Mark Appel Solutions for MiLB problems

[Cap'n Piranha]

6 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

I can't believe anyone types this, not if they've read all the stories by minor league players living 7 to an apartment with 2 bedrooms. The stories are all over the internet. 

The players don't have plenty of money. 75K? To live off for years in the minors? To pay for your own equipment? To pay for off season training? To pay for rent and food for years? 

I've read plenty of stories of NFL and NBA veterans going broke within 3 years of leaving the league.  Is it because they're underpaid? 

If 7 adult men are sharing a 2 bedroom apartment, it is because most if not all of them have made serious budgeting errors.  There's just no way around it.  There is no world in which it is difficult for an MiLB player to allocate $500 a month to rent UNLESS they are making frivolous and irresponsible decisions with money.  That issue will not go away if they are given more money.

$75k PLUS their continued MiLB wages, PLUS whatever wages they earn in the 5-6 months they're not obligated to be committed full time to baseball is plenty.  I am sure that every MiLB player can reach out to their coach, and get updates on their training plan.  They can have zoom calls and send them video.  Rent and food should not cost more than $1000/mo unless they're doing it wrong.  It astounds me that I'm the only one actually attempt to present a budget on this thread, and everyone else just screams "No!", without offering even a shred of sourced evidence in response.

[Cap'n Piranha]

4 hours ago, KirbyDome89 said:

Ah yes, the federal minimum, no controversy there. I guess we'll set aside the fact that the $500 is pre-tax and assume the players aren't putting in more than 40 hours (unlikely) which still leaves us at $12.50 per hour, or Minneapolis minimum; i.e. a s*** wage. 

We get it, soup kitchens, workouts on the beach, squeezing multiple grown men into a single bedroom, on and on. There are a million ways you can "budget," yet these "solutions,"  only address the symptoms, not the underlying problem. Ninja'd on the bonus spreading.

We'll ignore that a 5 game swing very well could determine whether a team makes the playoffs. The Rays' on field success isn't because they don't spend. That same lack of spending shouldn't therefore be taken to mean that they're privy to some data telling them that paying a fair wage to minor leaguers isn't a prudent investment. 

Do I believe that spending $4M, what teams piss away on washed vets + other camp invites, would go a long way in making the lives of minor leaguers more "livable?" Absolutely. Is anybody arguing that teams will save $30M annually by doing so? Not by a long shot. There's the possibility that added care/attention yields better results, and worst case, these players start earning wages they've actually earned. I have zero faith that billionaire owners/investment groups, who benefit greatly from a system skewed in their favor, are willing to concede even a sliver unless forced by pressure internal, external, or some combination of the two. They've made that much clear. 

Churning through candidates while offering substandard compensation because the pool is ever replenishing is textbook exploitation. "Entry level," is a convenient misnomer to hide behind. 

Dude, you made the assertion they are paid sub-minimum wages in your first post, not me.  Minimum wage is also pre-tax, FYI.

I've broken it down a million times--are people just not reading my posts?  Find 3 other guys, and rent a 4BR house for $2k a month.  Have each guy chip in $300 and share the grocery bill; Intuit suggests $892/mo for 4 people--so that's already $300 over that.  The BLS says the average annual household grocery bill is $4,643, or less than $400/month.  Statista says the average household is 2.53 people, so that's $152/person/month; obviously $300 basically doubles that.  That's $800 a month, leaving probably around $900 a month during the season for all other expenses.  Players should have no problem getting a job in the offseason to supplement that income that would perhaps leave less extra money, but certainly plenty to continue to meet their needs.

Nor is the Rays' success because they do spend.  My point is that the Rays are using the same logic as tanking teams--why spend $100M to win 65 games when you can spend $50M and win 55.  The Rays have inverted it--why spend $100M and win 103 games when you spend $70M and win 98?  This isn't meant to say the Rays have determined an extra $3M a year wouldn't equate to improved MiLB performance, but rather a demonstration that the Rays understand the link between spending and performance.  It's a further point that if the Rays truly believed allocating an extra $3M a year to MiLB would result in improved performance, they would have no problem reducing their MLB payroll by that $3M.

