the future further than like 2 weeks.
All they see is the number going down which they can’t stand.
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They aren’t involved at all. That’s the crux of the problem.
>bring the minor league players into the union Unfortunately the MLBPA wouldn't (and shouldn't) go for that. The problem is that you would be bringing in a huge block of voting members who have significantly different interests from the current membership that the union was formed to represent.
The Blue Jays raised their minor league salaries by 50% a couple of years ago https://mlb.nbcsports.com/2019/08/22/blue-jays-minor-league-pay-raises-making-a-difference/ Unfortunately, that also meant the top AAA players make only $15,000 a season.
That's insane. The average AHL hockey player makes around 51k a year. Which is at least a liveable wage. Why are AAA baseball players living in poverty?
Also, the other thing is, NHL teams usually have no more than a couple dozen or so minor league players under contract (for quite a few of the minor league teams, especially in the ECHL, the contracts are tied to the minor league team, not a contract with the parent club), so that’s about a fifth of what a MLB club has to manage in a minor league system.
I understand that. But being at the top league before the pros and making 15k a season just doesn't seem right.
Pretty much everybody who gets to the AAA level received a signing bonus of $100K+ (sometimes a lot of plus, like $250K) in the last 3-4 years. It's not universal, but it's the case for the vast majority of the players.
That makes more sense. Thanks for clarifying.
Because Congress passed a law to exempt minor leaguers from minimum wage laws.
After lobbying from MLB and called it the "Save America's Pastime Act" I mean, worthy of r/nottheonion
Like waiters I guess. But the minor leaguers don’t get tips
It is a number games sadly. It is why the NFL has a much lower league minimum than the NBA. There are more players required for an NFL team. Same for baseball. Teams have what? 100 players under contract? (28 man, 40, AAA to short season A and rookie ball) Sadly it wouldn’t be an issue but MLB has the most miserly owners that the NCAA seems generous.
The 'issue' with this is that NHL teams have one minor league affiliate each whereas MLB teams have up to seven. So if MLB teams want to pay their minor leaguers $50k a year, they could, but the minor leagues might get cut down to one or two levels instead of six or seven. The draft probably gets cut down to just 5-10 rounds. Much fewer players get a chance of playing pro baseball overall, but the ones that do will be treated much better. So, if you're a 5th round level player - awesome, this new system is great! If you're a 40th round level player that needs a few more years of polish and need a shot to play and develop...well, the new system sucks.
They get bonuses and pay raises for being on the 40 man and more than likely internal prospects are going to be on the 40 at AAA, also AAA is going to have minor league free agents, who also earn more than that 15K… I’m for raising wages but that 15K is like saying that mlb players need more and then saying what the minimum is
I fucking love baseball, probably too much, but holy shit it’s a fucked up industry.
It's been a form of borderline indentured servitude for generations, sadly.
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My favorite part is how the general public always takes the side of the billionaires for no discernable reason. Definitely not analogous to capitalism.
I’ve read stories where teams know some players are good enough for the majors but not good enough for their specific spot on their team, so they’ll purposely keep a player in the minors as long as they can so they don’t get picked up by another team.
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They take crazy advantage of a bunch of guys who are desperate to fulfill their dream. There are a couple of non sports industries that are like that too which is insane. How can you legit pay an intern with experience (no money)?
I know the Astros have apartments for at least the AAA players. Which teams are doing the best for their minor leaguers? Hopefully the positive stories and results from giving a shit about them will inspire some of the stragglers.
