The New York Mets are the latest team to release minor league players in an effort to cut costs amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to The Score’s Robert Murray, the New York Mets are the latest team to cut minor leaguers amid COVID-19 related financial concerns. The Mets join the Seattle Mariners, Washington Nationals, and the Milwaukee Brewers as teams to make minor league cuts.
Nationals and Mets are other teams releasing some minor leaguers today, according to multiple sources. The exact number is unclear, but they join Brewers, Mariners as known teams to make cuts.
— Robert Murray (@ByRobertMurray) May 28, 2020
It’s not yet known who the Mets are cutting. It’s unlikely they cut any high profile prospects, but that doesn’t make this any less of a tragedy.
Minor league baseball players were already making just $400 a week. That’s less than people are making on unemployment and the one thing they could hold onto was their hopes at playing in the MLB one day. Now even that’s being ripped away from them.
To take a man’s livelihood and dream away all at once is cruel. When the Oakland Athletics flat out stopped paying their minor leaguer players the move was expected to save them about $1 million.
Is ripping away the dreams of all these young men worth such little savings? According to some teams, it is — and the Mets are on that list.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise. The Mets were operating well in the red during their last couple of full seasons. The team was reportedly $350 million in debt before the COVID-19 pandemic. This has only made things worse.
The Wilpons can’t continue to operate in the red as they have. They don’t have the capital to afford to continue operating as things were. That’s one of the major reasons they were looking to sell before the pandemic and now they may not have any other choice.
The team is likely to be sold at some point before the year ends. The Wilpons likely can’t afford to continue running the franchise past this season based on all the available information. This latest move to cut minor leaguers only reinforces that.
