Category: Opinion

2019 was not an easy year to be a Detroit Tigers fan. The team lost a MLB worst 114 games, and in some ways were an even worse team than the 2003 Detroit Tigers, which were one of the worst teams of all time. At the major league level, the team looked lost, devoid of both depth and experience, and it showed both on the field and in the box score.

It was incredibly painful to watch, and as much as I hate upsetting fans that are clamoring for a front office shakeup or offseason moves toward a competitive team, if I am Al Avila, I am doing neither of those things.

For the Tigers to be sustainably competitive again on a regular basis, they are going to need to be just as bad in 2020 as they were in 2019. I will explain why:

Gone Are the Days of Big Spending

From the 2010-2016 offseasons, while the Tigers pushed to compete for World Series titles every year, the Tigers tied up $829.45 million in free agent commitments, as well as $428 million in extensions to both Justin Verlander and Miguel Cabrera. This $1.26 billion commitment may have made the Tigers competitive, but it also made them a bad business opportunity in those years, as well.

The Tigers’ winning ways brought the crowds that largely put them in the top 5 in the AL and top 10 in MLB from 2007-2016. Those teams were built by hefty payrolls and an owner committed to bringing a winner to the Motor City, and fans responded by showing up in droves to watch the Tigers play. For the most part, however, not even high attendance has been enough to keep the Tigers out of the red. From 2007-2016, they operated on a loss 7 of those 11 years.

It does not take a financial guru to understand that businesses should at least break even, if not operate on a profit in order to keep the doors open, and the Tigers had an owner that was able to and gracious enough to take the hit hoping that one of his teams would eventually break through and win it all. Some of them should have, but those are discussions for another day.

The Tigers lost longtime owner Mike Illitch ahead of the 2017 season, and ownership has been passed along to his son Chris, who has publicly been the face of Tigers ownership since Mr. I’s passing. I am sure Chris wants to win baseball games just as badly as Mr. I did, but I think he also understands that operating on a loss every year is not a financially viable way to run a company, and understandably so. As a result, the Tigers have made concessions on their payroll.

I am curious to see where the Tigers fall in operating income this year, as last year they were in the black for the first time since 2015, and as far as I can see, had the highest operating income for them on record. I think 2019 may even exceed that operating income due to the continued cuts on the player expenses side.

Nonetheless, it’s not to say that the Tigers won’t spend big again. The Tigers have lost both television viewers and ballpark guests in droves the last two years, and it will take a significant investment to bring them back, so I think the Tigers will need to make a large investment in the free agent market (or perhaps a blockbuster trade and a sizable extension for that player) somewhere down the line. However, the Tigers are clearly nowhere near ready to be competitive after a season of 114 losses, so the time is not now to make that investment, when the ROI is minimal.

Champions are Built In The Draft, Player Development

Free agents are sexy, but homegrown players are what bring you championship banners.

Take a look at the last five World Series champions were built: the 2019 Washington Nationals, 2018 Boston Red Sox, 2017 Houston Astros, 2016 Chicago Cubs, and 2015 Kansas City Royals. Each of those teams had free agents that helped them get to where they needed to go, yes. But those free agents were the final touches that tied everything together to build that champion.

Washington signed Max Scherzer and Patrick Corbin, but they drafted and developed Stephen Strasburg, Anthony Rendon, Juan Soto, Victor Robles, and Ryan Zimmerman, and they used their cache of players to trade for guys like Trea Turner and Adam Eaton.

Houston used their treasure trove of minor league phenoms to trade for Justin Verlander in 2017, but drafted and developed guys like Jose Altuve, George Springer, Alex Bregman, Carlos Correa, and Dallas Keuchel. Very much a home grown core.

Chicago had homegrown stars like Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant, Addison Russell, Jorge Soler, Javier Baez, and Kyle Schwarber that helped guide them to a championship.

Kansas City’s team was almost entirely homegrown when they won, with Alex Gordon, Eric Hosmer, Alcides Escobar, Lorenzo Cain, Salvador Perez, and Mike Moustakas being either drafted, developed, or brought over via trade to win it all.

