Mark Appel Solutions for MiLB problems

[Richie the Rally Goat]

great thread!

[TheLeviathan]

Not only are these logical from the position of running a smart baseball operation that helps players succeed, it's also just basic common sense in terms of how you handle your business investments.

Appel, who has a fat signing bonus, is talking about how he and his peers have to struggle for good meals, good workouts, and a place to live.  How the hell can any rational person see that as an effective system for building up players to play a rigorous, physical game?

How no executive has been smart enough to invest peanuts into this for a better return than the rest of the league is beyond me.  It's a huge competitive advantage for minimal investment.  God baseball is full of short-sighted folks.

[Cap'n Piranha]

2 hours ago, TheLeviathan said:

Not only are these logical from the position of running a smart baseball operation that helps players succeed, it's also just basic common sense in terms of how you handle your business investments.

Appel, who has a fat signing bonus, is talking about how he and his peers have to struggle for good meals, good workouts, and a place to live.  How the hell can any rational person see that as an effective system for building up players to play a rigorous, physical game?

How no executive has been smart enough to invest peanuts into this for a better return than the rest of the league is beyond me.  It's a huge competitive advantage for minimal investment.  God baseball is full of short-sighted folks.

Appel was quite clear in this that he never had to struggle.  And yet he has never thrown a single pitch in a MLB game--proof there is no inviolable connection between not "struggling", and becoming an MLB player.

I find it interesting that Appel never mentions MiLB players returning to their colleges in the offseason, where they would theoretically have contacts that would get them access to good workout facilities.  Some of these colleges might even be quite happy to throw a few dollars at these MiLB players as a sounding board for their current players.  Failing that, are the team's minor league facilities not open during the offseason?  Are you telling me the Twins wouldn't welcome their players with open arms if they wanted to spend the winter in Ft Myers?

The obvious answer to your third point is that either all teams are required to walk the same line, or studies have been done that show these kind of changes don't actually make much of a difference, if any at all.  Do you really think the Rays, who have built their success on doing things differently and developing their minor leaguers, wouldn't gladly shave $2M-$3M from their MLB payroll if it would take their MiLB development to an even higher level?

[glunn]

I think that the tweets make a lot of sense.

[TheLeviathan]

23 minutes ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

Appel was quite clear in this that he never had to struggle.  And yet he has never thrown a single pitch in a MLB game--proof there is no inviolable connection between not "struggling", and becoming an MLB player.

I find it interesting that Appel never mentions MiLB players returning to their colleges in the offseason, where they would theoretically have contacts that would get them access to good workout facilities.  Some of these colleges might even be quite happy to throw a few dollars at these MiLB players as a sounding board for their current players.  Failing that, are the team's minor league facilities not open during the offseason?  Are you telling me the Twins wouldn't welcome their players with open arms if they wanted to spend the winter in Ft Myers?

The obvious answer to your third point is that either all teams are required to walk the same line, or studies have been done that show these kind of changes don't actually make much of a difference, if any at all.  Do you really think the Rays, who have built their success on doing things differently and developing their minor leaguers, wouldn't gladly shave $2M-$3M from their MLB payroll if it would take their MiLB development to an even higher level?

You have made your position more than clear on this issue, but I don't think it holds up under any reasonable amount of scrutiny. It simply doesn't make sense to put forward so little care and concern for significant investments.

Baseball has been nothing if not great at ignoring rational, obvious ways to make itself better.  Including teams and their strategic thinking.  

[Doctor Gast]

The tweet makes a lot of sense, coming from an unselfess person. These suggestions should be implemented for the good of the game. The problem is selfish players and owners fight it out and the minor leaguer gets forgotten. 

[Cap'n Piranha]

12 minutes ago, TheLeviathan said:

You have made your position more than clear on this issue, but I don't think it holds up under any reasonable amount of scrutiny. It simply doesn't make sense to put forward so little care and concern for significant investments.

Baseball has been nothing if not great at ignoring rational, obvious ways to make itself better.  Including teams and their strategic thinking.  

Ignoring of course that I feel the same about your positions.  Also, I will apparently have to be clearer, as you seem to not comprehend my position; I have no problem with MLB deciding to invest more in the minor leagues.  I'd have no problem if the Twins bought 15 3BR houses near each of their MiLB teams' stadiums for their players to live in for free.  I'd have no problem with the Twins hiring a chef to provide two meals daily, free of charge, at the stadium, and up the per diem to $50 a day when on the road.  I'd have no problem with the Twins increasing the pay for their minor leaguers.

