Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association have agreed to issue 45 days of termination pay to those players on non-guaranteed contracts who do not make their team’s 40-man roster, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale reports (Twitter link). The dollar amount of this payment is yet unknown, though it still represents a positive step taken by the league to support the players who might be affected most by baseball’s shutdown. Teams will have until the day before the beginning of the season to finalize those roster decisions.
Under normal circumstances, we would be approaching the five-day deadline prior to the original March 26th Opening Day for teams to decide on options for Article XX(B) free agents, who make up a big portion of the list of players on non-guaranteed deals. Even since the shutdown, we’ve seen a few cases of teams selecting such players (i.e. the Blue Jays and Joe Panik) to their 40-man rosters in order to lock in their contracts for the 2020 season, since the clubs had already decided these players were going to make the team, and making that status official undoubtedly represented peace of mind for both the club and the player.
More from around the baseball world…
- While the league and the MLBPA continue to work out many matters related to the delayed season, minor league players (many of whom aren’t union members since they have yet to reach the big leagues) have no such organized voice on their behalf. Perhaps a first step towards finding such a voice is Advocates For Minor Leaguers, a non-profit advocacy group whose creation was announced on Friday, Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch writes. Former Mets and Phillies utilityman Ty Kelly is one of the group’s founders, and described to Goold some of the issues facing the big majority of minor league players in the wake of the shutdown: “Guys are just trying to figure out where to live for the foreseeable future, how they’re going to pay for wherever they’re living. Not everybody is able to go home and just bunk up with their parents for a month or two. A lot of guys are in no man’s land and are trying to figure out what’s going to happen. It’s not an easy time for anyone who is trying to find work right now.” Beyond the challenges presented during this unique situation, Advocates For Minor Leaguers is also looking to address bigger-picture issues facing minor league players, with an eventual goal of doubling their annual salaries (to $15K).
- If and when a starting date for the 2020 season is determined, baseball may face a political obstacle in facilitating the beginning of the season. As Jorge Castillo of the Los Angeles Times explores, foreign players who have returned home during the shutdown may have trouble re-entering the United States if international travel remains restricted. Although players have been advised to remain in the continental U.S. during the delay, many Latin players have opted to return to their native country (especially minor leaguers, who weren’t being paid until MLB announced on Thursday that it would support MiLBers through April 8). By and large, the spread of the coronavirus has only just begun to ramp up in Latin America, and countries are taking varied approaches in their efforts to limit the virus’s spread.
This sucks…
I thought I would miss baseball terribly, but I’m kind of relieved that I won’t have to watch games where there are 30 combined strikeouts, 14 pitching changes, announcers droning on and on about launch angle, ridiculous shifts where the 2nd baseman is playing RF and the 3rd basemen is manning 2nd base.
MLB has become mind numbingly boring. The sport is withering right before our eyes. If the season is cancelled, it won’t bother me much.
southpa? Good for you. Sad though. Now you are really alone. Distancing yourself
is the style these days. You never did add much. When you talk (or drone on) i fight yawns. You are bored. Figures. You will find like minded birds.
Anyone else imagine that message in an eeyore voice?
Hahaha- good riddance, eeyore!
I did now
Sadly, they’ll keep screwing around with the game to the point where it will be unrecognizable in 15-20 years. Same is true for all major sports—nothing sensible. Just money grabs. Zero integrity.
South, Don’t go away mad. South, just go away.
He has a point, I love baseball but it isn’t about baseball as much as money anymore. I long for the days when great players stayed with their teams. Things went bad in the 80s
Just to point out.
Was a time in the game when each team had minors going from AAA all the way down to class D. There are far, far fewer minor league players floating around now than 60y ago and anyone think those didn’t have some kind of job when not playing ball?
There may be something they can find, even in this climate currently in, nobody was forced to go home either, it was a choice to return there.
It’s choices people make.
Yeah, sure, everyone will want to hire an out of work minor league baseball player for a job, especially when they could leave any day to return to baseball.