These teams all very much have something in common: they had to build from the ground up to get to that championship level. This is the way baseball teams are built now and it is a tried and proven method for success, but it is not an overnight process. The Washington Nationals truly began turning their rebuild around after drafting Stephen Strasburg first overall in 2009, and they drafted first overall again in 2010, netting Bryce Harper. It was those two cornerstone players that ignited a sustained run of competitive baseball that eventually won Washington a championship this year (sans Harper). The Houston Astros, Chicago Cubs, and Kansas City Royals also all drafted high with regularity as well, Houston even netting themselves several top three picks before breaking through the glass ceiling.

These teams have all shown that it takes some pain to build a winner, and the Tigers are in the thick of that right now. They drafted first overall a year ago, they drafted fifth overall this year, and will draft first overall next year. Their farm system is rapidly improving, but they need cornerstone hitters, and outside of Riley Greene they do not have any in the minor leagues. Having an opportunity to draft extremely high in the draft gives them an opportunity to find a cornerstone position player, and history has shown they will need multiple to build a championship caliber team. Another year or two of high draft picks is exactly what this organization needs to have the foundations of a consistent winner.

Concluding Thoughts

I know it is unpleasant to think about a Tigers team that is not going to perform well for the foreseeable future. I also know that growth is often uncomfortable, and that there is currently a lot of good going on behind that scenes that fans can’t tangibly see now, but will be able to soon, even as early as next year with Casey Mize’s inevitable debut.

The finished product of this rebuild is going to be a product that is incredibly fun to watch, and hopefully brings the next championship parade down Woodward Avenue. But I also know that that also means another 100-loss team in 2020, and a 90-95 loss team in 2021.

I promise, it will be worth the wait.

MLB is getting younger.

MLB is undergoing a youth movement. The past few years, the average age of a MLB player has dropped. As more rookie players like Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Eloy Jimenez, Bo Bichette, Fernando Tatis Jr., and Victor Robles enter the fold every year, the average age will continue to trend lower.

Meanwhile, at the time I began writing this post, the folks who manage and coach these players are not trending younger. While kids in their early 20’s are knocking on the door to The Show, they are being managed by guys who were born mostly in the 50’s and 60’s.

A manager’s age is not my thesis statement, this isn’t problematic at all. These are men who have played the game at a high level and were hired due to their on-field success, knowledge of the game, and, sometimes, their clubhouse presence when they were players. They helped get the most out of their teammates. Players gravitated toward them, and their teammates were one of their greatest references on their resume – one of the most significant reasons they got the job.

But, are they great clubhouse presences now? Are they getting the most out of the players they currently manage?

Perhaps some are, but an article I read a few months ago gives me some pause. An LA Times piece titled “How baby boomer managers reach these dang millennial players” (already almost lost this millennial reader with the title alone) written in June this year gives some interesting insights as to how managers now have to manage their players, but I still see disconnect. Take these quotes for example:

“Today, [millennial ball players] don’t know what work ethic is. They don’t know what consistency means.”

“You really can’t make a lot of these [millennial ball players] do anything. You have to find a way to convince them to play hard for you.”

“They’ve been coddled. They’ve always been directed.”

And lastly, my favorite:

“You scream at [millennial ball players], [and] they’re butt-hurt for two weeks.”

Okay, I get it. We grew up in completely different generations that were brought up in completely different ways. But these, to me, sound like excuses not to change their management style, not excuses for why ball players don’t listen. If you find that nobody is listening to you, or your message isn’t resonating, it’s probably time to look inward instead of blaming the individuals you manage. These sound like managers who are out of touch with their staff, and would rather complain about it than change how they manage.

As a millennial that has managed millennials and Gen-Zer’s in a professional setting, the answer lies in culture and philosophy. The issues that these managers are experiencing have almost nothing to do with the actual baseball aspects of the game and instead are entirely an organizational and team culture issue. There are ways to rectify this, and based on my coursework for my MBA program as well as my own real life experiences, these are tips for millennial development and player development that might go a long way not just for a coach, but for managers in every industry:

Identify Differences in Culture, and Listen:

This is probably the easiest thing a manager can do to build motivation and enthusiasm from the younger generations. In a world that is increasingly automating and interconnecting, and access to an infinite wealth of information is more easily available, it is becoming increasingly difficult to figure out who to listen to or which ideas to give credibility to.

There are three major differences between the Major Leaguers of baseball past and present: money, information, and the impact of social media. There is more money in the game than ever before. Where $100 million contracts used to be rare, there were three contracts in excess of $300 million signed last offseason alone, all three signed by millennials. With compounded contracts comes increased expectations, and increased scrutiny when those perceived expectations are not met. With the level of accessibility fans have to professional athletes now, that exposure to criticism is so much more constant than it ever was before. Social media gives athletes the ability to connect with their fans, but also gives fans an outlet to directly attack and criticize in a way that the older generation simply didn’t have to experience.

