Baseball Booms, Minor Leaguers Still Exploited

[carrsallstars]

http://camdendepot.blogspot.com/2018/03/baseball-booms-minor-leaguers-still.html?m=1

Interesting article, especially in light of all the whining and posturing by major leaguers this off-season. I vaguely recall that minor league players were way underpaid. But this is pretty ridiculous. I'd be interested to hear points of view from some of the minor league (and Major league) fans on here.

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[cgilmo]

Its rough out there for non bonus babies. Its why topps can pay $4 an auto on some.

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[JVHaste]

Its rough out there for non bonus babies. Its why topps can pay $4 an auto on some.

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Yep, sadly they all have to get awkward side jobs to just break even... here is Barry Bonds before making it big.



:lol:

 

[KLARNOLD]

Why couldn't the MLB Teams or MLBPA (or both) put money into a pot that gets distributed to the minor leagues?

AAA gets 20%
AA gets 18%
Hi A gets 16%
Low A gets 14%
Short A gets 12%
Rookie gets 10%
DSL gets 10%

 

[carrsallstars]

I guess the most amazing thing to me is that more than 99% of the players in the majors spent a good amount of time in the minors. But when it comes to compensating minor league players enough so they could even afford to live on their income, their actions in terms of contracts and negotiations show they could care less...

 

[JVHaste]

I think MLB players shouldn't have to pay anything to MiLB, where the money should come from is the luxury tax. Instead of taking the rich teams money to the sandbaggers, take it to the MiLB for some percentage. How many mil from the luxury tax are the Marlins getting this year? I heard 60 mil, not sure if that's multiple years or what but even 6 mil is too much of a reward for a team trading good players in their 20s... fans are going to stop watching this sht show.

 

[MaineMule]

I just read that a minor leaguer who gets cut in ST receives -0-compensation AND has to travel to/from S/T on their own dime. Also do not get paid until the first regular season game. If that is correct the system is really flawed.

 

[Therion]

Congress has officially killed the Minor Leaguers getting paid minimum wage and I can't decide how I feel about it.

So the complaint is that Minor Leaguers do not get fairly compensated for the amount of time they put into their job. At the lowest level of baseball, they are paid $1,100 per month and a $25 per diem for food, which amounts to about $750 per month. They are only paid during the season. This, on its surface, seems absurd.

But I have lived on less for doing work that was a lot less interesting than playing baseball.

Here is where I think Congress might have saved Minor Leaguers from an even worse situation because I see it happen in education all of the time. The argument is that they should get paid at least minimum wage for all of the time that they work, which would include games, public appearances, and mandatory practice. In Education, we are required to reach a certain number of Professional Learning Credits to keep our certification. Most of these are offered outside of work hours and must be done on our own time at our own discretion. Baseball would simply stop making practice mandatory. So instead of considering all of the practice time as workable hours, baseball would only have to pay players for actual game time and for public appearances. If they played six games a week that lasted an average of four hours, players would only be paid for 24 hours a week. So they'd make $138 a week or $598 per month.

Congress looks like the bad guy here, but they may have just kept all of those Minor Leaguers from jumping out of the pan into the fire.