The issue I have is when the greedy, wrong, evil terms start to get thrown around, as if the owners are somehow exploiting MiLB players--they are not.  Absent a nice signing bonus, playing MiLB ball will not be a luxurious existence--that's generally how it goes for 18-24 year-olds trying to get their foot in the door--I know because I worked 60 hours a week for about what MiLB players are making at a minimum.  When I budgeted, I was fine.  When I moved into a one-bedroom apartment with no roommate, and insisted on having cable TV, paying for covered parking and an in-unit W/D, eating out multiple times a week, etc. I had money issues.

As I pointed out before, if MLB draws a hard line on what teams can do with their MiLB players, in terms of pay and perks, then that explains why teams have so little "care and concern" for investments--they're not allowed to have those things.  If any MLB team is allowed to enact those perks, and yet they haven't, what does that say?  I've posed this hypothetical multiple times, and yet never received an answer; does anyone think that teams like The Rays, A's, or Guardians would not take supposed burdens off their MiLB players if they were reasonably certain the return would be significantly improved performance?  I say no; that means either those teams are simply not allowed to do that, or that they have looked into it, and feel the money is better spent elsewhere.  There is no third conclusion to be drawn.

[Cap'n Piranha]

24 minutes ago, Doctor Gast said:

The tweet makes a lot of sense, coming from an unselfess person. These suggestions should be implemented for the good of the game. The problem is selfish players and owners fight it out and the minor leaguer gets forgotten. 

It's most interesting to me that the MLBPA won't allow MiLB players to join--what could they possibly have to lose?  I would think threatening the owners with not just their current workforce, but far and away their best source for replacement players would be of great interest to the MLBPA.  Since there is a non-zero chance this lockout continues for awhile, and a non-zero chance the owners proceed with replacement players should that happen, were I the MLBPA, I'd be feverishly working to court MiLB players.

[TheLeviathan]

1 hour ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

There is no third conclusion to be drawn.

Baseball spent 100 years ignoring analytics.  Decades intensely avoiding it when it was openly advocated.  Still to this day dismissed by many in baseball.  This conclusion is obviously false.  

Several of your conclusions on this issue seem to carry the same burden.

[twinsfansd]

The reason teams don't take their own inititive on training players offseason is that they don't want to open the beehive and allow the yankees to step in and blow everybody away spending money to develop players. I'm sure teams are restricted to keep the playing field level, so any new approaches would have to be agreed upon by all the teams.

[roger]

Very interesting.  I guess Mr. Appel is putting his Stanford education to use clearly presenting his position. 

We have yet to see the results, but hopefully, his top concern has been dealt with.  Giving the players decent quality housing without the strings of a lease to worry about is HUGE.

Understand his second point, however, it does have some problems.  First, they don't need to hire a couple $12,000/month chefs as quality chef/cooks are available for a lot less, especially in many of those small towns where MiLB is located.  But isn't it going to be hard to find someone for five or six months?  Maybe that is why he threw out the big dollars. 

Does it make more sense to arrange for these meals at Restaurant A or B?  Thirty players at say $30/day times 15 days (on the road the other half the time) is $13,500 per month.  I expect there are restaurants near the ballpark or where they are housed who would be happy providing two set meals a day, a $10 breakfast and $20 linner.  It may have to be two different restaurants with one being a breakfast place.  The team could monitor the quality and I expect that would be much less expensive than building and staffing kitchens for 15-days/month. 

It may also be different by location, with the Twins hiring chefs in Fort Myers for the GCL and Miracle at their training complex which is open year-round.  Got a feeling, they probably already have done this. 

The third point is going to be difficult, especially considering that players literally disperse to all corners of the earth following their last game.  However, if housing is a done deal, getting the second point would be a huge improvement for these young men as they work their way up that ladder to the big leagues.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

18 hours ago, Doctor Gast said:

The tweet makes a lot of sense, coming from an unselfess person. These suggestions should be implemented for the good of the game. The problem is selfish players and owners fight it out and the minor leaguer gets forgotten. 

I think you’ve touched on a key driver. Many if not all of the player strategies employed by MLB team organizations are in managing to the CBA. MiLB players are not represented in those negotiations.

[Cap'n Piranha]

19 hours ago, TheLeviathan said:

Baseball spent 100 years ignoring analytics.  Decades intensely avoiding it when it was openly advocated.  Still to this day dismissed by many in baseball.  This conclusion is obviously false.  

Several of your conclusions on this issue seem to carry the same burden.

I wasn't aware that SABR was founded in 1922.  Also, pray tell, which front offices are ignoring analytics?  Your insistence that the baseball operations outfits across the league are all data-haters is just absolutely baffling to me, unless, a la the movie Frequency, you're communicating with us from 30 years ago.  Quick--who's the President right now?

[bean5302]

On 2/16/2022 at 1:44 PM, TheLeviathan said:

...Appel, who has a fat signing bonus, is talking about how he and his peers have to struggle for good meals, good workouts, and a place to live...