In regard to information, the amount the older generation had access to, whether that is analytics, sport science, video, or even scouting reports, was far far smaller than the wealth of information players can obtain now. What existed was rigid tradition and routine, there was no “why,” it was just the way things were done and players complied. Very blue collar, very workmanlike.

If this works for your organization, then this is a culture that you can run with and be very successful. However, as younger kids with different and diverse values, beliefs, and behaviors come up through the minor leagues it seems as though parts of this culture are being rejected en masse as implied by the quotes above. If that is truly the case, then organizations should reframe the perspective of management, not require those kids to conform to their idea of a good organizational culture. Sure, they might receive compliance from those kids, but I highly doubt they will see the same level of success or clubhouse cohesion as opposed to letting those kids be a part of the conversation when it comes to the overall culture of the organization.

I don’t want my words misconstrued, it is ultimately the role of the front office and the manager to determine the direction the organization should head, culturally. However, without letting the players be a part of the conversation, and understanding where the barriers, gaps, and obstacles lie between ideologies, then you are not creating a culture that gets the most out of your players. I would also recommend having these conversations if you personally find there are cultural barriers between you and the people you oversee. Eliminating barriers and building bridges between cultural ideologies to find common ground makes for healthier relationships, stronger teams, and more motivated and loyal employees.

Find Your “Why”:

This tip is a direct rebuttal to the second quote above. If you can’t find a way to convince a someone to play hard for your or work hard for you, at what point does it stop becoming your employee’s fault and instead become yours? The article discusses how democratically and relaxed millennial and Gen-Z children have been raised, and because of that, younger players have a much more casual approach to authority. That approach is not going to change, so either the manager’s approach must change, or they are going to lose their grip on the clubhouse quickly.

So how does a leader convince players to play hard for them? As simple as the answer sounds, it’s the correct answer: give them a reason to. Find your “why.” If your suggestions or your leadership are backed by hard data, facts, or successful results, it becomes pretty difficult for players (or employees) not to buy into the direction you want to go. Even more important than those points, however, I think it is crucial that whenever a decision, suggestion, or direction is given to your team, that it be backed by your own core values, passion, and enthusiasm. I think you will find that truly authentic leadership is what younger staffs will respond to, in any industry.

Concluding Thoughts

I truly think teams are starting to see the value in leadership that understands how to connect with the younger clubhouses in Major League Baseball, because I see it in managerial hires all over the game, particularly this offseason already. In October, the Chicago Cubs fired Joe Maddon in favor of bringing on recently retired catcher David Ross, the New York Mets hired recently retired outfielder (and perhaps future hall of famer) Carlos Beltran, and the San Diego Padres hired 38-year-old Jayce Tingler to be their new manager. Ironically, Tingler was chosen over the often quoted Ron Washington in the article above.

The year before, the Minneosta Twins hired recently retired Rocco Baldelli, and the Yankees, Red Sox, and Rays all have early-mid 40’s managers in Aaron Boone, Alex Cora, and Kevin Cash. The game’s field generals are beginning to trend younger, so I think we are starting to see a shift in the ideologies of management and clubhouse culture.

I wholeheartedly believe these younger guys are being given the opportunity to manage because of the positive impacts they had in the clubhouse during their time as players, and the way they resonated with younger players when interacting with them. As the game trends younger, it will take leaders who are able to build bridges between the individual cultures of the younger players and the organizational culture the front office wants to establish, so everyone is on the same page.

Because if you can’t build those bridges, then you are creating obstacles, and perhaps headlines in the LA Times…

First and foremost, a quick apology for the lack of posts lately. I started graduate school April 11th and have been juggling full-time work and full-time schoolwork since. I have a week off, and plenty to write about.

The Tigers wasted no time last week on their first-round pick at #5, selecting high school outfielder Riley Greene. Riley Greene also wasted no time on his decision between the University of Florida and pro ball, signing a contract with a hefty $6.2 million bonus, forgoing his college eligibility and instead opting to begin his pro career early.

