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Outside Topic MLB vs. MiLB - Printable Version

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MLB vs. MiLB - OutsiderFan - 12-14-2019

So I was driving to the store the other day and listening to the Rob Dibble Show on ESPN Radio Hartford. He started talking about how MLB wants to contract as many as 42 MiLB teams. I had heard about this, but not what the arguments were for it.

So Dibble says he just wants everyone to know Rob Manfred is lying when he says he wants the players to be paid more. First he makes clear that MLB teams are responsible for paying players on their minor league teams. Dibble then refers to page 19-something of the 2000+ page 2018 Budget passed by Congress. On it there is something duplicitously called the "Save our National Pastime Act."  This provision in the budget allowed minor league baseball players to be classified as seasonal workers so the could be paid LESS than minimum wage.

Dibble said it would cost $8 million/year for MLB to pay full minimum wage compensation to all the players in the minor leagues. The Yankees can spend $324 million on Gerrit Cole, but all of MLB can't spare $8 million/year, or less than $275k per team to give minor leaguers minimum wage.

Last night, MiLB put out a public statement refuting the notion MLB wants to see players paid more, and other lies told by MLB about the reasons they want to contract minor league teams. Rob Manfred replied threatening to eliminate MLB's affiliation with MiLB, claiming MLB would build its own system of teams it owns. I fully expect MiLB to call MLB's bluff, because we already have documented MLB was trying to do all they could to spend less money on MiLB by lobbying dirty politicians in Washington to allow them to do so, then lying about it. What makes anyone think MLB is going to spend the tens of millions of dollars it would take to build out its own stadiums and prop up new leagues for their player development operations?

The 10-year agreements between MiLB and MLB have always been done without fanfare up until this point. Now, both sides are having heated and ugly debate in public. Anyone have any thoughts on this unprecedentedly awful breakdown in negotiations between two parties that desperately need each other but now seemingly have irreconcilable differences?

RE: MLB vs. MiLB - terry - 12-14-2019

There are a lot members of Congress who represent areas with minor league baseball teams. They aren't going to be happy about what MLB wants to do to the minors. And the unhappiness in Congress will be bipartisan. MLB and its billionaire owners would be well advised to tread carefully in this area, or Congress may start looking at taking away MLB's antitrust exemption.

RE: MLB vs. MiLB - Phogge - 12-14-2019

The fat cats who own NFL, MLB, NHL and NBA teams could care less about the average kid who toils in lower leagues. A number of them are in their position solely through an accident of birth and would be mucking out stables if they didn’t have daddies and granddaddys who built the organizations or who purchased them from those who did.