When Major League Baseball assumed operations of minor league baseball last year in the wake of the pandemic, and implemented its plan to reduce the number of affiliated minor league teams, I hated it. But I understood that not everyone agreed with me, including many in the game who feel like there have long been too many minor league players (who did not realistically have a chance of ever climbing the ladder, much less reaching MLB). Hated it, but accepted it.
The latest request from MLB, though, is one that I would not only hate, I would absolutely not want to accept:
Major League Baseball asked for the ability to eliminate hundreds of minor league playing jobs in its latest labor proposal, sources told ESPN. The league would not be allowed to implement the plan until after 2022.
Details, free and unlocked, at ESPN: https://t.co/ZkKNE7LhsG
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) February 15, 2022
While the MLBPA represents only major leaguers, it does bargain for a number of amateur/minor league issues. Among those: the draft. The union in July proposed a 20-round draft, something that the league accepted, one of the few points on which they've agreed during negotiations.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) February 15, 2022
Right now, organizations have the ability to roster up to 180 players in their stateside minor league system, which strikes me as a wholly appropriate upper-boundary when you have four full-season affiliates and at least one rookie ball team, plus the players who are in the organization but not deployed on a team at any given moment. Organizations like the Cubs, if they want to foot the bill, should be allowed to roster up to 180 minor leaguers if they want. Creating an even lower artificial cap would be total horseshit in service of cheap organizations that want an excuse to pay even fewer players.
Per Passan’s report, MLB is merely looking for the flexibility to reduce the minor league roster sizes in 2023 and beyond. They might not actually use it. Mmhmm.
This is the kind of thing that you knew the owners would seek in the deal: wanting the big league players union to bargain away the rights of players who aren’t in the union (and/or haven’t even started their professional baseball careers yet). The minor leagues were already chopped down dramatically. There is absolutely no need right now to also artificially chop down the upper limit of roster sizes for the organizations that are willing to pay these minor leaguers!