I didn’t have time to write a blog post prior to the draft, but if I did, I would have said the Tigers desperately needed an infusion of offensive upside in their minor league system. This is obvious from my previous blog post in March, ranking the top five prospects in the Tigers system (spoiler: they were all pitchers). I wish there would have been a polished college bat like Andrew Vaughn or J.J. Bleday available at 5, but they were gone before the Tigers had a chance to pick. All told, Greene is not a bad pick in the slightest.

Below I have worked out a scouting report for Riley Greene, listing both his current tools and projecting out his future tools. Scouts use a 20-80 scale to evaluate talent, 20 being the absolute lowest a player can be graded, and 80 being an elite level Major League talent. 50 rates out to Major League average.

A major mistake blogs and publications make when creating scouting reports for amateur players is forgetting to factor in that they are just that, amateurs. They also make the same mistake for minor league players, grading them as major leaguers instead of minor leaguers. The overall point is this: if you see that a publication has listed Riley Greene with a “60” hit tool, it’s inaccurate. Essentially, they are saying that Riley Greene could be an above average hitter in the majors right here, right now, if his hit tool is really graded out as a 60. I do not think Riley Greene is anywhere close to being able to handle big league pitching. I do think, however, he may get there.

Hit Tool (Current 30, Future 60)

Riley Greene is undoubtedly the best pure high school hitter in this draft class. Bobby Witt Jr. was the only other high schooler taken ahead of him in the draft, and he was selected higher due to his high floor and his overall skillset being far more broad (he has excellent speed and will likely stick as a shortstop). However, Bobby can’t swing it quite like Greene can.

Greene has a smooth, quick bat that has been pitted against the best competition both domestically and internationally and he has proven he can hit just about anyone. His bat speed makes up for any hitch he may have in his swing. He has the ability and projectability here to be a potential .300 hitter in the big leagues.

Power Tool (Current 35, Future 65)

If there is a tool in Greene’s arsenal to be excited about, it’s his power. Greene’s raw power isn’t just projectable, it’s already playing at a professional level. Last year, as a junior, Greene displayed professional grade power at Wrigley Field during the All-America Game hitting a home run where Anthony Rizzo and Kyle Schwarber regularly put them as big leaguers. Not only that, but he did it by hitting a mid-90’s fastball.

Not only can Greene hit with massive raw power, he has the hand-eye coordination to already stand his ground against tough pitchers that throw extremely hard. It is rare to find a high schooler polished enough to be both a powerful and patient hitter, and that’s a huge plus for the Tigers. Future 30+ home run potential here.

Run (Current 4o, Future 40)

To put it simply: Riley Greene is already a below average runner, and will likely always be a below average runner. He’s not going to clog up the base paths, but he will be far from a stolen base threat.

Field (Current 25, Future 40)

We’ve already very powerfully (pun intended) established what Greene does really well. However, he’s far from a perfect player, there aren’t many of them out there. Riley Greene was drafted as a high school center fielder, and I’m sure he wants to be a big league center fielder. The brutal reality here is that Greene will never be a center fielder in the majors. Firstly, he lacks the speed needed to patrol the cavernous center field in Detroit, so his range is already below average for a high school defender. With professional instruction, he may improve enough receive the boosts necessary to reach his future “40” projection, but everything about his projectability tells me he will fill out in terms of his strength, not his athleticism. Secondly…

Arm (Current 25, Future 40)

Even if Greene does all of the right things and takes perfect routes to the ball in center field, his arm still isn’t strong enough to make the throws needed to be an elite center fielder in Detroit. Most publications deem Greene’s arm as “acceptable,” or “accurate.” I’ve found most publications to be generous in their assessments or projections of just about anyone. I am pessimistic about Greene’s ability to stick in center field, though his bat is going to be more than productive enough to slot Greene into either left field or first base, if needed.

Overall (Current 30, Future 55)

Riley Greene is currently what I would consider an elite high school talent, which is why he is being graded at a “30” with his overall current tools. His bat is certainly what will carry him throughout his professional career, and the whole reason the Tigers drafted him. He has the eye, the bat speed, and the raw power to develop quickly as a professional hitter and will likely be MLB ready within the next three and a half seasons. Personally, I think his ETA is 2022.

Greene’s defensive ability (or lack thereof) will be what keeps him from developing quickly. You may find yourself frustrated at times if you see him raking in the minor leagues without a promotion to the next level, or you may roll your eyes when you hear Al Avila or Dave Littlefield say he is still sitting in the minors because he needs to work on his defense. They will not be wrong. Greene needs serious work to avoid being a defensive liability at any level, not just the majors. He will likely never be an average fielder, but with professional instruction and years of repetition, he may become a competent one.