Again, it just defies rational thought to think that highly-educated, extremely-intelligent individuals in a suicidally-competitive industry where millions a year are already spent on securing incremental performance improvements wouldn't invest there.  Of course more money makes someone's life more "livable", assuming they don't waste that money (which is not exactly unheard of in the world of professional athletes).  But given that MiLB players already do have livable wages (see above), MLB is under no obligation to make their life more livable.

Churning through candidates while offering legal wages because the pool is ever replenishing is not exploitation.  It's supply and demand.  Entry level is a perfectly apt description for this phenomenon, which repeats broadly throughout society, for all of time.  People with less experience and/or skills start out making less, and progressively make more as their experience/skills develop.  It's not evil or pernicious, it's an objective way to reward ability in the marketplace, and why 1st overall pick Carlos Correa is going to get $300M while 1st overall pick Tim Beckham had to sign a $1M contract.

[Cap'n Piranha]

2 hours ago, TheLeviathan said:

Cool.  Fun fact: I never said anything like this strawman.  Like, even remotely.  I know, I went back and reread to be sure.  So, yes, I am declining to acknowledge a thing I never said.  It's why I declined previously, I didn't want to engage your strawman.  However, you appear intent to grasp at that straw (pun intended) because it's being made obvious by a host of other posters that you're delivering false conclusions.

To clarify, cuz I'm nice like that, I said baseball ignored and/or didn't discover analytics until the game was a century old.  It was always there to be used had some enterprising team wanted to employ it. Yet they didn't.  Maybe that was purely ignorance of the value.  But then...even now people brought up in the pre-analytics tradition still rail against it.  Meaning there is a history of baseball ignoring things out of traditional thinking.  Or out of stubborn, greedy thinking. Which is, you know, what I actually said.  Apologies to your strawman, but the third path is pretty obvious and as as baseball as apple pie (Or some other clever turn of phrase): MLB is really good at inexplicably ignoring good ideas because it's cheap, ignorant, or weird.

This is just...wow.  Do you deny that through this entire thread, you have maintained MLB teams have historically ignored analytics?  Do you deny that your hypothesis from this is that MLB teams are not using analytics right now, vis a vis the ability of (relatively) small amounts of money to markedly improve MiLB performance?  And do you deny that even in the face of the reality that MLB teams have spent literally hundreds of millions of dollars in the past decade alone on analytics to improve performance, you still assert that MLB teams are blithely ignoring data hitting them right in the face? 

You're saying a multi-billion dollar a year industry that spends copious amounts of time and money studying, scouting, signing, and developing the players in their MiLB systems, will just stop caring about those assets because...they're old fashioned like that, I guess?  I find this not at all plausible, and find it incredible that you do.

[TheLeviathan]

54 minutes ago, Prince William said:

I have a fun fact. The 2010, 2012 and 2014 WS was won by a team that largely ignored analytics. Tampa and Oakland have won how many?  

Seriously?  I mean, the Giants have had an analytics department since at least 2012  (Same guy still works there - Paul Bien), but don't let any evidence get in the way of your false argument.

[TheLeviathan]

2 minutes ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

This is just...wow.  Do you deny that through this entire thread, you have maintained MLB teams have historically ignored analytics?  Do you deny that your hypothesis from this is that MLB teams are not using analytics right now, vis a vis the ability of (relatively) small amounts of money to markedly improve MiLB performance?  And do you deny that even in the face of the reality that MLB teams have spent literally hundreds of millions of dollars in the past decade alone on analytics to improve performance, you still assert that MLB teams are blithely ignoring data hitting them right in the face? 

You're saying a multi-billion dollar a year industry that spends copious amounts of time and money studying, scouting, signing, and developing the players in their MiLB systems, will just stop caring about those assets because...they're old fashioned like that, I guess?  I find this not at all plausible, and find it incredible that you do.

