Minor Leagues Labor Deal!

[andyb]

Actually, they are not even second-class citizens since they are not citizens at all.

They are citizens. Or are you saying MLB should just be restricted to United States citizens?

I am all for an international draft these days, Players should register for that draft, submit to physicals, etc. to be eligible to play. I might even combine the drafts one day. That doesn't mean we should pay them less just because we can though. I am all for the NIL deals for college athletes also. Why should the coach be the highest paid public employee of each state while the kids get very little in comparison.

One probably can't have the exact same system in Latin America as the U.S. But one sure can get a lot closer between the two.

[phillychuck]

When you are referring to "second-class" citizens with respect to the US Major League Baseball monopoly, you are clearly referring to US citizens. There is no way the kids in the DSL are second class in the Dominican. Most of those 17-20 year-old ballplayers are earning more than their siblings who are not ballplayers.

I want the internationals to receive more money, too, but lets clean up the system first.

Would you pay an elementary school teacher in rural Mississippi the same as a teacher in NYC? Do we pay the Mississippi teacher less "simply because we can"? That is a bogus argument. We pay the teacher in MS about 50% of the NYC teacher because of the differences in the economies.

I agree about an international draft. That would be a big step to disempowering the exploitative Buscone's.

[Austinfan]

Players aren't paid the same in any case, some get big bonuses, some get $10K, some get almost nothing.
Those bonuses, both in LA and the draft are part of their compensation.

[allentown]

They have a better life from day 1. They are housed and fed well at the academy and provided education as well. Many have bonuses. Some very large bonuses. We are talking about a lot of 17- and 18-year olds. In the U.S. kids that age aren't paid at all to play on their H.S. or traveling teams. They haven't been able to receive a signing bonus until they graduate H.S. and in most cases junior college or junior year of a 4-year college. If they are viewed as being at all good, they've gotten at least a $10K bonus, many a lot more than that. Comparing the academy to the complex leagues is apples and oranges. This is not a travesty or exploitation. And, yes, it is a very corrupt system.

This is not at all colonialism.

[allentown]

They are citizens. Or are you saying MLB should just be restricted to United States citizens?

Please, you know better than this. U.S. labor law applies to workers in the U.S. and its territories. Labor rules to union contracts and U.S. law within the U.S. Workers of U.S. corporations in foreign countries have different wage levels and fringe benefits than U.S. workers -- some better and some worse. There would be no manufacturing in third world nations if U.S. or Western European wage rates would pay. And if those rates were paid, it would be disruptive to local economies. In most cases, the local workers are paid very well by local standards. That's how hundreds of millions of Chinese were lifted out of poverty. The DR is not dirt poor. That is Haiti, the other half of the island. Baseball is one reason the DR is more prosperous.

[Austinfan]

Yep. What would be exploitation in a 1st world country may be the only avenue out of dire poverty in a 3rd world country.
And you have to be wary of some people pushing 1st world standards for third world workers - because if you raise costs too much, manufacturing will move to countries with lower labor costs. This is happening to China, where a lot of production has shifted to other countries in Southeast Asia. This doesn't mean a minimum standard of care isn't a good idea, but minimum is the operative word, restricting child labor, refusing to buy from facilities that provide substandard conditions or fail to pay wages, etc. Enough to make conditions more humane, not enough to deprive these workers of their lifeline.

For a kid in the DR, getting into an academy in many cases means good nutrition for the first time in his life, better schooling, better facilities. Even if they never get off the island, the experience probably gives them a heads up in life. And even more so in Venezuela these days.

If you raise the costs for LA players, teams will rationally restrict the number of players they admit to academies, depriving a lot of kids a head start in life.

[andyb]

They are second class citizens within the community of major league baseball players. That matters. MLB baseball is a US corporation and only needs to follow US business laws. That does not make it right however. It is not right for 12-year-olds to make iphones either even if it is legal in whatever country that occurs in. So yes. Please. The union should take care of all its members. MLB should go above the minimum for their foreign workers.

They are working for a first world corporation. They should not be left behind just because of where they come from. It matters zero percent that getting into MLB improves their lives. I am sure those 12-year-olds making iphones make more money than the average 12-year-old too.

[jimbomill]

Playing baseball at a high level IS a professional skill.

I do concur, but if we're OK with those pay ranges, as many professions have pay ranges according to one's level at that endeavor, for Minor Leagues, the same rationale should apply to Major Leagues.
But it doesn't.

Increased pay for the Minor leagues is a step in the right direction, let's hope that journey continues.