Truth be told, when averaging out Greene’s future tools, they technically average out to 50, or about league average. However, his bat is special enough that I don’t feel as though he deserves a league average projection, so I have thrown him a few brownie points for his projectable power, as is customary in the scouting world. So, my conservative projection for Greene’s future overall grade is a 55, or above average.

You may ask yourself why the Tigers would throw $6.2 million at a kid who projects to be slightly above average at the major league level, especially if he’s several years away from the big leagues. That’s a topic for another time, but to be brief, the success rate draft picks in the MLB Draft is far far lower than the NBA, NFL, and NHL. This is a fair gamble by the Tigers, and a good offensive pick with some promise. This is exactly what I hoped to see from the Tigers in this draft, and I hope to see more of it next year as well.

We are nearly a week away from Opening Day, and there are still players on the free agent market that shouldn’t be.

Dallas Keuchel, 2015’s Cy Young Award winner, and Craig Kimbrel, the best closer in the game and arguably one of the best of all time, are still free agents as most of baseball is moving toward regular season play. This has become something of a new normal, as last season many marquee free agents, most notably J.D. Martinez and Jake Arrieta, still didn’t have a contract when Spring Training started. This year, the holdouts are Keuchel and Kimbrel (and even Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, Marwin Gonzalez, and others were still free agents at the start of Spring Training).

This new normal will assuredly create tension between the Players Union and MLB when it comes time to renegotiate their Collective Bargaining Agreement. There is already more tension looming between the two parties than there has been in the last 20 years. I’m not sure there’s enough there to potentially create a work stoppage in any way, but we can save that for another day. Either way, players are frustrated, and thinking ahead toward their free agency and wondering whether or not it’s worth the gamble.

For many, both stars and average players alike, they have decided it’s not. They have given their agents the green light to negotiate extensions with teams they currently play for, and have done so in a very big way this offseason. 20 players have signed extensions that have bought out at least one of their free agent eligible years this offseason:

1. Justin Verlander, RHP Houston Astros, 2 years $66 million
2. Paul Goldschmidt, 1B St. Louis Cardinals, 5 years $130 million
3. Chris Sale, LHP Boston Red Sox, 5 years $145 million
4. Blake Snell, LHP Tampa Bay Rays, 5 years $50 million
5. Eloy Jiminez, OF Chicago White Sox, 6 years $43 million + 2 options
6. Mike Trout, OF Los Angeles Angels, 10 years $360 million
7. Ryan Pressley, RHP Houston Astros, 2 years $17.5 million + 1 option
8. Alex Bregman, 3B Houston Astros, 5 years $100 million
9. Brandon Lowe, IF/OF Tampa Bay Rays, 6 years $24 million + 2 options
10. Jose Leclerc, RHP Texas Rangers, 4 years $14.75 million + 2 options
11. Miles Mikolas, RHP St. Louis Cardinals, 4 years $68 million
12. Nolan Arenado, 3B Colorado Rockies, 7 years $234 million
13. Aaron Hicks, OF New York Yankees, 7 years $70 million + 1 option
14. Luis Severino, RHP New York Yankees, 4 years $40 million + 1 option
15. Jorge Polanco, SS Minnesota Twins, 5 years $25.75 million + 2 options
16. Max Kepler, OF Minnesota Twins, 5 years $35 million + 1 option
17. Aaron Nola, RHP Philadelphia Phillies, 4 years $45 million + 1 option
18. Whit Merrifield, 2B Kansas City Royals, 4 years $16.25 million + 1 option
19. Sonny Gray, RHP Cincinnati Reds, 3 years $30.5 million + 1 option
20. Carlos Carrasco, RHP Cleveland Indians, 3 years $37.25 million + 1 option

Each player has varying degrees of talent level, star status, and service time that are each contributing to their respective contracts. Nonetheless, an unprecedented number of players agreed to extensions this year, a clear indication that players are becoming less willing to test the free agent market in its current uncertain state. Justin Verlander, Paul Goldschmidt, Chris Sale, Nolan Arenado, Aaron Hicks, Ryan Pressly, and Sonny Gray were all slated for free agency after this season, the first four being easily the most highly coveted of that class. Now, the free agent class becomes much thinner and fewer legitimate franchise centerpieces will be hitting the open market, if any.

