Category: Management Bullshit

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If you’re a fan of baseball video games, and have been waiting for minor-league players to finally be included in one, you’re in luck! The latest edition of MLB The Show is going to include full minor-league rosters for the first time ever. Oh, here’s just a tiny side note: those minor-league players aren’t going to be paid for the use of their likeness in the game, because MLB owns those and can do whatever they want with it.

Minor League Baseball’s players sign a uniform contract. MLB players also have uniform contracts, but the language contained within those has been negotiated over the course of decades through collective bargaining, and that uniform language is a base upon which they can build specifics. Not so with the minors, where the contract is the contract, and cannot be altered by the players: sign it or don’t sign it, but only one of those outcomes allows you to play pro ball under the MLB umbrella.

Continue reading “Here’s why MiLB players won’t be paid for appearing in MLB The Show”

This article is free for anyone to read, but please consider becoming a Patreon subscriber to allow me to keep writing posts like this one.

One of the planks of Major League Baseball’s plan slash threat to disaffiliate 42 Minor League Baseball clubs involved facilities. MLB believed too many facilities at too many parks were out-of-date, unsafe, unproductive, and unhelpful. There’s some truth to that, too: some stadiums do have old facilities that could use upgrading, and it would have been good of the MiLB owners, who don’t have to pay the players in their employ, the same players who help them make a profit, to work on upgrading those facilities with those revenues.

At the same time, MLB teams can certainly afford to do it themselves: sure, MLB signs some minor-league players to significant bonuses, and they do pay the player salaries, but those salaries are poverty-level wages — scratch that, poverty-level wages would be an improvement on what most of the players are taking home. The “surplus” value, the profits generated by these players, are more than enough for MLB to be able to reinvest back into not just the players, but the places they are playing.

Continue reading “Mets’ renovated spring training clubhouse a reminder of gap between MLB and MiLB”

​This article is free for anyone to read, but please consider becoming a Patreon subscriber to allow me to keep writing posts like this one.

On Tuesday, the Save Minor League Baseball Task Force introduced a congressional resolution to keep Major League Baseball from their plan to disaffiliate dozens of Minor League Baseball teams before the 2021 season. A bipartisan group comprised of the task force’s co-chairs —  Lori Trahan (Democrat, Massachusetts), David McKinley (Republican, West Virginia), Max Rose (Democrat, New York), and Mike Simpson (Republican, New York) — introduced the resolution, which makes three points within, that all tie back to one main point: don’t get rid of these teams:

Now, therefore, be it Resolved,

That the House of Representatives—

(1) supports the preservation of Minor League Baseball in 160 American communities;

(2) recognizes the unique social, economic, and historic contributions that Minor League Baseball has made to American life and culture; and

(3) encourages continuation of the 117-year foundation of the Minor Leagues in 160 communities through continued affiliations with Major League Baseball.

You can find the full text here, stuffed full of all of the Whereas you need that mention attendance (over 40 million for the 15th year running), MiLB’s donations to local communities (15,000 volunteer hours, $45 million in cash and in-kind gifts), and MiLB’s place as the only touchstone for pro ball in many, many communities. The primary points are the ones above, though, and the task force is seeking to pass those points as a resolution to make theirs known to MLB.

Continue reading “Save Minor League Baseball Task Force takes next step in the fight against MLB”