1) Yes, I contend that baseball teams were not steeped in analytics in, say, 1953 or 1908.  They could have been, had someone been forward thinking enough, but they weren't.  That's a fact.   They also warmed to the practice slowly despite all kinds of evidence for it once it became more prevalent.  2) MLB teams are actively going to court to not pay players for spring training....so yes, I put nothing past them in the rest of this post.

I'd think it silly too if they didn't actively engage in exactly that kind of bizarre, inexplicable behavior despite piles of evidence to the contrary.  The evidence on the side of "baseball teams screw players over, nickel and dime them, are indifferent about their circumstances, and are cheap as hell" is a god damn mountain.  So...yup, I gladly stand by it.

Makes about as much sense as 15 minutes CBA negotiations.  But here we are!

[Cap'n Piranha]

2 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

 

"budgeting" the answer to everyone that thinks workers are the problem, and not unfair pay.

There are literally stories all over the internet, about how little they are paid, how they don't get paid for a lot of time they work, how they have to pay for their own training and equipment, etc. About how they sleep on floors. About how they get moved from city to city, so they can't rent a place the same way normal people can. You can keep typing this stuff over and over, but it doesn't change the actual experiences they are having, rather than some hypothetical that isn't real.

 

It's not crazy to say budgeting is absolutely the solution.  Millionaires go broke all the time--Nicolas Cage had a $200M fortune, and wasted it all--do you really think a guy who can't manage to budget essentially at all on $500 a week is going to all of the sudden be incapable of being wasteful with $1000 a week?  Stop assuming that every single MiLB player is an amazing steward of money, and therefore if they're struggling, it MUST be because of those darn greedy owners.

Just because stories are all over the internet about destitute players doesn't mean the solution is more money.  As I mentioned in a response to a different post of yours, I mentioned how a large percentage of NFL players go broke soon after retirement--there are stories all over the internet.  Is that because they are not paid enough?  While I feel bad for these players, and what they have to go through, when they are telling the story, it is demonstrably, and exclusively, one-sided.  None of them have provided breakdowns of where their money went, even so much as how much they paid for rent, or food.  Many of them predate the recent increase in pay, and as such, are no longer relevant to current MiLB pay.  If every single MiLB player understood the finiteness of their resources, and spent wisely, I'm sure someone would still struggle, but the vast majority would not.  It's not hypothetical, it's math.

[Cap'n Piranha]

2 hours ago, Sconnie said:

Clearly I don’t have data to present, but if time value of money assumptions hold accurate, I use a 15% discount rate as back of the napkin math.

Older players get higher salaries, even if the benefit evaporated upon graduation, 10% development faster (opposed to “better” is cheaper especially if the CBA is negotiated to a fixed age arbitration/free agency as major leaguers. Instead of letting players fit their offseason development time around a job, $25k per year per player (over a couple hundred players $5m) could save $15-20m per year in salaries pretty reasonably. An extra year, 2 years maybe at $600k vs paying arbitration up to free agency for 10+ players (rolling) seems feasible

I'd have no problem with shifting pay out of arbitration, and into MiLB.  I imagine neither would the owners.  But I'm 100% certain the MLBPA would agree to re-segregate the league before they would agree to reduce the pay of MLB players in favor of MiLB players.

[Prince William]

41 minutes ago, TheLeviathan said:

Seriously?  I mean, the Giants have had an analytics department since at least 2012  (Same guy still works there - Paul Bien), but don't let any evidence get in the way of your false argument.