Until MLB teams buck the trend of signing players deep into March, their players will be marching to them requesting extensions in lieu of testing the waters. It won’t change next season, and it might take collective bargaining to fix it in 2021.

Regardless of your dedication to baseball, or to sports in general of any professional or amateur affiliation, everyone everywhere understands money. We need it to function even on a minimal level, and ideally, the more experience we gain, the more education/training we receive, or the level of talent we attain we expect to be compensated accordingly. The American Dream can be described in many ways: a white picket fence, a big house, multiple houses, multiple cars. My perspective is a lot more simple: financial comfort.

In professional baseball, financial comfort is attained by a very select few – the players that play at the Major League level, amateur players who are drafted at the highest rounds of the MLB Rule 4 Amateur Player Draft, and a handful of international players who are exempt from the constraints of the Draft. Don’t believe me? Let’s dive in:

Major League Salaries vs. Minor League Stipends

We oftentimes hear of the players that obtain the largest contracts, they are the ones that are talked about most often, and not even I am exempt from this. Bryce Harper ($330 million contract) and Manny Machado ($300 million) were recent centerpieces of past blog posts of mine. Even earlier than that, when my blog was a Detroit Tigers-centered fan page, I discussed Miguel Cabrera, Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, Prince Fielder, and Victor Martinez on a regular basis. Players that have earned hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts that they’ve signed over the course of their illustrious careers. Players that don’t get talked about as often? Everybody else.

For instance, let’s look at rookie Ronald Acuna Jr. of the Atlanta Braves. He won the National League Rookie of the Year in 2018, outperforming every rookie and many established veterans, including generational talents Albert Pujols and Miguel Cabrera (to be fair, Miggy sat out most of the 2018 season with a biceps injury). Both of those players collectively made $60 million in 2018, Acuna made a paltry $545,000 in comparison, and it wasn’t even the full $545,000. Because he was called up April 25th, he missed four weeks of being paid at that salary, so he missed out on nearly $78,000. He will make about the Major League minimum, around $550,000, for the next three seasons.

But that’s not even the most egregious pay disparity. Obviously, one can be financially comfortable on a $545,000 salary. For all 30 MLB teams, they each carry minor league affiliates: seven each, to be exact. They all carry a Rookie League, Advanced Rookie League, Short Season Class-A, Class A, Class-A Advanced, Double-A, and Triple-A affilates. That’s a lot to take in, so I will break it down as follows:

-Rookie League is typically where your 16-year-old international players and recent high school draft picks start. League play starts in mid-June
-Higher end high school draft picks, lesser recent college draft picks, and promoted Rookie League players make up the Advanced Rookie League. League play starts in mid-June.
-Recent college draft picks and promoted Advanced Rookie League players make up the Short Season Class-A. League play starts in mid-June.
-Promoted Short Season Class-A players make up Class-A. Play starts in early April. This is where teams like the Great Lakes Loons, Lansing Lugnuts, and West Michigan Whitecaps reside. Early round draft picks sometimes start at this level after they are signed in June or July.
-Promoted Class-A players make up Class-A Advanced. Play starts in early April. It is very rare for a draft pick to start here.
-Promoted Class-A Advanced and rehabbing Major League players make up Double-A, and promoted Double-A players, minor league free agents, and Major Leaguers who do not make the cut at the Major League level and rehabbing Major Leaguers make up Triple-A. Both start play in early April.

It is a very tall ladder to climb to make it to the Big Leagues, and the pay is far from comfortable compared to Major League players. From Opening Day in April-early September, most minor leaguers make a starting $1,100 monthly salary, with small per diems during road trips. Even breaking that down into an hourly pay for a 40-hour work week, which if we’re being honest with ourselves, with training, practices, and 6 games a week they put in far more than 40 hours, minor league players make about $4.40/hour. Be honest with yourself, could you survive on that wage? This contributes to the extremely low success rate minor leaguers have making it to the Majors.

What About Their Signing Bonuses?

Perhaps you don’t have sympathy for minor leaguers because you feel as though they’re probably mostly millionaires or well off based on the signing bonuses they’ve signed out of the Draft. It’s hard to have sympathy for Casey Mize, the number one overall draft pick in 2018, when he signed a signing bonus of $7.5 million with the Detroit Tigers last summer. But Casey Mize is the exception, not the rule.