This is not true. Appel denied having to deal with most issues because of his big signing bonus.

[bean5302]

7 hours ago, roger said:

Very interesting.  I guess Mr. Appel is putting his Stanford education to use clearly presenting his position. 

We have yet to see the results, but hopefully, his top concern has been dealt with.  Giving the players decent quality housing without the strings of a lease to worry about is HUGE.

Understand his second point, however, it does have some problems.  First, they don't need to hire a couple $12,000/month chefs as quality chef/cooks are available for a lot less, especially in many of those small towns where MiLB is located.  But isn't it going to be hard to find someone for five or six months?  Maybe that is why he threw out the big dollars. 

Does it make more sense to arrange for these meals at Restaurant A or B?  Thirty players at say $30/day times 15 days (on the road the other half the time) is $13,500 per month.  I expect there are restaurants near the ballpark or where they are housed who would be happy providing two set meals a day, a $10 breakfast and $20 linner.  It may have to be two different restaurants with one being a breakfast place.  The team could monitor the quality and I expect that would be much less expensive than building and staffing kitchens for 15-days/month. 

It may also be different by location, with the Twins hiring chefs in Fort Myers for the GCL and Miracle at their training complex which is open year-round.  Got a feeling, they probably already have done this. 

The third point is going to be difficult, especially considering that players literally disperse to all corners of the earth following their last game.  However, if housing is a done deal, getting the second point would be a huge improvement for these young men as they work their way up that ladder to the big leagues.

In regard to food availability, there are more options now like Uber Eats and Grub Hub (though they are expensive), Amazon Fresh and Door Dash which can deliver groceries even in the middle of the night. Still, having good food available is an upgrade at what would be a fairly moderate cost. That said, with team provided housing, I have a hard time believing there won't be kitchens pretty much universally available at this point for home games at least.

Many communities have rental kitchens, but even those that don't would allow for an employee to order healthful options from local grocery store deli's to put together team meals or a team could have a traveling team food truck for that matter. There are certainly some better solutions to the issue. 

[KirbyDome89]

21 hours ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

Appel was quite clear in this that he never had to struggle.  And yet he has never thrown a single pitch in a MLB game--proof there is no inviolable connection between not "struggling", and becoming an MLB player.

I find it interesting that Appel never mentions MiLB players returning to their colleges in the offseason, where they would theoretically have contacts that would get them access to good workout facilities.  Some of these colleges might even be quite happy to throw a few dollars at these MiLB players as a sounding board for their current players.  Failing that, are the team's minor league facilities not open during the offseason?  Are you telling me the Twins wouldn't welcome their players with open arms if they wanted to spend the winter in Ft Myers?

The obvious answer to your third point is that either all teams are required to walk the same line, or studies have been done that show these kind of changes don't actually make much of a difference, if any at all.  Do you really think the Rays, who have built their success on doing things differently and developing their minor leaguers, wouldn't gladly shave $2M-$3M from their MLB payroll if it would take their MiLB development to an even higher level?

Exceptions prove the rule, no? 

Minor leaguers needing to use a contact to gain backdoor entry into alumni fitness centers doesn't solve the problem, it highlights it. We can come up with an endless number of "solutions," where MLB shrugs responsibility onto others, but that's not addressing the issue of why a multi-billion dollar industry is paying at least 50% of their minor leaguers sub minimum hourly wage. 

The same Rays team that cries poor, but rather than spend competitive balance revenue, opts to pocket it? They won't even pay their major league players, but you expect them to fairly compensate their minor leaguers? There's no need to conjure up some big brain argument about why teams won't invest, the answer is staring us in the face. 

20 hours ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

The issue I have is when the greedy, wrong, evil terms start to get thrown around, as if the owners are somehow exploiting MiLB players--they are not.  Absent a nice signing bonus, playing MiLB ball will not be a luxurious existence--that's generally how it goes for 18-24 year-olds trying to get their foot in the door--I know because I worked 60 hours a week for about what MiLB players are making at a minimum.  When I budgeted, I was fine.  When I moved into a one-bedroom apartment with no roommate, and insisted on having cable TV, paying for covered parking and an in-unit W/D, eating out multiple times a week, etc. I had money issues.

MiLB players are being exploited, and once upon a time you were too. 

[Cap'n Piranha]

46 minutes ago, KirbyDome89 said:

Exceptions prove the rule, no? 

Minor leaguers needing to use a contact to gain backdoor entry into alumni fitness centers doesn't solve the problem, it highlights it. We can come up with an endless number of "solutions," where MLB shrugs responsibility onto others, but that's not addressing the issue of why a multi-billion dollar industry is paying at least 50% of their minor leaguers sub minimum hourly wage. 