Batting wise the swing plane revolution happened after 2015. The average speed of fastballs started climbing after 2012. More direct to your attempt at a shot. Seriously? Which direction do the years go in? 2010, was before 2012. Is Bien such a genius that in less than 6 months there was a complete up and running analytic department enough to change how Bochy managed, the players used? Bien started in July 0f 2012. What evidence can you prove for your FALSE narrative. I will give you that maybe analytics could have had an influence for 14, but not likely as the players added in 14 were still older players coached by an old manager. So please try a lot harder next time you want to accuse people of a false narrative of using facts

[TheLeviathan]

13 minutes ago, Prince William said:

Batting wise the swing plane revolution happened after 2015. The average speed of fastballs started climbing after 2012. More direct to your attempt at a shot. Seriously? Which direction do the years go in? 2010, was before 2012. Is Bien such a genius that in less than 6 months there was a complete up and running analytic department enough to change how Bochy managed, the players used? Bien started in July 0f 2012. What evidence can you prove for your FALSE narrative. I will give you that maybe analytics could have had an influence for 14, but not likely as the players added in 14 were still older players coached by an old manager. So please try a lot harder next time you want to accuse people of a false narrative of using facts

You made the claim that a world champ didn't use analytics to win while obviously not knowing they had an analytics department in two of the three seasons you cited.  So, if you want your claim to hold could you please thoroughly research how Bochy ignored the analytics department?  Or why the Giants were paying people they were actively ignoring? It's your claim to prove in light of that evidence.  It'd be a cool story to read.  

By all means PM it to me when you have it done so we can keep the thread on track.

[Prince William]

19 hours ago, TheLeviathan said:

You made the claim that a world champ didn't use analytics to win while obviously not knowing they had an analytics department in two of the three seasons you cited.  So, if you want your claim to hold could you please thoroughly research how Bochy ignored the analytics department?  Or why the Giants were paying people they were actively ignoring? It's your claim to prove in light of that evidence.  It'd be a cool story to read.  

By all means PM it to me when you have it done so we can keep the thread on track.

Please tell me how the analytics department made a difference in less than 4 months on the job . Thoroughly research it. By all means PM it to me when you have done so. It would be an interesting story on an essentially overnight transformation on how someone does their work.  Why I can demand this out of you is that Jack Goin started with the Twins in 2001

[Prince William]

Returning to Appell, he had the money for housing, food, trainers and anything else need to succeed. Money did not buy success. 

[bean5302]

On 2/18/2022 at 9:02 AM, chpettit19 said:

Players aren't taking home 75K on a 75K signing bonus. Taxes and agent fees alone drop that down a significant amount. They are then expected to live on that far diminished amount plus 11k a year for the next 4-5 years. Let's call it 60k take home after taxes and agent fees, etc. Plus 44-55k. So for the next 4-5 years of their lives they have 104-115k to live on. That's 23 to 26k a year. Not nothing, but teams can certainly afford to pay more than $11/hr to their minor leaguers.

All players have slot bonus over $100k for the first 10 rounds. Players signing outside of the first 10 rounds are following a dream.

$100k split over 2 years (this is common practice) along with the standard agent cut of 5% off the top would grant them $45k in year 1, with the full $10k of agent expenses deducted along with the standard deduction of $12k. Their taxable income would be more like $20k so about $3000 in total taxes. Net take home of $45,000 with the additional short income from MiLB in the draft year. Year 2 would be even easier. Take home more like $48,000 despite the loss of deducting agent fees because of the increased salary during the playing season. I'm not sure why swinging a baseball bat renders people incapable of even the most basic fiscal responsibility the players' non-baseball peers show.

Even a temporary job during the offseason will bring home an easy $10k more, annually. So for the first two years, a 10th round selection signing at slot would be taking home (after taxes) $50-60k per year. If a player invests the signing bonus into a sinking fund drawn down evenly over 5 years, they'd be about $35k annually, take home, for 5 years.

On top of that, they'll now get free housing for 6 months out of the year.

[DJL44]

14 hours ago, bean5302 said:

If a player invests the signing bonus into a sinking fund drawn down evenly over 5 years, they'd be about $35k annually, take home, for 5 years.

Minus their student loan payments for 3 years of college (and no degree).

[Rosterman]

The logistical problems of minor league baseball.

 

Give players a housing and food stipend. To some, it won't be enough. Others will crowd four or five or even six into a two bedroom apartment. You have a kitchen.