In the first round of the amateur player draft, players tend to receive signing bonuses that exceed $1 million. Sometimes, later round draft picks receive signing bonuses that flirt with that amount. Those players are oftentimes set for life and will never have to worry about the ridiculously low minor league payouts and will be able to play relaxed knowing that they don’t have to worry about how they’re going to pay their bills. However, only two or three players per team per draft ever attain that cushy signing bonus. There are 42 rounds of the MLB Draft, and the average signing bonus amongst those 42 picks? $10,000. Many sign for less.

That $10,000 may seem like a lot of money, but it doesn’t even pay my rent for the year. It probably doesn’t pay your mortgage for the year. All signing bonuses over $100,000 are paid out in two installments: one on your first day of camp your first season, and one on Opening Day of your second. Bonuses less than $100,000 are paid out only once. The most common signing bonuses I saw in 2014 were $10,000, $5,000, and $1,000. These were kids that were willing to do anything to secure a spot on a minor league roster and climb the ladder to the Big Leagues. After their first season, they saw a massive decrease in their salaries.

The only way to make more money? Stick in the minors long enough to become a Minor League free agent (6 years service time or being released from your team and ending up lucky enough to maybe negotiate a raise with another team, assuming the want you badly enough), or make it to Triple-A, where the average player receives roughly $10,000 a month. Most minor leaguers never find themselves in either scenario. The percentage is very very low.

How Does MiLB Compare to Other Sports’ Minor League Affiliates?

By comparison, the other sports are far more generous when it comes to their pay scale. The NFL doesn’t have minor league affiliates, but the NHL and NBA both do. The NHL has two minor league affiliates: most commonly the AHL and ECHL. The NBA has the newly minted NBA G-League.

AHL players make an average salary of $90,000 per year, the minimum salary $42,375 in 2015 and has assuredly gone up. ECHL players have a weekly cap of of $13,000+ for 20 players and a minimum weekly pay of $500. Lower level minor league affiliates pay on a similar scale to Minor League Baseball.

NBA G-League players are receiving a base pay of $7,000 per month this season, so a minimum salary of $35,000 per year, but also have the opportunity to receive player bonuses, unlike the NHL and MLB minor league systems.

Even still, these two sports obviously pay far more than your standard minor league baseball player.

Of course, you can argue that the rosters are smaller, and each league has fewer affiliates, so there are fewer places to allocate money. However, MLB generated $10.3 billion in revenue in 2018, and their ownership group is an exclusive club of billionaires at the principle ownership level, so there is money to go around, at least.

The Fallout

There was a class action lawsuit filed on their behalf arguing that MLB owners were not meeting the standards of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and attempted to force owners to pay players as hourly workers, including for all hours of play and practice.

In March of 2018, Congress passed the Save America’s Pastime Act (SAP) as part of its omnibus spending bill. It exempts baseball teams from having to pay minor league players minimum wage and overtime for all hours worked. They don’t have to be paid hourly, and can continue to be paid a weekly salary for the regular season only, regardless of how many hours they actually work.

The argument was that the SAP Act protected teams and cities in which they play from financial hardship, and the argument on the other side of the debate on minor league pay is that baseball is not a job, it’s not a career, it’s a game, and should not be subject to the regulars of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

I don’t have a dog in this fight, and I won’t state my opinion on the current state of minor leaguers’ pay publicly. But I will inform you, which was the overall point of this piece.

MLB teams are not ignorant to the fact that they pay their minor leaguers in this way, and there may be a movement within the game to change that. This week, the Toronto Blue Jays announced they were going to increase minor league player salaries by 50%. It’s still not arguably livable, but it is an improvement. Time will tell, but I think other teams will start to follow suit.

We’ll see.

Part 1 can be read here.

A few weeks ago, I began to look to the future of Major League Baseball. A future that includes two more teams, bringing the league to a total of 32 teams, and two leagues consisting of 16 teams each. Perfectly balanced, as all things should be. But how do we manage squeezing two extra teams into a 162 game schedule?

Simple: you don’t. You shorten the regular season, and expand postseason play.