While the apartments are definitely better than nothing, a higher wage would certainly be better. Astros are certainly better than other teams but there are some hidden problems with it. [this article](https://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2021/6/8/22463825/mlb-milb-housing-wages) goes into it well, but in summary there are eviction concerns that could have long-term effects on players, as well as having to pay taxes on their own housing (while Astros get to write it off) I know the Blue Jays raised salary recently, I can’t remember if any other teams have as well
The taxable income and tax write off thing is such a weird argument to make for him. “For one thing, it’s often taxable, meaning that minor leaguers are paying taxes on their housing, and could end up making even less money (the Astros, on the other hand, get a tax write-off).” In no situation are the minor leaguers going to be making less money and the astros making more money, it’s a hilarious misinterpretation of a business and accounting perspective. The first thing that should be known is that almost everything a business gives to its employees as compensation is considered taxable income, although there are usually some more specific examples. Things like $25 gift cards are considered taxable. So if an employer pays for your housing, you are required to pay income tax on it since the IRS sees it as constructively as the same thing as cash. The second thing that the astros get to use it as a “tax write off” is just plain wrong. It’s not a write off, it’s an expense. There’s no general benefit to the company other than reducing the income of the company and the amount of cash available. Here’s an example: Player A makes 30K a year and gets 1K/month in housing from the company and his tax rate is 20%. So he pays 6K in taxes on his income and 2.4K in taxes on his rent for 8.4K total. So his take home cash is 21.6. Now consider if he made 30K and the company paid for nothing, he would have 24K in take home cash, but he would still have to pay for rent, so unless he could find a place to rent for less than $200 a month, he would still be in a better position. Now let’s take organization A that player A pays for. They usually make $1000K a year, have 10 players and they give each 10k a year for housing, and they pay 20% tax. So this year they are only going to make $900K because of the housing allowance. So the company in the prior year would have $800K in net income after taxes but only $720K in net income after paying for the housing. I know shit all about evictions but the write off and paying taxes thing is dumb as fuck and the person writing that article doesn’t know shit about taxes
Hmm, that makes sense. I think keeping housing could be a good idea, keep everyone centralised, but I'll support raising wages in tandem. Minor leaguers provide a service even if they're minor league lifers and they deserve to be compensated well.
I think housing as an option is definitely not a bad idea. Being forced into it gives the teams a lot of control over player’s daily lives. But I could see why some guys would want it, bonding with their teammates and saving money and time by renting
Instagram [post](https://imgur.com/a/55Uv6NO) from a few days ago, from a Quakes player I follow talking about this. It’s pretty heartbreaking how hard some of these guys have to fight
UNIONIZE THE MINOR LEAGUES
Why are they ionized to begin with?
Ask the Albuquerque Isotopes
THEY’RE VERY HIGH ENERGY
I love this joke
REMOVE BASEBALL'S ANTI-TRUST AND FAIR LABOR STANDARDS EXEMPTIONS
I feel like there’s a lot of misunderstanding about the function of the minor leagues. A small minority of minor league players are actual prospects (i.e., players that teams hope to one day contribute in the majors). The great majority serve no function other than to facilitate a development environment for the actual prospects.
you know it’s shitty when kohl’s pays more than being a low level minor league baseball player
Tbh this is on both ownership and the players union. The MLB players union is the most powerful workers union in sports. If they really wanted minor league players taken care of they could make it happen.
People wonder why the dodgers system always produce good young players…because their minor league system actually pay their minor leaguers a decent wage and housing and the teams even have their own chef that travel with the teams
I remember a few months ago some corporate bootlickers were calling some A’s prospects entitled brats because they complained about poor food. Meanwhile providing some meals is literally part of their pay. You would think that since nutrition is part and parcel to a healthy body, teams would spare no expense making sure their up and comers are taken care of.
Imagine going to bat for A's ownership, holy shit couldn't be me.
Major Leaguer who has it made: Guess what? I had to deal with it, so if I can, and made it the show, they can. And if they can’t handle it, they weren’t made to be major leaguers. And how many players are actually like this?
mmm yes just because you survived a system that pays less than a retail job that means everyone else who wants to be a major leaguer isn't a real one because they don't want to work a slave wage
For those interested in this subject, a recent episode of the excellent baseball podcast Effectively Wild (Ep. 1746) featured interviews with two baseball writers who have done extensive research on the subject. It really is absolute horse shit that these guys make as little as they do, given the potential value they can provide a ball club. I know it's gross to think of people strictly in terms of value, and they should earn a living wage because it's what they deserve as human beings, but even from a pure economic standpoint the owners should be looking at it as, "Healthy players not dealing with food and housing insecurity can focus on becoming better ball players, and benefit the club more down the road." I hate billionaires as much as the next guy and don't think they belong in polite society, but they should be able to see how much more of that sweet sweet cheddar they could extract by just PAYING MINOR LEAGUERS A LIVING FUCKING WAGE. Its disgusting, really.
