COVID-19 And Minor League Baseball
Our world has grinded to a halt because of COVID-19. Everyone has been affected in some form, and everyone is undoubtedly fatigued by the constant news of the virus and its implications.
BravesProspects.com will hopefully help take your mind off it, even for just a few minutes, by providing prospect content three days a week to your inbox. However, I do feel it’s necessary to occasionally recap any updates concerning how the virus is affecting the minor leagues. One of those big updates came Friday.
There was a steady flow of opinion pieces the past couple weeks regarding paying minor leaguers during the halt in play. Major leaguers are taken care of in some form or another, whether it’s an allowance or the millions they’ve accrued in their careers. Minor leaguers, on the other hand, felt left out in the cold, as they often do with very little means of support. They started scrambling to find odd jobs such as food delivery or Uber. There was distress about even being able to afford food.
Major League Baseball announced a stopgap measure this past Friday by providing interim support to minor leaguers in the form of a lump sum equal to the allowances that would have been paid through April 8. The initiative creates a level of uniform compensation covering the period between now and the originally scheduled start of the season.
It was reported that the allowances are $400 per week in a lump sum for the next three weeks. In some cases, that’s more than double the usual spring per diems, the thought being players are on their own to handle housing, food and other expenses during a time when they’d typically be in spring camp.
MLB is continuing to work with teams on developing an industry-wide plan to compensate these players for missed games. The minor league season was supposed to start April 9 but is obviously being pushed back for an unknown length of time.
Minor league pay is a well-chronicled topic. Considering this, it’s understandable that players were stressing about pay before Friday’s announcement. This measure is a step in the right direction concerning pay during the halt in play, and it’s good to see MLB taking action for the minor leaguers.
There are a lot of other topics to consider regarding the coronavirus and baseball. Here are a few more worthy reads:
- Coronavirus pandemic creates ‘disaster situation’ for some minor league teams: https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/coronavirus-pandemic-creates-disaster-situation-for-some-milb-teams/
- MLB could skip draft; service time big issue: https://apnews.com/f2b92a64f9d1aaa9737ebafe36c53a10?utm_medium=AP_Sports&utm_source=Twitter&utm_campaign=SocialFlow
- MLB and its players dive into the many details of what-if scenarios: https://theathletic.com/1683897/2020/03/18/rosenthal-mlb-and-its-players-dive-into-the-many-details-of-what-if-scenarios/
- How coronavirus impacts MLB’s current international signing period: https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/how-coronavirus-impacts-mlbs-current-international-signing-period/