Shortening the regular season from 162 games to 154 games eliminates 8 games from the regular season schedule, leaving 8 extra days for another postseason round. Adding a fourth division to the fold automatically adds a fourth division winner, and keeping two wild cards allows for a NFL-style playoff bracket. You could also feasibly add two additional wild cards on top of that, allowing for an 8-team free-for-all in each league. Either way, shortening the season allows plenty of time for an additional 5-game playoff series, no problem. Regardless of whether or not you want to implement a NFL-style bracket or a NBA Finals or NHL Stanley Cup bracket, it’s entirely possible with 8 extra days to play with.

154 regular season games also opens up the possibility for a much more balanced schedule and fewer games outside of your time zone. Here’s why:

Examining MLB’s Current 162-Game Schedule

As it stands today, here’s how the current MLB season shakes out:

-19 games vs. intradivisional rivals: (19 x 4 = 72 games)
-6 or 7 games vs. the other 10 interdivisional teams: (somehow it equals 66 games)
-20 interleague games, which consists of one home and one away series vs. one division in the opposite league and one home and one away series vs. an interleague “rival”

72 + 66 + 20 = 162 games. None of this makes sense. Each division in each league plays a completely different schedule compared to the other divisions, leaving the schedule unbalanced. It’s not fair that the NL Central got to beat up on the likes of the horrible Detroit Tigers (98 losses), Chicago White Sox (100 losses), and Kansas City Royals (104 losses) last year in their year vs. AL Central, all the while they never got to face the 108-win Boston Red Sox. Meanwhile, the Red Sox never played a game against the Milwaukee Brewers (96 wins), Chicago Cubs (95 wins), and St. Louis Cardinals (88 wins). Would the Red Sox have won 108 games if they had to face the likes of those talented squads? Maybe, but probably not. That’s the problem right now: schedules are not created equal.

I’ve seen a lot of different schedule proposals for a 154-game regular season, but the one I came up with I feel makes the most sense. This is my proposal for a 154-game season:

Restructuring the Schedule With 32 Teams and 154 Games

To review, the realigned league of 32 teams (with the Rays relocated to Charlotte, NC, and two expansion teams in Nashville, TN, and Portland, OR, respectively) has two evenly distributed leagues with 16 teams each. These 16 teams are distributed by 4 divisions of 4 teams each, based on geographical proximity. My proposed 154-game regular season is structured like so:

-23 games vs. intradivisional opponents (23 x 3 = 69 games)
-3 games vs. interdivisional opponents (3 x 27 = 81 games)
-4 games vs. an interdivisional “rival”, one 2-game home series and one 2-game away series (4 games)

This creates a balanced schedule that eliminates most of the travel issues and balance issues that can arise during a 162-game regular season. Nearly half of your favorite team’s games are guaranteed to stay within the division. 69 games within your own division still puts emphasis on winning your division.

Your team’s divisional games are the only part of the schedule that differs from teams outside of your own division. Other than that, it’s pretty equal, with the exception of your interdivisional rival. This is my way of shaking things up. Each team is paired up with a team outside of their division for a “rivalry series” that every team in the league participates in on the same weekend during the season. For me, I think this makes sense either the weekend of the 4th of July to celebrate America’s past time and prepare for the All-Star break, OR immediately after the All-Star break to keep the momentum of that event going.

I envision this as a marketing opportunity for both teams and television in the middle of the year to break up the monotony of the regular season and gear up for the home stretch. I think it makes sense to randomize the team chosen as a “rivalry” team every year. A huge marketing push for this series is made to build hype, and maybe a trophy and a champagne shower at the end for the series winner (or participation trophies in lieu of a tie, for the millennial in all of us).

Regardless, outside of your divisional games and your rivalry series, the schedule is equal amongst every other team in the league. Every single team plays each other at least once, and allows for the possibility of, say, the Detroit Tigers only taking one west coast trip per year, as opposed to the two they traditionally take per year. The case is the same for the Los Angeles Dodgers, who are taking five trips to the east coast this year. With only 3 games against each team in the Eastern Time Zone, you can split that up between home series with 7 of those teams and road series against the other 7, decreasing the trips out east from five to two.

Lopping 8 games off the schedule effectively removes an entire week of regular season play, allowing the playoffs to start the last week of September, right when football is starting to take over the attention of casual sports’ fans. You could start that series on Monday afternoon, and potentially end a five game series on Saturday night without interfering with anything the NFL is doing.

It’s not perfect, but it does provide balance, and open up several opportunities from both a marketing perspective and postseason expansion.

Part 3 will discuss an expansion draft and how that will affect your favorite team. Coming soon.