Changes coming to Minor League Baseball

[Knoxbanedoodle]

This is interesting: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/18/sports/baseball/minor-league-changes.html

[jbm]

I wonder what the long-term effects will be and how significant they will be. In the US, I assume marginal college guys will play four years and then be out of work and marginal high schoolers who might get drafted late will play college. Marginal international players will likely be affected the most. I guess they develop where they are from, if those types of leagues exist. 

[Astros Fan in Big D]

https://theathletic.com/1306272/2019/10/19/if-we-are-forced-to-defend-ourselves-and-fight-for-our-mere-survival-we-will-milb-president-responds-to-mlb-plan/

“There are facilities that are inefficient and not up to standards of what 21st-century baseball requires,” O’Conner said. “But the fact of the matter is, under the rules that are in place, we have no non-compliant facilities. So when the clubs are meeting the standards, and they don’t like the standards — well, give the clubs an opportunity to meet new standards. Let’s negotiate new standards.

“They’re not interested in that. They want those 40 facilities to go away. Because they don’t want to staff the players. They want to jettison about 1,200 to 1,400 jobs, player jobs, because they’ve got a high payroll as a result of paying more for the players they do have.”

[Knoxbanedoodle]

https://theathletic.com/1306272/2019/10/19/if-we-are-forced-to-defend-ourselves-and-fight-for-our-mere-survival-we-will-milb-president-responds-to-mlb-plan/

All those threatened jobs are shit. Would it be better to have 1400 decent jobs or 2800 shitty ones? I don't know what the budgetary math looks like--maybe they could afford to pay every single one of those guys a living wage--but if MLB is finally getting serious about starting to pay minor leaguers fairly, then that at least is a good thing.

And given what minor leaguers are paid now--plus the coaching staffs--it's hard for me to accept that those payrolls being covered by MLB clubs now is the only thing standing between all these small town teams and oblivion. It isn't surprising, after all, that owners are objecting to having to start paying their workforce.   

[Duman]

Changes need to be made to how Minor League ball is structured.  This proposal is a bit extreme.  I expect it will be scaled back with negotiations.