Category: MiLB

Red Sox job postings reminder of benefits of unionizing

Expectations for what teams have to feed to minor-league players keep changing, for the better.

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. Sign up to receive articles like this one in your inbox here.

Before minor leaguers unionized under the MLB Players Association umbrella, MLB teams were reluctant to spend pretty much anything on them. The pursestrings loosened in recent years, sure, with player housing and raises and such becoming part of the norm, but all of that was done in an attempt to stave off public relations issues and the “danger” of player organizing. That was more of an investment in maintaining as much of the status quo as possible than it was in the players themselves.

Things are a bit different now with the collective bargaining agreement in place, however. (Some things are the same, because this is MLB, but hey.) For instance, the Red Sox have put up some job postings of late, looking for a dietician for each of their minor-league affiliates, as well as a roving nutrition coordinator. The dieticians are likely a pseudo-requirement, as the CBA states that teams must provide “high-quality” meals both before and after games for players, but these clubs could also just order better catering. Having a dietician planning out these meals will help ensure that they actually are “high-quality” instead of merely “not garbage,” which is significant.

Continue reading “Red Sox job postings reminder of benefits of unionizing”

US Senators ask Rob Manfred and MLB to explain this spring’s anti-labor action

MLB’s support of a wage-suppressing exemption to a state law in Florida hasn’t gone unnoticed by the federal government.

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. Sign up to receive articles like this one in your inbox here.

With the unionization of minor leaguers voluntarily recognized by Major League Baseball this past spring, the federal government seemed to slow down its questioning of the league and its motives with regards to labor and potential abuse of their antitrust exemption. The questions aren’t completely gone, however, as three senators — Richards Durbin and Blumenthal, as well as John Hickenlooper — sent a letter to the league seeking clarification on why MLB would say one thing and do another.

The issue in question is the league’s support for an exemption to Florida’s state wage and hour laws. Which, if you’ll recall, is something MLB put in for back in March even as they were voluntarily recognizing the union (original reporting by Jason Garcia). These three senators want to know why MLB is pursuing laws that “appear to significantly undermine the agreement,” where the agreement is the collective bargaining agreement ratified by both the Major League Baseball Players Association and the league itself.

Continue reading “US Senators ask Rob Manfred and MLB to explain this spring’s anti-labor action”

Notes: MLB settles lawsuit, non-player contracts, Vegas strike

MLB settles a pesky lawsuit, changes the way contracts for non-players work, and a strike looms in Las Vegas

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. Sign up to receive articles like this one in your inbox here.

Once Evan Drellich wrote up a piece on the reasons why there could end up being a settlement in the antitrust suit filed by the Tri-City ValleyCats, Salem-Keizer Volcanoes, and Norwich Sea Unicorns, it felt like settling was an inevitability. And on Thursday, that’s what we got: the trial was scheduled to begin on November 13, but now there won’t be a trial, as the lawsuit has been settled.

These three teams, all disaffiliated by MLB before the 2021 Minor League Baseball season, invoked the move as a breach of the Sherman Antitrust Act, saying that it was “a horizontal agreement between competitors that has artificially reduced and capped output in the market for MiLB teams affiliated with MLB clubs.” With the Supreme Court not yet agreeing to hear the suit, however, and chances of SCOTUS actually overturning the antitrust exemption being slim, it makes sense that the suing parties would be open to settling. MLB, too, as slim as those chances might be, don’t want to risk it or draw attention to their exemption if they don’t have to, so of course they’re going to settle. They want to disaffiliate more teams later, and the less the spotlight is on them, the quicker this can all be forgotten about without a trail of official statements left behind, the better for them.

Continue reading “Notes: MLB settles lawsuit, non-player contracts, Vegas strike”

Notes: Rangers spending, Royals secret stadium costs, antitrust suit

The Astros spent, too, despite what their fans think, the Royals’ stadium plan is even costlier than imagined, and thoughts on what to do about the antitrust suits inching their way toward SCOTUS.

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. Sign up to receive articles like this one in your inbox here.

After the Rangers defeated the Astros in the ALCS last week, there were a surprising number of fans of the latter that essentially said, “Texas only won because they spent so much money to defeat Houston.” Which, first of all, who cares if that’s true, and second, that’s also not true. The Rangers did spend a lot of money, yes, and much of it on free agency instead of on extensions to established, homegrown players, but they barely spent more than the Astros did. As I got into for Baseball Prospectus [subscription required], the only reason the two payrolls weren’t even closer than they are is because the Mets covered a big chunk of what was still owed to Justin Verlander, a midseason trade acquisition for Houston, for the 2023 season.

