Minor league baseball salary3/23/2023 ![]() Many of you have asked why the Major League Baseball Players’ Association doesn’t get involved here and stand up for minor leaguers. ![]() So, are there any other options for minor leaguers looking for a better break? Not that I can see. ![]() As for baseball employers being compelled to pay more by virtue of the law, all of that will be over with tomorrow when the budget bill passes. To get a higher wage they have to cease being baseball players and do something completely different with their lives. While a worker at Acme, Incorporated could theoretically leave and go work for Consolidated Amalgamated, Incorporated if he or she does not like their salary, minor leaguers cannot do the same. The problem is that those factors don’t apply in the case of baseball. The market argument is moot because major league teams quite literally control minor leaguers. It’s literally how the labor market works in a capitalist system. They pay you what they pay you either because they are forced to by the law, like minimum wage and overtime rules, or they are forced to by the market. Maybe not your boss - a lot of us have nice bosses who would go to bat for us - but the people who make the ultimate decisions about labor costs and budgets and headcount do. In a capitalist system, labor is a commodity like anything else, and all business owners will do whatever they can reasonably do to reduce commodity prices. In this they are no different than any other business owner, all of whom would love to pay as little as possible for labor. They have no will to do this and thus your appeal to how easy it would be for them to do so is meaningless. It’s not a matter of ability to do so, it’s a matter of will. Major League owners have zero desire to raise salaries of minor leaguers. I nod and agree with these observations and suggestions, but they miss the point entirely. I’ve done the math on this and, yes, that’s basically correct. About how, for the price of a middle reliever per team, all minor leaguers could get something like a $10,000 a year raise. In the wake of Congress moving to exempt minor leaguers from the protection of labor laws, a lot of people have commented or messaged me with observations and suggestions about how easy it would be for baseball teams to raise minor league salaries to a the level of a living wage.
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