Keith Law says MiLB teams should pay players

A couple of things here.
A) The majority of people that own the MiLB teams have Zero control over the on field product. They are taking risk in these deals. Why specifically would they pay these people they have no control over employment, etc
B) There are 244 or so MiLB teams. Even at the $200,000,000 that Law is talking about that ends up being $820,000 in revenue. You need to pay your entire staff. Maintain the stadium. Everything else AND make a living yourself. Realistically the MiLB owners don't have tons of money just to toss at (again) their non-employees.

I can buy an argument that the MLB should pay the minor leaguers more. Shoot they probably even have incentives to increase their pay, perks.

Keith Law seems to forget that isn't net revenue and that most of that disapears after expenses. He also like everyone else seems to leave out the 200 to 300 million draft picks and international guys get in bonus money. How don't you count that? The issue seems to be that a few get a ton, but others get very little. Then fix the system, don't complain that they get nothing. Given the current system most prospects that teams see as the future of the team get $125,000 plus yearly wages. All that for playing a game they love. 90% of these guys don't make a career out of Baseball.

At the same time I'm all for providing living spaces and some way that they get all the food they need. 100% paid for by the team. I'm also not against giving them more, but no where near the levels some people think. Its like some people think every single crappy minor leaguer deserves so much, when the world just doesn't work that way. They play a game part-time. A lot of these guys have a zero chance of making the majors. Teams just bring a lot of them in because they are cheap and every now and then you find a diamond in the rough. There just aren't many players like Betts getting $5,000 bonus checks.

I also wouldn't mind a system of some sort that lets say allowed you to increase the bonus amount to two players a year that greatly out performed their orginal bonus amount. A guy got $5,000, but becomes a stud. Allowing you to give him another 120,000 to cover expenses while he develops. You can give out as many of them in the draft as you want and allowing you to do with international guys if you had money left over. Those came out of no where guys are the only ones I really worry about and there aren't many of them.

Poyner is a very interesting case. Normally I'd say he should have come out sooner. Yet it wasn't till his senior year that he took off. He got a very small bonus given his rankings of 277 and 342. Yet he had zero leverage being a senior. He actually got the highest amount we paid that year to a senior at $10,000. Some got $5,000, $1,000, heck one guy got nothing. He wasn't picked in the 6-10 rounds to save money. They could have easily gave him $100,000 put they didn't. So given hindsight he's a guy that sure seems to have deserved more. I agree with that 100%.

What I don't agree with, is that because he deserved more, that everyone deserves more. Nevermind the fact that he only got a tiny amount of money, he still made it. If the system was broken, wouldn't you need to show that a ton of guys like Poyner walked away? That's where this argument breaks down. Not only don't you have guys like Poyner walking away, you have guys taking zero bonus money for a chance to chase there dreams.

If you try and apply this logic in the real world and real jobs it makes zero sense. Walmart that makes billions a year isn't going to pay everyone more just because 1 in a 100 might become a store manager and they want to make sure they get that person. Our whole economy is based on paying people the minimum that you have too. The idea of a living wage died many decades ago. So if people with no other options can't get living wages, why should minor league baseball players? The people I feel for are the ones working minimum wage, can't even get full-time work and benefits.

Have you every thought of what happens if they force teams to pay everyone more? I can see teams not bringing in as many players. They likely cut the amount given out in bonus money. You could end up having the same effect of missing out on players, just in a different way. Not saying the Red Sox do this, but you know a lot of cheap teams likely will. A lot of this comes back to the major difference in revenue teams make. 2 million is nothing to the Yankees and Red Sox, yet it is to other teams. I just rewatched Money Ball recently and Beane offered to pay Rincon's salary, but was going to keep the money after he sold him off the next year. They couldn't afford free soda and sport drinks. 2 million to that team could be the difference from making money and losing money in a given season. We get spoiled because our team can afford to keep an 80 million dollar player in the minors. While other teams struggle to make money with an 80 million dollar payroll.

It absolutely boggles my mind that people have the stance that billionaires shouldn't have to pay their employees enough to live above the poverty line.

That's a little more than $1.5 million per year per organization. It's trivial.

You guys get that federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour right? Based on a 40 hour work week only the lowest minors make under that amount. Nevermind I'd love to see how during the playing season they work the 40 to 60 hours they claim. They have to be including things like travel and news flash tons of companies don't pay for travel. I don't get paid for travel time when I go to Boston for confrences. Heck I've had my boss tell me he thought he did me a favor sending me to Boston to get Fannie Mae training or going to inspect houses when we bought 200 million in mortgages from East Boston Savings Bank. He laughed at me when I asked about being paid for the travel time. This from a multi billion dollar publicly traded bank. Life isn't fair. I got a private mortgage insurance company to pay a claim the person before me messed up. They really shouldn't have paid it, she didn't report it at all. Saved the Bank $150,000 in one transaction. They had charged it off and got to count it as income. Huge for a company wanting to hit its earnings per share estimate. You know what I got? A dollar store special frame saying how I saved residential lending the most money in that year and thanking me for going above and beyond. Not even one dollar in bonus money for the year. So I don't feel bad for guys actually getting paid to workout and play a game!

