Zach Zagger on Twitter: Minor League Baseball players alleging they should be paid minimum wage and

#BREAKING Minor League Baseball players alleging they should be paid minimum wage and overtime scored a big win at the Ninth Circuit Friday as the court, in a split decision, backed their ability to bring their claims as a California-wide class action. pic.twitter.com/o9xtSCrtn4

— Zach Zagger (@ZachZagger) August 16, 2019

“You’ve got to pay correctly”: Rob Manfred is optimistic about negotiations to pay minor leaguers more – The Athletic

Besides improving minor league pay the league and MLBPA needs to do something about the international signing process. Both areas are a mess.

Lurking in the background, and as a point of leverage, is the possibility that MLB seeks to cull some teams or otherwise reshape some aspects of the minors. The system between Major League Baseball and Minor League Baseball boils down to this: the league commits to supply players and coaches to fill a certain number of teams, and in exchange, the minor-league clubs pay MLB a percentage of their ticket revenue.

MLB can argue that if its cost per player goes up, then the number of minor-league teams will need to go down. MLB could also ask that MiLB pay a higher percentage in ticket revenue.

“There are probably places in the minor leagues that both from a facility and fan-engagement perspective, I think we’re sort of at a point in time where you got to look at the system,” Manfred said. “The vast, vast majority of it’s fine. If you clean up some stuff around the edges, it creates some economic flexibility that we can use. Whether we pay or they pay, that’s a negotiation, right? But we need to do something in that area. We’re looking at all those economic issues right now.”

Adam Eaton: Actually, The Financial Struggles Of Minor League Players Are A Good Thing

But it’s not like Eaton is making his argument from either of those perspectives. As is usually the case, he’s projecting his own thoughts and feelings from his time as a minor league players onto everyone else who’s still in that system. He thinks that struggle is good for those players because it was good for him. He thinks that those players should have it rough because he had it rough. With this logic, it’s to assume that he thinks minor leaguers would get complacent with more hospitable conditions because that’s likely what he would have done if he were in that position.