The same Rays team that cries poor, but rather than spend competitive balance revenue, opts to pocket it? They won't even pay their major league players, but you expect them to fairly compensate their minor leaguers? There's no need to conjure up some big brain argument about why teams won't invest, the answer is staring us in the face. 

MiLB players are being exploited, and once upon a time you were too. 

MLB pays 0% of their MiLB players minimum wage.  The minimum MiLB salary is $500 a week, which when divided by the federal minimum wage is just under 69 hours.  Try again.

Appel is hardly an exception.  The majority of players in MiLB have received significant signing bonuses (some more significant than others).  Even if they hadn't, $1700 every 4 weeks (an estimate of what an MiLB player would make post-tax) is enough for a decent, if somewhat austere lifestlye.  MiLB players might not be able to have multiple streaming services, or live by themselves, or get a new car, etc. but a player who finds roommates, pools grocery money, hangs on to his older car, and lives a more spartan life will have no problem living on what he is paid.  That's even more true if a signing bonus is split over multiple years.  In 2021 for example, every player picked in the first 10 rounds gets at least $142k in a signing bonus (source).  Even if 60% of that goes to taxes/agent fees, that's still $57k; use $1000 to supplement income every month, and they won't run out for almost 5 years.

The Rays have 4 straight years of 90 or more wins (if you pro-rate 2020, where they played at 108 win pace; I think we can all agree a team that finished 40-20 despite only playing AL/NL East teams would not have gone 49-53 in the 100 games that weren't played, had 2020 been normal).  Maybe the Rays don't spend because they understand the concept of diminishing returns; why pay $10M/$20M/$30M more every year to win maybe 3-5 more games, when that is not the difference between making the playoffs or not? 

That said, do you really think that the team which relies on prospect development more than any other team in the game, if given the option to significantly enhance their already best-in-class prospect development for only $3M-$4M a year, wouldn't do that immediately?  Do you think the Rays would rather add 5 to the FV of every prospect in their system, or sign Michael Wacha?  The Rays spent $70M on MLB payroll last year--if investing $750k to $1M in each of their MiLB teams would be so impactful in improved performance, you don't think they would be happy to go down to $66M-$67M in order to offset that?  Especially because, and this is they key point, if $4M buys greatly improved performance from MiLB players, in 2-4 years, the Rays would be able to build their roster almost entirely with players with less than 4 years of service time, meaning they could have a payroll of $40M--SAVING THEM $30M A YEAR.  If indeed the owners are so greedy that all they care about is money, wouldn't they gladly invest $3M today to save $30M in 2 years, especially when they can take the money for said investment from somewhere else?

Paying entry level workers an entry level wage is not exploitation.  A very low percentage of the people in 2022 America are truly exploited, and just because someone feels that they are does not make it so.

[TheLeviathan]

2 hours ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

I wasn't aware that SABR was founded in 1922.  Also, pray tell, which front offices are ignoring analytics?  Your insistence that the baseball operations outfits across the league are all data-haters is just absolutely baffling to me, unless, a la the movie Frequency, you're communicating with us from 30 years ago.  Quick--who's the President right now?

The point was the flaw in your logic. It's literally the fallacy of false alternatives.  Your entire argument on this entire point is one big, fat pile of fallacious thinking.  And you're so stuck in your own bias about it that you can't pull free.   Go ahead, google the fallacy.  It's unquestionably what you're doing and why your point requires some serious re-thinking.

As for the argument I made:  Bill James was publishing mathematical evidence for it as of 1977 yet it didn't take hold for decades after beyond a few pockets of individuals.  Applying your logic would lead someone to believe that it took so long because it outlawed by rules or that they studied the benefits and found it lacking. There is no possible third alternative as you say.  Of course, we know that isn't the case.  Sabermetrics are not outlawed, nor were they ever, and they reaped massive benefits had anyone pulled their heads out of their rear ends long enough to consider the possibilities.  Teams didn't adopt them because they were rigid and lacked the desire or willpower to be forward thinking.  Just like they are on this issue.  

What will need to happen is similar to SABR - a recognition that old arguments don't apply and past thinking was flawed.  Players are investments to build up, not commodities to control.

 

[Richie the Rally Goat]

29 minutes ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

MLB pays 0% of their MiLB players minimum wage.  The minimum MiLB salary is $500 a week, which when divided by the federal minimum wage is just under 69 hours.  Try again.

Appel is hardly an exception.  The majority of players in MiLB have received significant signing bonuses (some more significant than others).  Even if they hadn't, $1700 every 4 weeks (an estimate of what an MiLB player would make post-tax) is enough for a decent, if somewhat austere lifestlye.  MiLB players might not be able to have multiple streaming services, or live by themselves, or get a new car, etc. but a player who finds roommates, pools grocery money, hangs on to his older car, and lives a more spartan life will have no problem living on what he is paid.  That's even more true if a signing bonus is split over multiple years.  In 2021 for example, every player picked in the first 10 rounds gets at least $142k in a signing bonus (source).  Even if 60% of that goes to taxes/agent fees, that's still $57k; use $1000 to supplement income every month, and they won't run out for almost 5 years.