The idea that they live in roach invested housing and are even remotely close to slaves is about the stupidest thing I've heard in a long time. These guys can go get another job! This is a choice, not something they have to do to make a living. I really can't believe Jimed thinks slaves were better off. I don't even now how to respond to crazy crap like that. You obviously have no clue what it was like to be a slave. I'm at a loss for words and that never happens.

Are you (Umass) seriously comparing yourself working for a bank or investment company wand likely on a decent salary perhaps with bonus to a minor league ball player? Are you saying that because they earn more than $7.25 an hour (equivalent to $14,500 a year) that it's ok? Newsflash, there are a lot of people who work for an hourly wage and they often get paid for travel (not commuting time)since it cuts into the time where they would be at their second or third job trying to make ends meet. I also would bet that most MiLB players do work 60 hours a week including workout time - something that's optional for you and me - but is an integral and essential part of their profession.

Guys speaking from personal experience, I had 1500 dollars to my name and took a chance on myself to get a license down in Missouri 4 years ago. I had 1 month to obtain the skills needed to acquire my license and do my job (ohh I wasn't getting paid at all during this time, by the way). It would have cost me 4 grand (for the training) on top of a bus ticket back home when I had 1500 dollars (which I spent a lot of in my one month's training time that I wasn't being paid for) to my name if I hadn't of gotten my license.

I didn't get a bonus, all I got was one lousy free bus ride that lasted 18 hours. I took a chance on myself. I did this knowing I risked everything.

Some of you say hardship, I call it motivation. I was getting out of Missouri with a license, through hell or high water. I bet this is how a lot of these minor league players are thinking too. If these players aren't figuring out ways to live on whatever they're being paid, then I don't disagree that it should be time to move on. Telling owners to pay more will affect profits and the state of the game of baseball also in one definite way or another that no one will agree upon in a argument.

At least these players aren't owed anything with their teams when they chose to leave, unlike what student loans are doing to college kids. They do not need to pay back bonus money if they stick to their full commitment of years of the bonus money that is spread out. There are a million worse situations out there. This is probably my unpopular take on all of this.

Edit- I do like JLE's idea of setting a 100 thousand dollar minimum sign on bonus for international minor league free agents. At least that makes the richest of the rich pay more for the absolute poorest of the poor. It'll be a really good incentive for the high payroll teams and will finally give them a slight advantage to signing more players (FOR ONCE IN THIS DUMB NEW CBA). Small market teams will pick and choose wisely on their minimum selection amount players that they'll sign (for financial reasons) and high payroll teams can sign dozens of these guys and not have it go against the hard cap.

Just pointing out how the real world is, even at what in my area is one of the best places to work. Companies are about profits, mine is all about profit per share. Because of that anytime someone gets more it means someone has to get less. Yea it sounds crazy but that is real life. For me to get my big raises, means others don't get their cost of living increases. The people below me that I work hand and hand with daily. I've had those talks with my stupid bosses that those raises aren't only for when employees go above and beyond. They are just to cover the cost of inflation. Without them the employee loses buying power each year. You'd think I was talking in a foreign language. The most surprising thing about working in banking is how many stupid people work at my company. 

I'd love to be the kid fresh out of College fighting for peoples rights and things that are fair. Frankly that got me in a lot of trouble and labeled as someone who wasn't a team player. The higher ups kept asking me why I cared. Maybe because I was the one that had to listen to them bitch and knew what they were going through. In the real world someone getting more means someone getting less. It's not fair, but the world isn't fair. So call me whatever you want, I don't feel bad for guys chasing a dream.

Higher wages are big time effects, because they still need to make profits. Look at New York giving $15 per hour to fast food workers. They hire less full-time workers and now are rolling out kiosk to take your orders. In the end you get less workers making more, not everyone getting more. Our economy is a capitalist one and it runs by Adams Smiths invisible hand. Everyone working in there own best interests. The system is great for overall production of the economy, but isn't good for a lot of workers. I don't know about you, but I'm not going to spend my life trying to change the system.

My point was simple, if a good corporate job like the one I have doesn't pay for travel, why should minor league baseball players get paid for it? Just look at the schedules and game times. A massive amount of those 40 to 60 hours they claim are these guys traveling. These guys sitting or sleeping on a bus. Heck I wouldn't complain if my company paid for travel and I didn't have to drive and I could just rest.

A lot of jobs require that people workout and stay in shape, and a ton of them don't pay people to do it.

There are billions of dollars to be split up in baseball. You are choosing who you want to keep the money. The billionaires. So yeah, you're doing it. People don't show up to be entertained by the owners. The major league also needs the minor leagues to survive and produce literally all of the talent for the majors. There are zero reasons not to pay minor league players more money other than the greedy owners want to keep all of their money while ripping off taxpayers at every single opportunity. Why anyone would have this opinion is ridiculous to me.

You obviously didn't read the article. Did you see the part where the players are forced to pay for their own food in the clubhouse and sometimes, there isn't enough for them to eat because the pitchers sneak into the locker room before batting practice is over and take an extra sandwich? You think that's fair also?  These clubhouse fees take a huge chunk of their tiny paycheck.  Why can't the damn teams feed their players?!!  Why can't they feed them healthy organic food designed for athletes to perform at peak performance instead of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?

It's just plain stupid to point to whatever suffering you've gone through in life and wish that for other people. What kind of jerk are you? And there is literally no reason for that suffering to exist because of all the money in baseball.