Amid mounting pressure from players and defense groups, Major League Baseball will require teams to provide housing for minor league players beginning in 2022, sources told ESPN.
While MLB has yet to formally outline its plan, six team officials told ESPN that they are beginning to prepare to help home players in each of their four minor league affiliates. In mid-September, according to sources, the owners of the league’s 30 teams unanimously agreed to a plan that would provide accommodation for minor league players. It has not yet been decided whether they will offer stipends that fully cover the housing or provide the housing itself, the sources said. An MLB spokesperson said the league is finalizing details.
Minor league players have become increasingly outspoken about their working conditions, criticizing the teams for salaries that leave some below the poverty line and the financial problems that stem from having to provide their own housing for them. home games. The rise of the Advocates for Minor Leaguers and More Than Baseball groups, their use of social media to highlight the living conditions of minor league players, and the willingness of players to speak officially about their experiences illuminated issues on which players have spoken privately for years. .
“This is a historic victory for minor league baseball players,” Harry Marino, executive director of the Advocates of Minor Leaguers and former minor league player, told ESPN. “When we started talking to players this season about the difficulties they face, finding and paying for housing during the season was at the top of almost every player’s list. As a result, tackling that problem became our top priority. “
Momentum toward team-level housing provision was already building behind the scenes, sources told ESPN. Several teams were arguing about following the lead of the Houston Astros, who this season covered housing for all of their minor league players at home and away from home. Other teams offered rooms or stipends at certain affiliates.
The total cost for a team to house all minor league players at home for a season, according to two executives whose teams had explored doing so before the league served its term, is less than $ 1 million. Although the minor leagues are especially populated by small towns and lower rents, they also include some of the most expensive cities in the country, such as Brooklyn, the High-A affiliate of the New York Mets, and San Jose, a Low-A affiliate of the New York Mets. San Francisco Giants.
Even in places with lower rent, minor leaguers often huddle in small apartments and sleep on air mattresses because their salary can’t provide more. Some players say they have spent nights in their cars or in stadiums when they couldn’t afford a hotel. Others have trouble finding apartments, either because of low income or no credit, and spend most of their pay in hotels, where discounted equipment rates hardly lessen the burden.
The physical cost is clear. Mental problems only compound problems. When players are promoted, organizations typically provide them with a hotel room for a few days and then wait for them to arrange the accommodation themselves. Between looking for new accommodations and figuring out how to part ways with old ones, players say that housing is the biggest problem for minor league players.
That would not be the case, according to the players, if the salaries were higher. With signing bonuses between national and international players topping $ 450 million in 2021, not everyone faces financial problems. But after taxes, most of the wages players take home are miniscule.
Salary increases for minor league players this season increased their minimum wage from $ 290 to $ 500 per week in Class A, from $ 350 to $ 600 per week in Double-A, and from $ 502 to $ 700 per week for Triple A. During an entire season, Class A players receive at least $ 12,000, Double-A players $ 14,400 and Triple-A players $ 16,800. Some veterans, especially those with time of service in the Major Leagues, receive higher salaries.
“Most minor league players make less than $ 15,000 per year and they won’t get their next paycheck until April,” Marino said. “For the next six months, they will spend hours each day training, as required by the contract, as they try to balance the second and third jobs to make ends meet. Like accommodating six players in a two-bedroom apartment, this is a bust. model of a bygone era. Minor league players will not rest until they receive the living annual salary they deserve.
Minor league players were exempt from federal minimum wage and overtime rules by the Save America Hobby Act, a House bill that failed amid widespread criticism in 2016 but was signed into law in 2016. nearly 2,000 pages in a 2018 omnibus spending bill. A class action lawsuit filed by players alleging they were underpaid and not provided overtime remains in the court system after the United States Supreme Court denied the MLB attempt to dismiss the case.
The housing mandate will be the latest change in a minor league system that has undergone a drastic reinvention in the past year. MLB cut 42 affiliates as part of a restructuring of its development line to 120 teams, saying players would receive more money, travel less and work in better conditions. Critics said the loss of affiliate baseball in smaller cities made the game less accessible and provided fewer opportunities for players to escalate to the major leagues.
The protest strengthened the resolve of More Than Baseball, which awarded housing grants to minor league players this season, and Advocates for Minor Leaguers, which has created a groundswell of support with a barrage of social media posts. Minor league players, who are not part of a union, have discussed organizing to further help improve their working conditions, according to sources.
“It was this unprecedented behavior – minor league players unifying and using their collective voice – that ultimately upset the status quo,” Marino said.
While the Major League Baseball Players Association does not represent minor league players, some of its rank and file members have shown public support for the causes championed by advocacy groups. Several players, including Philadelphia’s Andrew McCutchen, Baltimore’s Trey Mancini, Chicago’s Jason Heyward and Los Angeles’ Chris Taylor, have worn a bracelet distributed by Advocates for Minor Leaguers that includes the inscription “#FairBall.”
