Minor Leagues, Major Adjustments
Many of the top minor leaguers in baseball gathered in Los Angeles for the All-Star Futures Game. Credited to Jae C. Hong/Associated Press, Image from The New York Times
The past few years have seen a series of seismic shifts across the Minor League Baseball landscape. Take, for example, in 2019 when the MLB announced dramatic changes to the structure of the minor league system leading to several teams changing locations and Major League affiliations.[i] Even as recently as a few weeks ago the League announced that robotic umpires would be used in Triple-A this upcoming season to call balls and strikes.[ii] However, no change will prove as consequential as the successful effort by minor leaguers to finally unionize in 2022.
Historically, the MLBPA considered the minor leagues unsuited for unionization citing a lack of geographical and circumstantial similarity. Despite this, minor leaguers continued to push for unionization. Across states and competitive levels, players began to document their living conditions in an effort to lobby owners to increase their wages. [iii] These documentations became even more relevant during the pandemic when several minor league seasons were cancelled entirely. Stories of as many as six players sharing two-bedroom apartments just to have enough money for groceries were widespread, and slowly a collective conscious among minor leaguers began to form. Prominent labor scholars such as Bill Fletcher began to speak in favor of a minor league union, and players and their advocates were able to convince MLBPA president Tony Clark that their addition would add value to the organization.[iv]
Eventually, MLB owners agreed to the unionization in 2022. The MLB’s settlement in Senne v MLB required that the MLB meet certain labor and living condition requirements for minor leaguers, and instead of negotiating with each team and player individually it made it easier for owners to collectively bargain with a minor league union.[v]
As laudable as the effort to unionize the minor leagues has been it raises several questions. First, the MLB and the minor leagues will have to agree on a collective bargaining agreement, the negotiations of which are currently taking place. Among other requests the minor leaguers, who currently on average make between $400 and $700 a week, would be looking for a raise of up to triple their current wages.[vi] Current indications are that the increase in pay will be born by both the MLB and the Minor League owners, but whether the MLB will come up as high to meet the player’s demands to be determined. Other issues being discussed are specialized living arrangements or housing stipends and collective bargaining rights moving forward.
If the MLB fails to meet the minor leaguers’ demands will minor leaguers be willing to strike? The minor league union will be comprised of approximately 5,000 different members spread widely across the country, so organizing such a strike presents a myriad of logistical problems. For example, when the major league players decide to go on strike they only have to coordinate among 1,200 members, and they are all part of the same league. Compare that to the minor league union which will have to coordinate with for more players and across different levels. Perhaps the MLBPA could look to the NBA’s G League Player Union for guidance, but with only 30 teams and smaller rosters the coordination problems are significantly less.
Furthermore, within the minor leagues, players have vastly different circumstances. For a high level prospect already in AA or AAA, they may have an incentive to continue playing through poor wage conditions to increase their chances of making it to the majors and making real money. High level prospects may also be more financially secure due to higher original signing bonuses as well. They also might have less of an incentive to strike since they may figure they won’t be in the minors for that long, anyway. For career minor leaguers without much hope of one day making it to the big leagues a strike might be a more appealing choice, but whether they could afford living expenses while unemployed raises another question.
Assuming that the MLB and the minor league players do agree on a CBA, questions will remain on what the MLBPA will look like. There are a series of logistical questions to be sorted through, including what minor league union dues will look like. Currently major league players pay $85 a day in union dues, but that is currently more than some minor leaguers even make in a day.[vii] Some commentators are observing that minor league dues will most likely have to be less than major league dues, but that might cause major league dues to go up to compensate for the increased size of the union. There’s also questions regarding how much representation among the governing bodies will minor league players constitute. Currently the MLBPA has a player-rep on each team and an executive board which handles most of their direct negotiations with the MLB. Minor league unionization is certain to change this. Some people are surmising that minor league players may create their own system of player-reps and their own executive. They could also potentially join the current leadership structure, but this seems the less likely of the two.
More fundamentally, how will a union such as the MLBPA, which will have some 6,200 members once minor leaguers are fully assimilated, function while representing two vastly different groups of laborers. On one hand, 20% of the union will be made of major leaguers making millions of dollars a year, while 80% of the union will be made of minor leaguers some of which currently make less than minimum wage. Understanding how these two groups will identify collective priorities and manage disputes will go a long way in answering the question of how this partnership can survive. Perhaps it works out so that the MLBPA is a Union comprised of both minor and major leaguers in name only, and the groups largely act, negotiate, and (potentially) strike independent of each other. However, it is possible that the MLBPA fully assimilates the minor leagues into the current system which will put minor league baseball players on an unprecedented footing for a minor league sport. They could potentially have just as much power and leverage over the billionaire team owners as their millionaire MLB colleagues which would radically alter the professional sports landscape.
[i] Minor League Reorganization, Baseball Reference.
[ii] All MLB Triple-A parks expected to use automated ball-strike system in 2023, CBSSports, R. J. Anderson.
[iii] Why Minor League Baseball Players Havent Unionized, SBNation, Marc Normandin.
[iv] How Strong Organizing Drove Minor League Baseball From Contraction to Union in 2 Years, Global Sports Matters, Dave Zirin.
[v] Minor Leagues Are Joining the MLBPA, ESPN, Alden Gonzalez.
[vi] Id.
[vii] How Much Money Do MLB Players Really Make, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, Travis Sawchik.