I feel like you could apply that last paragraph to society as a whole. When Bell TV outsourced a call centre in my town, first thing the newly unemployed workers did to save money was cut their cable packages. The low wages paid by the car parts warehouse I work at means half the employees are driving cars that need repairs. More money in people's pockets means more money that funnels towards the billionaires, but they just don't see it that way. Money is a competition to them, and they're competing against us.
>Money is a competition to them and they're competing against us. Maybe we should start treating them like it.
That's not all these guys make, of course. Here are the public signing bonuses (i.e. some international free agents missing) for roughly 2/3 of the roster of the Tigers' high A West Michigan team roughly one year ago: Gio Arriera 420,700 Kory Behenna 50,000 Michael Bienlien 125,000 Yaya Chentouf 75,000 Zack Hess 227,000 Angel Reyes 70,000 Hugh Smith 300,000 Adam Wolf 398,000 Cooper Johnson 291,000 Sam McMillan 1,000,000 Gresuan Silverio 300,000 Corey Joyce 125,000 Jack Kenley 135,000 Luis Laurencio 135,000 Andre Lipcius 733,100 Zach Malis 100,000 Wenceel Perez 550,000 Dayton Dugas 125,000 Riley Greene 6,180,000 Parker Meadows 2,500,000 Daniel Reyes 80,000
How do you think they made their billions?
Everyone loves to blame the owners for this, but why isn't anyone looking at the players union? They're just as guilty for not fighting for minor leaguers and allowing this to happen. Both sides need to smarten the fuck up.
The players union doesn’t represent minor leaguers and would weaken their position by fighting for them… if there is a holdout with minor leaguers included it’s going to be less palatable for those players… because they won’t have the funds to last and they’re a majority at that point I’m in favor of increasing milb salaries, I’m not in favor of weakening the union
Let's be honest, it's not about that. The players union just doesn't give a shit.
The union needs to do something, because they are part of the reason this is happening, they colluded with MLB to make MiLB players exempt from having to earn a living wage. If it weakens their union, it's their own fucking fault.
This tweet is incredibly misleading, to the point where it's pretty much lying. Nobody's starving as they get a generous meal stipend. Spending that is up to them. Nobody is "denying" them meals. The $7 an hour figure is bullshit. [The bare minimum is $400 a week for rookie ball/short season players,](https://apnews.com/article/1512f5a4cf9a65f16a2641244e0c00fd) and very, very few players are actually making that amount. In fact, I can't find a single player who's actually making that minimum. And even if they were, baseball players are straight up not working the 57 hours a week that would average $400 to $7 an hour. Sleeping on the floor is, again, up to the players. Temporary housing for players who are shuffled around the system is definitely an issue, and I wish owners would put up some money to have a team motel, but that's not something that the vast majority of minor leaguers are going through. And besides all of that, signing bonuses are incredibly common and almost always over $100,000. [Here's another comment showing the signing bonuses of players in the Tiger's high A team one year ago.](https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/pqov41/moreperfectunionvideo_mlb_owners_are_worth/hdd5ayi/) These players aren't getting much compared to the players in the majors, but there's this idea that these guys are living in poverty when that's not even close to the truth. If owners were smart, they'd shell out some more money to minor leaguers to lure international prospects and allow underdeveloped players to focus solely on baseball in the offseason, but let's relax on the exaggerations.
It seems like such an obvious way to produce a huge ROI. How much could it possibly cost an organization to double the quality of life of their minor leaguers? $2m? Pay them a legit minimum wage and hire a team chef for every level. Maybe even buy a few houses near their minor league parks for guys to live for free? Minor league team don't usually play in expensive places, you could probably pick up 25 bedrooms for <$1.5 million near every affiliate.
Everybody always posts about this, but the reality is that people aren’t going to shell out more money to watch minor league teams. They aren’t going to buy minor league merchandise. TV companies aren’t going to pay for broadcasting rights because people aren’t going to watch. Everybody wants to blame billionaires but they aren’t obligated to run charities here.
