MLB has decided to pay their minor league players for the next couple of weeks. That generosity runs out on April 8, 2020.
On Thursday MLB announced that they would pay minor league players for the next couple of weeks. The plan is to pay them their wages until April 8, the scheduled start of the minor league baseball season.
A league-wide initiative has been announced for Minor League players to receive compensation between now and the scheduled start of the Minor League season. @MLB will continue to work with all 30 Clubs on the development of an industry-wide plan for compensation beyond 4/8. pic.twitter.com/Ck8Lv9uuzp
— MLB Communications (@MLB_PR) March 19, 2020
That means that most minor league players are likely going to have to find a new job. Minor leagues get paid little to begin with. Many of them work second or even third jobs just to make ends meet.
Minor league players at the class A level only make $290 a week over a five-month season. That’s a lowly $5,800 over a season. In Triple-A, players get $502 a week over the same length of time. That’s better, but it’s still only $10,040 a season. Hardly a livable wage.
The good news is that MLB is in discussions with the MLBPA attempting to figure out how to pay their players during the suspension of play. The issue is that the two sides are struggling in negotiations. The big issue, according to Jon Heyman of MLB Network, is service time.
In talks regarding major leaguers, the big holdup is service time. Pay is actually the East part. It will likely be pro-rated based on games played. Service time is trickier — ie, union wants year added to MLB players if there’s no season; MLB prefers to count games played.
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) March 19, 2020
That’s the trickiest part of this. How will contracts toll during the suspended time? Will they at all? It’s a hard question that’s at the center of MLB’s current dispute.
They need to figure it out fast. These minor leaguers need the money and they only have two weeks to get something done.
This isn’t the case for all minor leaguers though. A few major league teams have promised to pay their minor leaguers. Those teams include the New York Mets, Los Angeles Dodgers, Boston Red Sox, and Miami Marlins.
All of those teams have promised to extend spring training allowances to minor leaguers until the conclusion of the crisis.