Continue reading “Notes: Rangers spending, Royals secret stadium costs, antitrust suit”

Notes: Trevor May’s retirement speech, MLBPA and the antitrust exemption

Trevor May has parting words for his old boss, and the MLBPA formally supports a lawsuit challenging MLB’s antitrust exemption

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. Sign up to receive articles like this one in your inbox here.

MLB relief pitcher Trevor May retired earlier this week, and he did not go out quietly. The A’s pitcher took to Twitch to deliver his retirement speech, and it was a pointed one. Something tells me this guy doesn’t like A’s owner John Fisher very much (transcription courtesy Neil deMause at Field of Schemes):

Continue reading “Notes: Trevor May’s retirement speech, MLBPA and the antitrust exemption”

Notes: MiLB lawsuit, Rob Manfred’s lies, Nevada educators

Another win for the latest suit against MLB, Manfred calls someone else a liar, and more on Schools Over Stadiums.

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. Sign up to receive articles like this one in your inbox here.

Earlier in September, a judge in New York state’s highest civil court declared that the lawsuits of the Tri-City Valley Cats and the Norwich Sea Unicorns, both former Minor League Baseball affiliate clubs, can proceed to trial in November. This was a significant victory for them, as Evan Drellich detailed at The Athletic, as Major League Baseball wanted to have the suits dismissed: not settled, but just gone.

Drellich, later in the month, tweeted out part of the transcript from the virtual meeting between the two sides, where the judge was “not having any of” MLB’s pleas for a delay in the trial — if the trial had to happen, MLB wanted to keep pushing it off as long as possible. From the sounds of it, though, the judge believes this should all proceed, which is good news for a few reasons. Most promising of which is that, the longer MLB’s antitrust exemption stays in the spotlight and looks like it does more harm than good, the better.

Continue reading “Notes: MiLB lawsuit, Rob Manfred’s lies, Nevada educators”

Rob Manfred will be re-elected as commissioner (and that’s okay)

Rob Manfred is good at the things the owner wants him to be good at and bad at the things I want a commissioner to be bad at.

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. Sign up to receive articles like this one in your inbox here.

Per The Athletic, current MLB commissioner Rob Manfred is expected to be re-elected for a third term at some point this week. While I understand the grumbling and gnashing of teeth and all that over the imminent re-election of a man who has to be constantly given column space to assure us that no, he actually does like baseball, the reality of things is that this is good news. No, really!

Continue reading “Rob Manfred will be re-elected as commissioner (and that’s okay)”

Notes: Kumar Rocker injury, Writers’ Strike

Kumar Rocker is a pitcher, and pitchers get hurt.

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. Sign up to receive articles like this one in your inbox here.

Kumar Rocker will reportedly undergo Tommy John surgery, ending his 2023 and impacting his 2024 as well. The Rangers’ pitching prospect famously wasn’t signed by the Mets after they drafted him due to concerns with his physical and his long-term health, which kicked off a series of events that led to owner Steve Cohen tweeting a little too much about it and having those tweets used against the defense in Senne v. MLB (a class action suit that MLB lost).

Continue reading “Notes: Kumar Rocker injury, Writers’ Strike”

On MiLB’s new, bargained housing policy

A lack of player input into the housing policy helped spur on minor-league unionization, so it should be no surprise that the end result of a bargained housing policy is looking good.

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. Sign up to receive articles like this one in your inbox here.

Thanks to reporting by Evan Drellich at The Athletic, we now have more details on just what the improvements to the housing plan for minor leaguers is, courtesy of their now-ratified collective bargaining agreement. Some notes we’ve seen before, but they were more vague at the time — like the idea that all but the most well-paid minor-league players would have their housing paid for, for instance. What was that threshold, what percentage of minor leaguers would be considered “well-paid,” etc., those details were lacking when news was first announced.

Continue reading “On MiLB’s new, bargained housing policy”

Notes: Minor League CBA, ratification, the future of MLB labor

Notes on the MiLB CBA ratification, as well as some work from me from around the internet.

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. Sign up to receive articles like this one in your inbox here.

Last Wednesday evening, it was reported that Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association — the representatives of the unionized minor-league baseball players — had come to a preliminary agreement for the first-ever collective bargaining agreement for MiLB. All that was needed was for the rest of the players and for MLB’s owners to vote on the agreed-upon deal in order to ratify it. We’re still waiting as of Monday morning for the owners to share their voted-upon feelings on the matter, but the players came through with 99 percent in favor, per a report from The Athletic’s Evan Drellich.

Continue reading “Notes: Minor League CBA, ratification, the future of MLB labor”