 

House them all on a floor of a hotel, or a motel. But then, you can't purchase and prepare your own food. The mini-firdge and a microwave isn't what is necessary to have a good diet, and watch the players raise havoc if the place has free breakfast downstairs.

 

But having some sort of controlled housing is also a gem, as a good portion of players do move about the system during the season.

 

Of course, you also forget that the rooms aren't used all season. Players are on the road. Their vehciles, the hometeam stadium locker rooms, where they reside, sits empty.

 

How much can a team invest in a full service kitchen, meeting all the codes necessary (don't locker rooms have codes). If you count staff, you would need to prepare 50 meals three times a day. Players can come and work out, if the facility is there, or play pick-up on the field.

 

When visiting teams come, do they indulge in your team services, or stick to the per diem given for their own road use. Remember, players on the road basically have a room, some meal money, and can work out at the hotel or the guest locker room. Is that so hard to do for every player in the minors for every day of play?

 

In some ways, teams are better served giving (absorbing) these costs overall. They can write it off as expense, not paying payroll on income taxes. Not sure how minor leagues work for workmans comp and what the insurance bill is like, especially when players do suffer injuries...that should be 100% covered by a team policy.

 

How much should players get paid? There is a rising pecking order as you go up in the system. Minor league free agents after six years can make upwards of $50,000 a season. The pain with being a minor elague player is having that extra money, especially if married or with kids and supporting a home away from your in-season home.

 

But what is the lifespan of most minor league players? Two years? Three? Before being passed by a new draftee?

 

Many jobs have internships. One season, I was offered an East Coast internship in theatre. I would have to pay to get there, a shared room and food was supplied. But anything else came out of my pocket. We worked more than 40 hours a week mounting shows the first few weeks. Once up and running we worked 4-5 hours at most a night. I passed on that job and took another that paid me $125 a week, plus shared room and food (this was 1975). The next year I took the non-paying job similar to the above but closer to home to get the added experience, since I wasn't doing anything that summer anyway and had some ways to make money while not living "at home." But thankfully I didn't have a lease somewhere. But never again. Next year, followed the money.

 

Since those days of the 70s, I do hope that most internships, like minor league play, do pay something while they work your ass off.

[bean5302]

22 hours ago, DJL44 said:

Minus their student loan payments for 3 years of college (and no degree).

What student loans? All guys being drafted are on a full ride scholarship. The guys who do sign without a significant bonus either don't need it in the first place or are college seniors (have their free 4 year degree anyway).

[DJL44]

18 minutes ago, bean5302 said:

What student loans? All guys being drafted are on a full ride scholarship. The guys who do sign without a significant bonus either don't need it in the first place or are college seniors (have their free 4 year degree anyway).

You are mistaken. Full ride scholarships for baseball are rare. They have 11.7 scholarships for 27 players. A half scholarship is a very good baseball scholarship and 1/4 is common. Scholarships only cover the cost of tuition/books, not room and board. Louie Varland played for a Division 2 school (only 9 scholarships for the whole team) and left as a junior. Even on a half-scholarship he would be looking at $60,000 in college costs for his 3 seasons. That eats up most of his $115,000 bonus.

[bean5302]

Just now, DJL44 said:

You are mistaken. Full ride scholarships for baseball are rare. They have 11.7 scholarships for 27 players. A half scholarship is a very good baseball scholarship and 1/4 is common. Scholarships only cover the cost of tuition/books, not room and board. Louie Varland played for a Division 2 school (only 9 scholarships for the whole team) and left as a junior. Even on a half-scholarship he would be looking at $60,000 in college costs for his 3 seasons. That eats up most of his $115,000 bonus.

Uhhhh, yeah. Also rare are MLB top 10 round draft picks. Varland was a 15th round, follow your dream because you weren't good enough to get drafted earlier pick. Side note, Varland has graduated from Concordia with a degree in Sports Management.

