Amid an ongoing battle over salaries for minor league baseball players, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred “rejected” the idea that the ball players are not paid enough.
“I kind of reject the premise of the question, that minor league players are not paid a living wage,” Manfred said, when asked about the topic.
New York City is home to two minor teams — the Brooklyn Cyclones (an affiliate of the Mets), and the Staten Island FerryHawks (who previously served as the Single-A affiliate of the Yankees).
The issue has become a hot-button topic in recent weeks, as the United States Senate has opened an inquiry into the league’s antitrust exemption that applies to minor league players — resulting from a Supreme Court decision handed down over 100 years ago.
A non-profit group, named the Advocates for Minor Leaguers, has been advocating for more rights for minor league players, and they’ve singled-out the Curt Flood Act of 1998 — which has prevented ball players in the MLB’s farm system from seeking better pay.
For more coverage of the minor leagues, head to amNY.com.
Players in the MLB are party to a union, which allows them to negotiate their working conditions, but the minor league players are not. They are then subject to an agreement made between owners of the 30 MLB teams, which are often favorable to the owners, rather than the players.
According to the Athletic, pay has been severely lacking in the minors, with an average of $6,000 in Single-A, and $15,000 in Triple-A.
That salary is not nearly enough for ball players to cover living expenses in cities they are forced to play in, including New York, where rental prices can top $3,000 each month.
A group of United States senators on the Judiciary Committee sent a letter to the league requesting more information about the need for the antitrust exemption, saying “this bipartisan request for information will help inform the Committee about the impact of this exemption, especially when it comes to Minor League and international prospects.”
“Your answers will help inform the Senate Judiciary Committee’s analysis of the necessity of this century-old exemption,” said the letter..
The Democratic and Republican lawmakers — Dick Durbin (D–Illinois), Chuck Grassley (R–Iowa), Mike Lee (R–Utah) and Richard Blumenthal (D–Connecticut) — fired off the letter in response to the advocates, who claimed that minor league players were being unjustly denied their due diligence, and were subjected to an archaic law that was no longer relevant to the modern MLB.
The MLB’s response to the Judiciary Committee is due on July 26.
“We need to make sure that all professional ballplayers get to play on a fair and level field,” Durbin said in the letter to the MLB.
