Thread by @Travis_Sawchik

There's been a lot of focus on free agency, arbitration, & incentivizing winning, and rightfully so, but the one thing that would impact the most players is overhauling the minimum salary system in MLB. thescore.com/mlb/news/22265…

No major sport N. American pro sport leans more upon minimum salaried players and no sport pays them less. 0-to-2+ service time MLB players accounted for 53.6% of days of service accumulated in 2019, the most recent full year of data we have, but just 9.8% of player pay. ...

To compare, at the opening of the NHL season this year, 23% of players were paid within 10% of the league's lowest wage. In the NBA, it was just 3%. MLB opened at 40% in 2021 and that increases with call-ups and replacements ...

MLB has the lowest minimum salary, and the lowest median dollars earned of any of the major N. American pro sports. The average MLB salary has exceeded $4m since 2016, but the median $ earned was $558,400 in 2019 ...

MLBPA proposed a pre-arb bonus pool. A good idea and would help pre-arb stars. (The owners responded cooly to the idea). Both sides have exchanged numbers on a min wage hike. But focusing on, say, a 2x increase and an NBA/NFL-like scale system would benefit a great # of players

The players are leery of fixed salaries. But the pre-arb system is already, essentially a fixed scale. And players are becoming younger, not older, on avg. Fewer reach the market or even arb. Avg service time was 4.8 years in 2003. 3.7 in 2019.

It's not really a labor fight between billionaires and millionaires. There's a third party. It's a labor negotiation between billionaire owners and millionaire players, yes, but also players (most who step on an MLB field) who will need second careers.

I spoke to Rob Scahill (@rscahill53) for a piece last year for @FiveThirtyEight. He had a common MLB career. He finished with 2 years and 162 days of service time. He never went to arb let alone FA. Career 3.85 ERA/4.49 FIP. He's now a real estate agent. fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-m…

Scahill estimates if you had his kind of career 2+ years of service, and you were *frugal* as a player, you'd save 25% of your pay after taxes, etc. which would net a player like him around $156,000. (Not including the MiLB experience, negative cash-flow one for many) ...

That's a nice nest egg for a 31 yo, to be sure. It's hard for many ticket-buying fans to sympathize. That's valid. Keep in mind that even a modest career is still one in the upper 1% of the upper 1% to have ever stepped on a ball field and they grease the machine for owners/stars

Scahill: “Most grind out on a split career between Triple-A and the majors unless you’re a contract guy. For the vast majority of players, every dollar counts for the rest of their lives.”

One former MLB scout now in coaching: "When they're done, they haven't done anything academically since they were 20, 21 years old, if they played in college. It's basically like if the team doesn't hire them to do something, they are starting over."

One agent told theScore: "If you raise the minimum salary, it solves a lot of problems. You take better care of your younger players. You make the choice to go with a younger guy over a player in arbitration less of a no-brainer."

That agent made the point that the spread between the min salary & arbitration has grown too wide. That's why Eddie Rosario gets non-tendered after posting a 111 wRC+. Agent advocated for an NBA-like scale, where min rises from $925 at rookie-level, to $1.49m at 1+ to $1.67 at 2+

Such a scale might be a tough get but it would have added $272 million in zero-to-2+ pre-arb players. The Age 22-27 cohort was underpaid by nearly $1 billion in 2019 in terms of total player WAR/total player pay. Age 26 players alone underpaid by $400m. thescore.com/mlb/news/22226…

There is concern among some agents I spoke with about the Boras influence. Five of eight players on the MLBPA executive board, key information filterers, are Boras clients. The Boras focus is on the open FA market.

Players have a long list of wants, valid issues to take up. But they have a more diverse group compared to owners (28 rich guys and a couple of corporations), short & shortening careers. Leverage and solidarity are questions. They can't win on all fronts.

So what should the priorities be?
*thescore.com/mlb/news/22265…
*thescore.com/mlb/news/22226…
(And that concludes MLB-labor-suggestions week at @theScore) /end thread