How to Improve Life for Minor League Players
My birthday is today. I do not mention that for attention, but to highlight how bittersweet this day has been for me the past decade. Outside of 2020, this is the first year I have been home with my family for my birthday since 2011.
March 31st was always a fun day for me in minor league camp, but not because it was my birthday. It was a fun day because it meant camp was almost over. What it also meant was rosters were about to be released.
In the next few days, minor league rosters will be posted. There will be overreactions and grand conclusions made. Do not read too much into them. There will be changes to rosters before the first game. There will be hundreds of changes during the year, some due to shortages, others due to performance. It is an exciting time because it means baseball is about to begin!
I wanted to highlight in my post this week the challenges minor league players are about to face as non-union members and my suggestions on how MLB and ML organizations can improve the lifestyle for non-40 man players.
One note before I get into these details - I believe strongly that a majority of the changes MLB made when they condensed the minor leagues will help the players out. Requiring two buses on long trips (or if the trip is over a certain mileage threshold, requiring a flight), raising the quality of visiting hotels, setting minimum square footage requirements in the clubhouse, dining area, training room and weight room, increasing roster sizes and improving the lighting in the ballparks are some of the changes made in the restructuring of the minor leagues. Unfortunately, the cost of these changes were put onto the affiliates. It is time for the ML Organizations to step up and incur the costs for these proposed changes.
Pay Raises
In 2021, MLB instituted pay raises across the board. It wasn't enough. Players in the minor leagues are unbelievably talented, the top 1% of the top 1% of individuals that have played baseball in their life. At this time, they are lucky to take home more than $12,000 in pay for the 2022 season. A billion dollar industry is paying these unbelievable talents a non-living wage.
Solution - What minor league players need is a livable salary paid during the season. My proposal would be the California minimum salary for exempt employees (for companies with over 25 employees). In 2022, this salary is $62,400. In addition, players asked to attend camps/workouts between the dates of 9/15 - 2/10 should receive a bonus of $200 per day when attending these camps/workouts.
Is that an earth shattering salary? Not even close. But it certainly helps players and their families compared to the current wages they receive.
Housing
2022 will be the first year where the ML club is responsible for the cost of housing for minor league players. This is a great step and will take a lot of stress out of the player's lives. However, they need to do more.
Solution - In season and during off-season camps, players should be given their own rooms in their home city in team funded housing and on the road, players should receive their own hotel rooms. The one exception is during ST (mostly because of a supply issue), where players should be prepared to have a roommate.
These are adults who have families/spouses/kids, they have earned privacy. Can you imagine being a 23 year old business professional required to be on the road for 75+ days a year and your company requires you to have a roommate?
Smaller (but still helpful) Suggestions
Car Shipment Allowance - Provide players a stipend for shipping their car to their affiliate at the beginning of the season.
In Season Taxi Money - For players that do not use the car shipment allowance, provide them with $15 a day in ride share money to help alleviate the cost of getting from their residence to the ballpark and home each home game.
Meal Money - Raise the meal money allowance per day in ST and when the team is on the road from $25 to $45.
Meals Provided Amount - Require clubs to spend a minimum of $1,400 a day on catering for games. This would cover a pre-game meal and post-game meal + snacks. The amount seems high, but you are providing a meal for roughly 45 - 50 people (players, coaches, clubhouse staff, rovers, umpires.....etc). At $1,400 per day and 50 people, you are looking at a cost of $28 per person for two meals + clubhouse snacks.
Draft Bonus Minimum - The minimum signing bonus for a player drafted should be set to $100,000. If a teams covets a player enough to draft them, the bonus amount should be high enough to set the player up with a decent pay day to begin their playing career.
These quality of life upgrades would make a huge impact on the mental health and daily well being of players and allow them to focus on baseball.
Next week I plan on writing some quick reactions to the Giants minor league rosters and will also have an additional post about ways to improve the quality of life/job cycle for minor league coaches and staff.