The Rays have 4 straight years of 90 or more wins (if you pro-rate 2020, where they played at 108 win pace; I think we can all agree a team that finished 40-20 despite only playing AL/NL East teams would not have gone 49-53 in the 100 games that weren't played, had 2020 been normal).  Maybe the Rays don't spend because they understand the concept of diminishing returns; why pay $10M/$20M/$30M more every year to win maybe 3-5 more games, when that is not the difference between making the playoffs or not? 

That said, do you really think that the team which relies on prospect development more than any other team in the game, if given the option to significantly enhance their already best-in-class prospect development for only $3M-$4M a year, wouldn't do that immediately?  Do you think the Rays would rather add 5 to the FV of every prospect in their system, or sign Michael Wacha?  The Rays spent $70M on MLB payroll last year--if investing $750k to $1M in each of their MiLB teams would be so impactful in improved performance, you don't think they would be happy to go down to $66M-$67M in order to offset that?  Especially because, and this is they key point, if $4M buys greatly improved performance from MiLB players, in 2-4 years, the Rays would be able to build their roster almost entirely with players with less than 4 years of service time, meaning they could have a payroll of $40M--SAVING THEM $30M A YEAR.  If indeed the owners are so greedy that all they care about is money, wouldn't they gladly invest $3M today to save $30M in 2 years, especially when they can take the money for said investment from somewhere else?

Paying entry level workers an entry level wage is not exploitation.  A very low percentage of the people in 2022 America are truly exploited, and just because someone feels that they are does not make it so.

There are 40 rounds in the mlb draft. 25% is a minority, last I checked.

the salary is just like school teachers, they get 500 per week for the season not for the whole year. 
 

the Twins paid their minor leaguers for the lost 2020 season, that cost them about 5 million, and they were the first to do it and one of about 5 teams to do it.

25 teams chose to pocket chump change rather than pay the players they had contracts with, that the league chose to cancel the season. The players didn’t opt out, the league did

[Cap'n Piranha]

26 minutes ago, TheLeviathan said:

The point was the flaw in your logic. It's literally the fallacy of false alternatives.  Your entire argument on this entire point is one big, fat pile of fallacious thinking.  And you're so stuck in your own bias about it that you can't pull free.   Go ahead, google the fallacy.  It's unquestionably what you're doing and why your point requires some serious re-thinking.

As for the argument I made:  Bill James was publishing mathematical evidence for it as of 1977 yet it didn't take hold for decades after beyond a few pockets of individuals.  Applying your logic would lead someone to believe that it took so long because it outlawed by rules or that they studied the benefits and found it lacking. There is no possible third alternative as you say.  Of course, we know that isn't the case.  Sabermetrics are not outlawed, nor were they ever, and they reaped massive benefits had anyone pulled their heads out of their rear ends long enough to consider the possibilities.  Teams didn't adopt them because they were rigid and lacked the desire or willpower to be forward thinking.  Just like they are on this issue.  

What will need to happen is similar to SABR - a recognition that old arguments don't apply and past thinking was flawed.  Players are investments to build up, not commodities to control.

 

It's not fallacious, because I am assuming that all (or at least essentially all) current FOs are using analytics to guide, and even drive their decisions.  I don't disagree baseball in the past has eschewed adoption of analytics (although it seems you would like to retract your original statement of 100 years of ignoring analytics, and revise it to 45, given your Bill James example); I'm saying analytics are no longer being ignored, therefore the rationale cannot be that individual teams are not open to investing in MiLB players due to an unwillingness to embrace analytics.  Thus, the only rational explanations left are that MLB as a whole does not let any team break the pay and perk structure established, or that teams are completely free to spend whatever they want in at least perks for their MiLB players, but after running the analytics, have determined it to not be a worthwhile investment.

I asked you which front offices don't embrace analytics, and I can't help but notice you did not respond, preferring instead to attempt to lecture me on Ostrichism and revised analytical history.  As such, I'll ask again, directly--which current MLB teams do not use analytics in their decision making?  If you respond to nothing else in this post, please respond to that question, since the basis of your entire argument is that MLB teams are choosing to not employ widely-available and valid analytics.  Failure to do so will leave me with no other conclusion regarding you other than the one you so arrogantly and incorrectly applied to me; you are so deep in your own certainty regarding the short-sighted stupidity of MLB teams that you cannot even bring yourself to consider any other realities.

