Reese Kaplan -- Responding to MLB's Lies About the Minors

Most of you are well aware of the Major League Baseball (MLB) plan to shutter 46 Minor League Baseball (MiLB) teams which represents over 25% of the affiliated franchises in the game.  The minor league cities and stadiums affected are none-too-pleased with this concept which was the brainchild not of Commissioner Rob Manfred, but the mantra of since-deposed Houston Astros executive Jeff Luhnow. 

On Thursday MiLB sent its letter to MLB suggesting ways to negotiate wholesale changes and how to implement them short of simply locking the gates and removing MLB team affiliations.  As a reminder, the New York Mets under the proposed plans would stand to lose the Binghamton Rumble Ponies and the Kingsport Mets. 

MiLB suggested that rather than padlocking doors, it would make more sense to visit the proposed team castoffs to see what stadium improvements and what travel arrangements needed to be made to represent the sport more professionally and to give the players aspiring to work their way up the ladder a more reasonable schedule to allow for adequate rest between games.  Should a team not have the money to make necessary improvements, then the franchise affiliation would transfer to MiLB who could make those suggested changes at their expense.  The MiLB Players Development Board (PBC) would even undertake moving stadiums to new cities that are less strenuous for travel and would ensure that the playing conditions meet agreed-upon standards.  This suggestion seems eminently reasonable and would allow affiliated teams to maintain their player development.

MLB is strongly behind eliminating short season baseball as they feel it creates too much of a payroll burden for the parent ballclubs to have to absorb so many additional players, most of whom will never make the majors anyway.  The savings calculated amounted to 1/10 of 1% of MLB payroll, saving clubs worth more than a billion dollars about $350,000 in payroll.  (FYI, one major league ballplayer is paid almost $600,000).  MiLB wants to work on creative solutions to help preserve this echelon while being respectful of its expense.  MLB thus far has shown no flexibility.

Apparently MLB’s new idea is to create a self-funded Dream League, essentially a venue for wannabe ballplayers that would require not a single penny of MLB team money to operate.  This concept already exists and is known as an Independent League team such as the Long Island Ducks. 

Finally, there’s a section in the letter about the burden the MLB team faces when it comes to funding the minor league teams.  As it stands today, MLB teams only pay the people who are directly on their payroll, but do not contribute at all to stadium operations, parking, security or the many other expenses necessary to keep the ballclub in question running.  It is a false narrative about the insidious burden of having affiliated minor leagues.  As it is, the payroll for minor leaguers falls below federal minimum wage guidelines, so it’s not as if the players are taking these jobs over the ones at Walmart for the financial benefits. 

It's highly unlikely MLB will respond at all to this letter but the points needed to be made if there’s any hope of getting a groundswell of local and nationwide support for the callous plan put forth by the known cheater and his business’ figurehead.