[DJL44]

8 minutes ago, bean5302 said:

Also rare are MLB top 10 round draft picks. 

How about Hugh Fisher? 10th round pick out of Vanderbilt ($54,000 per year tuition) got a $100,000 bonus but had to be over six figures in student loan debt from 4 years at that school unless he qualified for some other financial aid besides his baseball scholarship.

[DJL44]

Interesting. When I looked up some info I found out that before 2021 if you received a baseball scholarship the NCAA made you ineligible for other need based scholarships.

College Baseball Scholarship Requirements and Facts (ncsasports.org)

[bean5302]

2 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

How about Hugh Fisher? 10th round pick out of Vanderbilt ($54,000 per year tuition) got a $100,000 bonus but had to be over six figures in student loan debt from 4 years at that school unless he qualified for some other financial aid besides his baseball scholarship.

What about him? Do you want me to ask him about his personal finances? Hugh Fisher has a 4 year degree Bachelor of Science in Human and Organizational Development and he signed to a $100,000 bonus and he undoubtedly had a huge scholarship to Vanderbilt, btw. He's currently a licensed realtor in Tennessee.

[DJL44]

1 minute ago, bean5302 said:

What about him? Do you want me to ask him about his personal finances? Hugh Fisher has a 4 year degree Bachelor of Science in Human and Organizational Development and he signed to a $100,000 bonus and he undoubtedly had a huge scholarship to Vanderbilt, btw. He's currently a licensed realtor in Tennessee.

I'm just making the point that most draft picks start out with a lot of college debt. They have to make payments immediately when leaving college. That will eat up a lot of that income buffer you thought they were getting with their bonus.

[bean5302]

1 minute ago, DJL44 said:

I'm just making the point that most draft picks start out with a lot of college debt. They have to make payments immediately when leaving college. That will eat up a lot of that income buffer you thought they were getting with their bonus.

No, they don't. They get huge scholarships if they're being eyed for a high level MLB draft and they don't sign as a low level draft pick while they're in college or out of high school. Once players graduate as college seniors and their financial incentive runs out, they decide whether or not to sign with the drafting team. 

Vanderbilt is one of the top baseball programs in the country. The baseball version of Alabama football. Vanderbilt had 5 players drafted in the top 10 rounds (4 signed) and 2 more in later rounds (1 signed in the 17th round with a $125,000 signing bonus). They have 27 potential scholarships. 

If money is an issue for players, they turn down the 1/4 scholarship at Vanderbilt for a full ride at the University of Minnesota or whatever other Division I good baseball school which offers the full ride.

 

[DJL44]

20 minutes ago, bean5302 said:

They have 27 potential scholarships. 

That's not possible unless they're breaking NCAA rules (11.7 scholarships). Full rides are very, very rare in college baseball and anyone receiving a scholarship above 1/2 is going have to be a pitcher. Position players are usually getting a 1/4 scholarship and they're choosing between several programs who are all offering the 1/4 scholarship. Leaving a college baseball program with debt is a guarantee unless you have rich parents. If you have rich parents then struggling in the minors for low wages is probably not an issue either.

[chpettit19]

53 minutes ago, bean5302 said:

No, they don't. They get huge scholarships if they're being eyed for a high level MLB draft and they don't sign as a low level draft pick while they're in college or out of high school. Once players graduate as college seniors and their financial incentive runs out, they decide whether or not to sign with the drafting team. 

Vanderbilt is one of the top baseball programs in the country. The baseball version of Alabama football. Vanderbilt had 5 players drafted in the top 10 rounds (4 signed) and 2 more in later rounds (1 signed in the 17th round with a $125,000 signing bonus). They have 27 potential scholarships. 

If money is an issue for players, they turn down the 1/4 scholarship at Vanderbilt for a full ride at the University of Minnesota or whatever other Division I good baseball school which offers the full ride.