[Cap'n Piranha]

44 minutes ago, Sconnie said:

There are 40 rounds in the mlb draft. 25% is a minority, last I checked.

the salary is just like school teachers, they get 500 per week for the season not for the whole year. 
 

the Twins paid their minor leaguers for the lost 2020 season, that cost them about 5 million, and they were the first to do it and one of about 5 teams to do it.

25 teams chose to pocket chump change rather than pay the players they had contracts with, that the league chose to cancel the season. The players didn’t opt out, the league did

There are more than 10 rounds in the first 10 rounds of the MLB draft--Comp round A and B have to be included, and while not every team partakes of those, 13 out of 30 did in 2021.

Most teams don't sign all 40 of their picks--according to this article, only about 30 will sign.  Because teams lose the comp attached to the pick if a player doesn't sign, my guess is that the vast majority of a team's top 10 picks sign (for example, you have to go back to 2015 to find the last time the Twins didn't sign all of their Top 10 picks, according to The Baseball Cube).

Also, most teams will have at least 2-3 highly paid international free agents every year, which means that every year, just about every organization is probably acquiring 12-14 players with take home portions of their bonus above $50k.  If we assume those players take 4-5 years to matriculate through the system, that's 48-70 players with substantial financial reserves (if they're smart about it).

MiLB players are like school teachers, other than they actually have far more opportunity to make money outside of their "main" gig than teachers.  Every MiLB player gets the better part of 5 months (October, November, December, January, most of February) to work; call it 21 weeks, whereas a school teacher might get only 2.5 months--half of June, July, most/all of August.  Get a $9/hr job (not particularly difficult in a world where Amazon pays warehouse workers an average of $16 an hour--source is indeed.com.  Heck, both McDonald's and WM pay over $10/hr to start; are there any MiLB players that wouldn't be able to walk into any of those places and get a job more or less on the spot?), work it 40 hours a week for those 21 weeks, and they make $7,560.  Add that to the $11k they make during the MiLB season, and at $18,560, they are more than 20% above the full year minimum wage (assuming 2,080 hours worked per year at $7.25) of $15,080.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

my allegory here is a thought exercise, not to spark a debate on vaccines.

The Polio vaccine and the public campaign to vaccinate every child nearly eradicated one of the deadliest diseases in history. It saved millions of lives, saved hundreds of millions of dollars and was the single greatest public health campaign in modern history. We’ve seen nothing like it since.

At the time there were conjectures that scientists could develop vaccines to prevent every virus, even the common cold. over the 70+ years since, there have been a few more vaccines invented, though not a ton in the grand scheme of things. The common cold is still very much a nuisance…

mRNA vaccine development process was theorized in the early 90s, and one of the first applications of the genome mapping that took place in the early aughts. It took almost 20 years to be executed and tested.

why?

the polio treatment industry in the 1940s was one of the largest and most profitable segments of the healthcare industry that the public vaccination campaign eradicated in a decade.

jumping back to current day, why might some public office holders be opponents of a $40 Covid vaccine proven to be highly effective and safe but proponents of therapeutics that require an emergency room stay and cost tens of thousands of dollars?

The point is that we don’t know MLB owners, nor do we know MiLB players. What we do know is that people are frequently motivated by things that aren’t externally apparent.

1) what might be motivating Mark Appel to write this Twitter thread? Might he be motivated by something we don’t know about? His bio says he is an entrepreneur, could he be invested into businesses that might support these suggestions?

2) why might MLB owners not want to invest into minor league athletes off-season activities and in-season food. Why did MLB have to dictate the housing mandate? Could it be more than “cut-off your nose to spite your face”? Did Gleeman over-simplify the owners as bad people? 

[Richie the Rally Goat]

33 minutes ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

There are more than 10 rounds in the first 10 rounds of the MLB draft--Comp round A and B have to be included, and while not every team partakes of those, 13 out of 30 did in 2021.

Most teams don't sign all 40 of their picks--according to this article, only about 30 will sign.  Because teams lose the comp attached to the pick if a player doesn't sign, my guess is that the vast majority of a team's top 10 picks sign (for example, you have to go back to 2015 to find the last time the Twins didn't sign all of their Top 10 picks, according to The Baseball Cube).

Also, most teams will have at least 2-3 highly paid international free agents every year, which means that every year, just about every organization is probably acquiring 12-14 players with take home portions of their bonus above $50k.  If we assume those players take 4-5 years to matriculate through the system, that's 48-70 players with substantial financial reserves (if they're smart about it).