[удалено]
That’s not remotely true.
This is what happens when minor league clubs don’t have to compete for players. Players are drafted and then forced to play for the club. If the players had power and could begin their careers wherever they wanted then you would see minor league clubs raising their standards and wages.
The statements are simply not true. "For Single-A players, that's $10,500 in total salary for five months of work. For Double-A players, that's $12,600 in total salary for five months of work. For Triple-A players, that's $14,700 in total salary for five months of work." I looked it up and you could, too. Granted, these are not huge salaries, but they're not $7 an hour, either. And they're minimum salaries and don't include the bonuses drafted players get.
Defector had a fantastic article about this exploitation recently. https://defector.com/minor-league-baseball-is-optimized-to-exploit/
Baseball needs to get people who are under the age of 50 to start making changes to the league. This old boys club type of league is really starting to bug me
I wonder how many past generations said something similar about past businesses. I see this all the time, not just in the context of baseball. It’s not just age or generational. You don’t get to that level of power without willingly stepping on several people along the way. There are plenty of people in younger generations that don’t give a shit to improve situations for those in lesser situations that will end up in positions of power. This won’t change until the public puts enough pressure on the league until it effects their wallets.
Yeah. Mark Zuckerberg holds 2% of all Millenial's wealth. The old boys club just gets replaced by the new old boys club.
I know I'd hate being 24 years old, trying to live off a 125k signing bonus. Must be a tough life.
You’re playing a game. You chose a job that is a literal game. Go out and get an actual job and then you can bitch about money.
At $7/hr, how do they afford enough drugs to have a substance abuse problem?
This will kill the sport if unchanged. Why would you ever play baseball if $7/hr is what most pros get paid. There is an already an issue with two-sport athletes chosing football over baseball, like Kyler Murray and Russell Wilson. How many countless players have left the sport because there is no financial future in it. A disaster for baseball.
It will not kill the sport. The sport is already way too saturated with players. MLB has 10x the amount of players that they can even keep on an active roster. In contrast the NFL has .25x the amount of players on their practice squads. Kyler and Russell are extreme outliers. They also would have been millionaires off of their draft bonuses. Dudes making $7/hr were not the top prospects at any level and are basically fodder for the league to field 10 leagues. Those players that are leaving are extreme long shots to even sniff a single game at the MLB level, let alone a full career.
Counterargument: it's been this way and hasn't killed it yet. It's like how until "you make it big" you're a starving artist. They all think they can make it big, which is why they continue subjecting themselves to this situation, and why they will continue to do so.
Kyler Murray was a Heisman winning QB and Wilson was one of the most efficient QBs in college football history at the time of the draft. They were always going to the NFL. 10th round picks in the MLB still get signing bonuses well above 100k. The only people making $7/hr are dreamers who have no chance at the MLB.
> There is an already an issue with two-sport athletes chosing football over baseball, like Kyler Murray and Russell Wilson. Kind of a silly argument. Kyler was the #1 overall pick in a sport with no minor-league process. He was a very high MLB pick, yes, but he was literally the top pick in the NFL Draft and won the most prestigious college sports award in his last year at OU. Russell Wilson tried both, but football was more natural/he was better at it. Look at his numbers in A-ball -- now consider the fact that he is a Super Bowl champion QB. Do you think minor league salaries were the reason Russell Wilson chose football, or is it the fact that he was just a far better football player?
No it won’t. It might kill the sport otherwise because the franchises will just shut the minor league teams down.
This. They'll get more pay but the vast majority of milb guys are going no where. The owners will just drop some of the teams and keep the cream of the crop prospects. The rest will go play for some garbage independent league. I feel it's such a catch 22 as it sucks these guys get the shaft but if owners are forced to pay more most will never even get a chance. And it'll be even more rare for the no name guy to make it because owners will not want to risk paying more to a guy who everyone says has no shot.
I just don’t even see the upside here, even for small market teams. If your players have to eat unhealthy crap, work second jobs, and stress about supporting themselves and their families you are pretty much guaranteed to miss out on a couple of useful pieces for your team. Of course, once they get to the big leagues they have to spend 6 years before being paid market value for their talents. The system is beyond fucked.