All true I think, but I still picture - perhaps I'm guilty of stereotyping - the LA players living six to a hotel room and sending everything home. Their choice at that point I guess. I also think "above the federal poverty line" is still not an acceptable baseline for an industry as rich as baseball to set for its employees, regardless of how valuable they consider the "apprenticeship" to be (and that is true for every internship and apprenticeship in every business. Those days are over).
I think if there was year-round housing included - since players still couldn't have a normal 12 month lease splitting their time between Clearwater, their in-season team and, well, where they really want to live - that would round it out pretty well. Of course, lots of players would probably not want to be year-round employees. No, they don't want to work for Doordash or mowing lawns, but they also don't want to live in Clearwater from October to April. But just like any other job, you move where there's work.
From the article:
• $41,218 as the mean salary players say would allow them to not work during the offseason. (MTB is proposing roughly $15/hour at $35,000 as a solution that would “bring players above the federal poverty line and put them in line with living wage standards given the number of hours they work.”