MiLB players are like school teachers, other than they actually have far more opportunity to make money outside of their "main" gig than teachers.  Every MiLB player gets the better part of 5 months (October, November, December, January, most of February) to work; call it 21 weeks, whereas a school teacher might get only 2.5 months--half of June, July, most/all of August.  Get a $9/hr job (not particularly difficult in a world where Amazon pays warehouse workers an average of $16 an hour--source is indeed.com.  Heck, both McDonald's and WM pay over $10/hr to start; are there any MiLB players that wouldn't be able to walk into any of those places and get a job more or less on the spot?), work it 40 hours a week for those 21 weeks, and they make $7,560.  Add that to the $11k they make during the MiLB season, and at $18,560, they are more than 20% above the full year minimum wage (assuming 2,080 hours worked per year at $7.25) of $15,080.

AAA is up to 150 games this season which fits.

AA, A+ and A- only play 120, it’s April to August

rookie ball is 75 games July/August

spring training isn’t paid , and the players pay for their own transportation to report.

Dobnak was an Uber driver, lots of players have seasonal/part-time jobs. Growing up, my next door neighbor was a minor league player and went to Florida every summer… he was a truck driver.

if you are an MLB owner and you want to improve your team’s development better than anyone else, wouldn’t you want your players developing full time compared to other team’s part time? Wouldn’t that be a competitive advantage?

again, what’s the motivation for the parties involved?

[Shaitan]

12 hours ago, roger said:

Very interesting.  I guess Mr. Appel is putting his Stanford education to use clearly presenting his position. 

We have yet to see the results, but hopefully, his top concern has been dealt with.  Giving the players decent quality housing without the strings of a lease to worry about is HUGE.

Understand his second point, however, it does have some problems.  First, they don't need to hire a couple $12,000/month chefs as quality chef/cooks are available for a lot less, especially in many of those small towns where MiLB is located.  But isn't it going to be hard to find someone for five or six months?  Maybe that is why he threw out the big dollars. 

Does it make more sense to arrange for these meals at Restaurant A or B?  Thirty players at say $30/day times 15 days (on the road the other half the time) is $13,500 per month.  I expect there are restaurants near the ballpark or where they are housed who would be happy providing two set meals a day, a $10 breakfast and $20 linner.  It may have to be two different restaurants with one being a breakfast place.  The team could monitor the quality and I expect that would be much less expensive than building and staffing kitchens for 15-days/month. 

It may also be different by location, with the Twins hiring chefs in Fort Myers for the GCL and Miracle at their training complex which is open year-round.  Got a feeling, they probably already have done this. 

The third point is going to be difficult, especially considering that players literally disperse to all corners of the earth following their last game.  However, if housing is a done deal, getting the second point would be a huge improvement for these young men as they work their way up that ladder to the big leagues.

Very few restaurants serve healthy food...

Just sayin' that they like their creams, and butters, and oils. 

There's a big difference between a cook and a nutritionist.

[Shaitan]

3 hours ago, Sconnie said:

There are 40 rounds in the mlb draft. 25% is a minority, last I checked.

the salary is just like school teachers, they get 500 per week for the season not for the whole year. 
 

the Twins paid their minor leaguers for the lost 2020 season, that cost them about 5 million, and they were the first to do it and one of about 5 teams to do it.

25 teams chose to pocket chump change rather than pay the players they had contracts with, that the league chose to cancel the season. The players didn’t opt out, the league did

1) Interesting choice, given how pretty much everybody has agreed that teachers are underpaid for the past 30+ years.

2) Are you suggesting that MiLB players do not perform baseball activities or train in the offseason? They absolutely work year round. And unless they are free agents, they are under contract during those offseason months, so their activities are tied to their employer.

[TheLeviathan]

3 hours ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

It's not fallacious, because I am assuming that all (or at least essentially all) current FOs are using analytics to guide, and even drive their decisions.  I don't disagree baseball in the past has eschewed adoption of analytics (although it seems you would like to retract your original statement of 100 years of ignoring analytics, and revise it to 45, given your Bill James example); I'm saying analytics are no longer being ignored, therefore the rationale cannot be that individual teams are not open to investing in MiLB players due to an unwillingness to embrace analytics.  Thus, the only rational explanations left are that MLB as a whole does not let any team break the pay and perk structure established, or that teams are completely free to spend whatever they want in at least perks for their MiLB players, but after running the analytics, have determined it to not be a worthwhile investment.

I asked you which front offices don't embrace analytics, and I can't help but notice you did not respond, preferring instead to attempt to lecture me on Ostrichism and revised analytical history.  As such, I'll ask again, directly--which current MLB teams do not use analytics in their decision making?  If you respond to nothing else in this post, please respond to that question, since the basis of your entire argument is that MLB teams are choosing to not employ widely-available and valid analytics.  Failure to do so will leave me with no other conclusion regarding you other than the one you so arrogantly and incorrectly applied to me; you are so deep in your own certainty regarding the short-sighted stupidity of MLB teams that you cannot even bring yourself to consider any other realities.