 

Each D1 program has 11.7 scholarships available to spread between 27 players on the 35 man official roster. They don't have 27 full scholarships. 11.7 scholarships divided by 27 players is .43 scholarships per player. The idea that kids are just moving around chasing full scholarships is far fetched at best. The guys on full scholarships are likely the guys who have a chance at being a 1st round pick and then this discussion on minor leaguer salaries isn't about them anyways since they're getting $1M+ coming out of school anyways. But @DJL44 is correct and there are very few full baseball scholarships awarded by any schools. Those 7 Vandy kids likely all left school with significant debt.

[KirbyDome89]

On 2/18/2022 at 5:54 PM, Cap'n Piranha said:

Dude, you made the assertion they are paid sub-minimum wages in your first post, not me.  Minimum wage is also pre-tax, FYI.

I've broken it down a million times--are people just not reading my posts?  Find 3 other guys, and rent a 4BR house for $2k a month.  Have each guy chip in $300 and share the grocery bill; Intuit suggests $892/mo for 4 people--so that's already $300 over that.  The BLS says the average annual household grocery bill is $4,643, or less than $400/month.  Statista says the average household is 2.53 people, so that's $152/person/month; obviously $300 basically doubles that.  That's $800 a month, leaving probably around $900 a month during the season for all other expenses.  Players should have no problem getting a job in the offseason to supplement that income that would perhaps leave less extra money, but certainly plenty to continue to meet their needs.

Nor is the Rays' success because they do spend.  My point is that the Rays are using the same logic as tanking teams--why spend $100M to win 65 games when you can spend $50M and win 55.  The Rays have inverted it--why spend $100M and win 103 games when you spend $70M and win 98?  This isn't meant to say the Rays have determined an extra $3M a year wouldn't equate to improved MiLB performance, but rather a demonstration that the Rays understand the link between spending and performance.  It's a further point that if the Rays truly believed allocating an extra $3M a year to MiLB would result in improved performance, they would have no problem reducing their MLB payroll by that $3M.

Again, it just defies rational thought to think that highly-educated, extremely-intelligent individuals in a suicidally-competitive industry where millions a year are already spent on securing incremental performance improvements wouldn't invest there.  Of course more money makes someone's life more "livable", assuming they don't waste that money (which is not exactly unheard of in the world of professional athletes).  But given that MiLB players already do have livable wages (see above), MLB is under no obligation to make their life more livable.

Churning through candidates while offering legal wages because the pool is ever replenishing is not exploitation.  It's supply and demand.  Entry level is a perfectly apt description for this phenomenon, which repeats broadly throughout society, for all of time.  People with less experience and/or skills start out making less, and progressively make more as their experience/skills develop.  It's not evil or pernicious, it's an objective way to reward ability in the marketplace, and why 1st overall pick Carlos Correa is going to get $300M while 1st overall pick Tim Beckham had to sign a $1M contract.

Their $500 weekly salary isn't pre-tax, dude. If we're accounting for actual hours worked then I have no doubt many fall below their state hourly minimum. You, for obvious reasons, shifted to the federal minimum, which 3/5 of the country has moved on from. 

Payments on a used car + auto insurance + gas take a massive chunk out of your $900 monthly surplus if "average," is the standard we're applying. Add utilities, renters insurance, and any other unexpected/emergency expenses and your "spartan lifestyle," ceases to be about budgeting and becomes a necessary tool for breaking even. Before we travel down the road of "don't own a vehicle," "carpool," "spend $3 + change per meal," I'll say it again; these "solutions," serve only to highlight the actual issue. Grown men having to rely on 3 or more roommates to scrape by on groceries, pay rent, or find transportation to and from work is the problem. 

You're still drawing massively false conclusions from the Rays' spending habits, you've just rephrased the same talking points. 

I don't have an economics background, but a profession with a fixed supply (jobs available) and ever increasing demand (said jobs becoming even more sought after) doesn't seem to jive with an hourly wage hovering around minimum. It's almost as if some mysterious force is artificially depressing these wages....Well, it seems as though we've found something we agree on; exploiting cheap labor is a deed as old as time.