[allentown]

They are second class citizens within the community of major league baseball players.

They are not major league baseball players. They are minor league players who aspire to become major league baseball players. Thery are not analogous to H.S. players drafted in the U.S. They are younger. They are less physically developed. They were signed based upon a ton of projection. The great majority will never develop sufficiently to ever come state-side. They receive signing bonuses on a par with U.S. draftees. They are at a very early stage of learning the profession they aspire to. There is nothing unethical about this. If baseball rejiggers allowable headcounts in a way which causes players who are good enough to be brought to the complex leagues and who are the minimum age to be eligible for the regular draft, then an ethical question arises.

I also don't get the point that it's horrible that MLB would love to, is trying to unload more of the expense of player development onto colleges. That's what every other major professional sport has done. The NFL has a small taxi squad. No other sport has the elaborate minor league system which baseball has. MLB's player development spending is way beyond that of any other sport.

It also makes no sense to say that keeping the status quo on $ will cause baseball to lose more DR future MLB players to soccer. Soccer is not about to start spending the money baseball is spending in the DR. Given the very small fraction of the 15-17 year olds committing to baseball bonus contracts who make MLB, it would be better for all if those whose skills are more suited to soccer went in that direction instead.

It would be a good thing to increase the wages of DR academy players, but the system must be reformed as a part of that.

[zambonir]

A lot of good points here, but at the end of the day we are still talking about pennies on the dollar both in general and for the teams. If these kids were only making $4800 a year/season in the complex league until now, and those leagues now only max out at $19,800 year-round, what the heck are they getting paid in the DR, $2 an hour? I think there are a lot of rose-colored assumptions being made about what their meals and housing might be like, or what they have to do in the off-season for money. Based on what we know about what life has been like for players in in the US minors I'm not prepared to assume it's actually that great, even relative to life in the DR. And if you don't see it as being about labor and fair pay, why not just see it as having the best possible development of the best possible players?

[allentown]

And if you don't see it as being about labor and fair pay, why not just see it as having the best possible development of the best possible players?

I do see it as being about a corrupt system interfering with fairness and the best possible development of the best possible players. I also see the 16-year old to barely-18-year old kids more as students than as employees. They are H.S. kids at a free boarding school, with baseball rather than rugby.

But frankly, I do find it unjust and off-putting to demand that so many , posters insist that MLB is ethically required to treat a 16- and 17-year old from the DR the same as an 18- and 19-year old from the U.S. The American high school student is not permitted by baseball rules to sign with an MLB organization, get a big bonus, and have his development paid for. H.S. baseball instruction in the U.S., especially here in the Northeast, is notoriously poor. Quality of instruction at that level is parent-paid. The American H.S. graduate, three years older than the DR kid was when an MLB team committed to pay him a big bonus, isn't allowed to shop his services to all MLB organizations, seeking the highest possible bonus. He is the property, possibly for a dozen years, with meaningful arbitration to receive a salary that is equitable to his talent available only in the final few years of that period, of that organization, which he did not get to choose.

Unless and until the LA players and their representatives, and the Latino MLB players who influence their union to fight for preservation of the current corrupt system, are willing to live by the same rules as American H.S. kids and recent grads, it makes no sense to me to give them the same salary as the two-year older Americans, who have surrendered basic rights for that salary.

I don't see why you question the quality of food and housing at the DR academy. It is very much in the teams' interest to build up the players strength, health, and emotional strength in addition to learning English, baseball instruction, and weight training.

To me, the ideal solution is for MLB to run the academies for 16- through 18-year old kids, with an academy league for the 17- and 18-year old kids, with a draft for those who have turned 18 and all of the draftees who sign being required to be brought to a state-side team. This eliminates the cheating and corruption and makes allowance for the differing circumstances in the LA baseball hubs.

[zambonir]

I don't see why you question the quality of food and housing at the DR academy. It is very much in the teams' interest to build up the players strength, health, and emotional strength in addition to learning English, baseball instruction, and weight training.

Given that we know the system is corrupt, and we know living and working conditions even for players in Clearwater, Florida, have generally been terrible (ditto the reported meals and nutrition in AAA), I don't know what you imagine the DR complexes look like. Personally I'm thinking more Extended Stay America - if that - than boarding school.

I just don't see what any of it has to do with the other. The MLBPA can't include these players in the new CBA and MLB isn't required to do better, but I don't think either should use this as a chip for system reform or an international draft (which is still not necessarily going to benefit the players and their home countries in the long run).