Baseball did not use analytics until recently.  It could have been done just as well in 1908 as 2022.  The advantage such a strategy could lead to didn't just come into existence in the universe in 1977.  It was always a possibility, only no on had thought to consider it.  Meaning through some combination of ignorance, oversight, stubborn behavior, or whatever else they were eschewing an otherwise wonderful tool.  Your contention that the same couldn't be the case right now with investing in minor leaguers is a point with no merit.  It's demonstrably false and your fallacious reasoning is the root of that false claim.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

1 hour ago, Shaitan said:

1) Interesting choice, given how pretty much everybody has agreed that teachers are underpaid for the past 30+ years.

2) Are you suggesting that MiLB players do not perform baseball activities or train in the offseason? They absolutely work year round. And unless they are free agents, they are under contract during those offseason months, so their activities are tied to their employer.

No I’m not saying that at all, quite the opposite.

my contention is, if a team wants to out perform their peers, they should pay the players for their offseason workouts and support nutrition and such.

I agree with Appel, generally

[chpettit19]

On 2/16/2022 at 5:28 PM, Cap'n Piranha said:

Ignoring of course that I feel the same about your positions.  Also, I will apparently have to be clearer, as you seem to not comprehend my position; I have no problem with MLB deciding to invest more in the minor leagues.  I'd have no problem if the Twins bought 15 3BR houses near each of their MiLB teams' stadiums for their players to live in for free.  I'd have no problem with the Twins hiring a chef to provide two meals daily, free of charge, at the stadium, and up the per diem to $50 a day when on the road.  I'd have no problem with the Twins increasing the pay for their minor leaguers.

The issue I have is when the greedy, wrong, evil terms start to get thrown around, as if the owners are somehow exploiting MiLB players--they are not.  Absent a nice signing bonus, playing MiLB ball will not be a luxurious existence--that's generally how it goes for 18-24 year-olds trying to get their foot in the door--I know because I worked 60 hours a week for about what MiLB players are making at a minimum.  When I budgeted, I was fine.  When I moved into a one-bedroom apartment with no roommate, and insisted on having cable TV, paying for covered parking and an in-unit W/D, eating out multiple times a week, etc. I had money issues.

As I pointed out before, if MLB draws a hard line on what teams can do with their MiLB players, in terms of pay and perks, then that explains why teams have so little "care and concern" for investments--they're not allowed to have those things.  If any MLB team is allowed to enact those perks, and yet they haven't, what does that say?  I've posed this hypothetical multiple times, and yet never received an answer; does anyone think that teams like The Rays, A's, or Guardians would not take supposed burdens off their MiLB players if they were reasonably certain the return would be significantly improved performance?  I say no; that means either those teams are simply not allowed to do that, or that they have looked into it, and feel the money is better spent elsewhere.  There is no third conclusion to be drawn.

Are you saying you made literally the same amount when you were a young adult and you were able to survive by budgeting or are you saying you made the same amount as adjusted for inflation? Because those are 2 very different things. Your profile says you were born in 1983 which puts you in the 18-24 age range in the early 2000s. During that time the average rent was about $600-650 per month. Average rent now is $1100 per month. You living with 2-3 roommates meant you were paying $200-$300 a month, they'd be paying $360 to $550 a month. And that's just rent, not even taking into account the rise in cost of literally everything else. So I think you can see why comparing making 11K now is not in any way comparable to making 11K in 2001 or 2007. Even making $18,560 or $15,080 now compared to 2001 or 2007 is an awful comparison. If their MiLB team is located in a big city prices could be significantly higher. Living on $20,000 a year in 2022 is absolutely not an easy thing to do, even with budgeting and roommates. And 50K spread out over 4 or 5 years is not "substantial financial reserves." It's not nothing, but it's certainly not substantial.

$11000 in 2001 is just over $17000 today. $18000 in 2001 is over $28,500 today. So that "substantial financial reserve" the players in the top 10 rounds get is wiped out completely simply by the cost of inflation over what you were making back in the early 2000s.

[Prince William]

The draft last year was 20 rounds. There really isn't a reason to have more than that now that there is no longer a rookie league and there is proposals to cap the number of minor league players to 150.  A quick look through a half dozen or so team's draft last year shows that there were very few players with signing bonuses les than 75K.  Of the 20 drafted usually it was 18-19 signed. Of those signed the most any team had was 5 players signing for a pittance. Usually it was 3. The players have money, it just comes up front. 

[Squirrel]

11 hours ago, Shaitan said:

1) Interesting choice, given how pretty much everybody has agreed that teachers are underpaid for the past 30+ years.

2) Are you suggesting that MiLB players do not perform baseball activities or train in the offseason? They absolutely work year round. And unless they are free agents, they are under contract during those offseason months, so their activities are tied to their employer.

But they aren't paid for those off-season months, despite continuing their activities and training and being under contract. That was the point.