And the argument isn't that they should be paid the same as American players, just that they should have also received a pay raise/pay scale. Heck, do we even know if they get paid at all? Granted, the bigger bonus guys have their bonuses but a bonus is supposed to be on top of a base compensation, not instead of.

[allentown]

And the argument isn't that they should be paid the same as American players, just that they should have also received a pay raise/pay scale.

That certainly seems to have been exactly the argument being made.

They may well receive that. As with normal labor relations for companies in the U.S. not all employees get an increase, new agreement at the same time. Collective bargaining agreements cover only the employees in the bargaining groups. Many companies have multiple unions, each of which bargains separately, has separate employment terms, and separate dates when terms change. Ununionized workers have their own timeline.

This is one reason, I view this whole tangent that this thread has taken as absurd. MLB announced a contract covering one group of employees. It would be equally absurd to pillory them for not including something for the MLB umpires and employees in the Commissioner's office. This contract wasn't about them.

I am not opposed, as I have previously said, to a pay increase for kids at the academies.

[andyb]

I could see a scale in the DSL for players in the 16-18 year range that is a little less than in the US, but beyond that why should there be any difference. A number have posted that the 165 player limit (versus 180) will incentivize teams to keep players in the DSL longer. So how would you feel if you were a 21-year-old Dominican player making something like $5,000 a year instead of the $20,000-$30,000 that your buddies in instructional league make and the major league team kept you down in the DSL for an extra 2 years because it saved them money?

There are differences, but there is also basic fairness involved here. MLB (and the players union complicitly here) are saving pennies whereever they can and one of the methods is to pay their Latin American players less than their American players for doing the same thing.

[allentown]

I don't favor low salaries for DSL academy players who are an appropriate age to qualify for U.S. draft, which is why I said I thought baseball would be entering ethically poor territory if it did anything to keep academy players in the DR after they were old enough and good enough to be playing in a complex league, I think it a good idea to grant FA status to any LA player who signed before turning 18 and wasn't brought state-side within a couple weeks of turning 20.

Beyond that, and minor salary increase for younger DR players, I want any substantial infusion of salary $ to be accompanied by reform of the very corrupt system.

[Austinfan]

Given the rule 5 draft, teams won't keep players in the DR longer than necessary, what the salaries minimums will do is discourage promoting marginal prospects and waiting an extra year to see if they're worth shipping statewide.

"Real" prospects will be promoted as fast as possible b/c they'll have to be protected, so slowing their development means reserving a 40 man spot for a player a year further away.

[andyb]

Teams won't select players who have not played in advanced levels though. I could easily see 90% of Latin American prospects now spending 3-4 years in the DSL to save money. Someone like Seranthony needed years to mature and build velocity and get healthy. He had 2 DSL years followed by 2 GCL years (then an injury) followed by 2 more years climbing the ladder just to get to High A. Under the new system he could easily spend 5 years in the DSL. The 6-year rule they just implemented will probably prevent that 6th season, but the reality is that Seranthony just was not going to get selected in the rule 5 draft until he at least pitched in High A ball.

Frankly I would not be shocked to see the DSL evolve into a 2-level league with a DSL Advanced level and a DSL Rookie level. The incentives to do that (save money, avoid domestic rules) is there in plain sight.

[bkox]

So.... with the unionization... I dont understand the purpose of this. Thoughts?

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis just signed a bill sought by billionaire owners of Major League Baseball teams that cuts minor league baseball players off from the minimum wage.

— Jason Garcia ( @Jason_Garcia ) June 12, 2023

One day after this legislation was filed in Tallahassee, Joe Ricketts, the billionaire founder of TD Ameritrade whose kids own the Chicago Cubs, gave DeSantis a $1 million donation.

— Jason Garcia ( @Jason_Garcia ) June 12, 2023

Major League Baseball hired the lobbying firm owned by one of DeSantis' biggest Florida fundraisers and that now employs DeSantis' former chief of staff.

— Jason Garcia ( @Jason_Garcia ) June 12, 2023

Silver lining: Minor league players unionized for the first time last year – and signed their first labor contract just before Florida lawmakers passed this bill. So the impact should be relatively limited...although cutting anyone off from minimum wage protections is gross.

— Jason Garcia ( @Jason_Garcia ) June 12, 2023

[allentown]

although cutting

anyone

off from minimum wage protections is gross.

But it is very, very DeSantis.

[julio]

although cutting anyone off from minimum wage protections is gross.

But it is very, very DeSantis.

I'm sure there are DeSantis supporters here who will find a way to dispute (or ignore) this.