A few inconvenient facts about those “Millionaire” Ballplayers
Once people go to the trouble to form an opinion they don’t like to have the accuracy of that opinion challenged and if you’re one of those people you probably ought to stop reading right now.
Still with me?
Good, because we’re going to examine some inconvenient facts about the “Millionaire” Ballplayers many people like to complain about.
(Fasten your seatbelts, we’re probably gonna hit some turbulence along the way.)
In a normal year pitchers and catchers would be reporting to spring training this week, but Major League Baseball is once again having labor problems (they’re arguing over what should be included in the new Collective Bargaining Agreement) and the owners have locked out the players (which means the players can’t use team facilities to work out) and that lockout is going to delay spring training which might then delay regular-season games.
And that situation has caused a lot of people to express disgust with Major League Baseball because it’s just “Billionaires versus Millionaires” which, as you’re about to see, isn’t exactly accurate and we’ll start with the misinformed notion that all Big League Ballplayers are millionaires.
According to an Associated Press story about 2021 Opening Day salaries:
Of the 902 players on Opening Day rosters, 417 had salaries under $1 million.
316 had salaries under $600,000.
The 50 highest-paid players made one third of all the salary.
The 100 highest-paid players made more than half the payroll.
802 players got to split the remaining 47.6%.
The average salary also dropped 4.8% to just under $4.17 million which still sounds like a lot until you remember if I made $8 million and you made nothing our “average” salary would be $4 million and it might irritate the living shit out of you if under-informed people called you a whiner anytime you complained about having no money because those under-informed people assume you’re a millionaire.
In reality, the players at the very top of the salary structure are doing great; the players who aren’t at the top aren’t doing nearly so well.
But aren’t the most poorly-paid Big League players still well paid?
The minimum salary in the Major Leagues is $570,500 and I’d be more than happy to work for that and be the worst Big League Player in the History of Baseball and I imagine a lot of you would, too.
Over half-a-million in salary sounds great…our problem would be longevity.
A cup of coffee and don’t let the door hit your ass when you leave
According to the Princeton Review, once a player makes it to the Big Leagues the average career lasts 2.7 years.
But once again the math is misleading because if I made it to the Big Leagues for a “cup of coffee” (baseball slang for a short stay and my stay would last right up until they saw me throw a baseball or swing a bat) and my very short career was averaged with Jason Kendall’s very long career – which was 15 years – our “average” career would be 7.5 years.
In reality a whole bunch of Big League Ballplayers never make it to the 2.7 year “average” and even if they did they still wouldn’t qualify for arbitration or free agency so the “average” ballplayer never becomes one of the Millionaire Ballplayers we hear people complain about.
What about the minors?
According to an ESPN story from September of last year, the federal poverty guideline for one person in most states is $12,880 in annual income and most minor league players will make between $8,000 and $14,000 from April to October.
Which means a whole bunch of minor league ballplayers are living below the federal poverty line, a fact that was brought home when I visited Clint Hurdle’s Triple A Tidewater Tides in Toledo, Ohio and Clint’s entire coaching staff (which consisted of a pitching coach and an equipment manager) was very excited because I had a rental car which meant we could actually drive to a restaurant and as we drove to dinner we passed all the players walking from their hotel to a strip of fast-food joints because the players couldn’t afford cabs or nice restaurants.
Talk to minor league players and four guys in a two-bedroom apartment is a common occurrence and one guy in the ESPN story was talking about quitting baseball because being a professional ballplayer was costing him $1,000 a month and eating up his savings.
What about signing bonuses?
So far we’ve established that the “average” Big League Ballplayer has a very short career, never makes the Really Big Money and had a decent chance of living under the poverty line in the minors, but what about those signing bonuses?
According to the ESPN story:
60% of players got bonuses of $100,000 or less
40% got $10,000 or less
35% got $5,000 or less
And 21% got $1,000 or less.
ESPN tells the story of one guy who got a $400,000 bonus, but after paying taxes and agent fees that number was magically reduced to about $250,000.
So he was one of the lucky players who got a decent signing bonus, but even if he lived a very modest lifestyle and spent $50,000 a year, he’d be out of money in five years and if he didn’t make it to the Big Leagues (and according to Baseball America, a drafted player has a less than one-in-five chance of that happening) in his early twenties our $400,000 Bonus Baby would need a job.
Now here’s the ESPN article about poor living conditions in the minor leagues:
Some uncomfortable truth about signing a pro contract
I once asked a guy in charge of a minor league team how many of his players had a legitimate shot at the Big Leagues and he was overly-honest and said: “Four.”
But when I asked a player the same question he said: “All of us.”
Here’s the deal on that.
There aren’t enough legitimate prospects to field teams at every level of the minor leagues, so a lot of guys who aren’t prospects get signed to play with the guys who are prospects, but teams won’t tell them that, so some guys just keep grinding away year after year hoping they’ll eventually get their shot at the majors until they figure out it’s never going to happen or until teams no longer want them because they can go get some other 19-year-old who will play for less money.
The hazards of making too much money
Star players put “butts in the seats” and can make an un-Godly amount of money, but nobody comes to see a middle reliever with the possible exception of the middle reliever’s family, so that middle reliever has less bargaining power.
So if you’re that guy you don’t want to make too much money which might happen if you hang around the Big Leagues long enough because if you keep getting raises eventually it will be cheaper to let you go and bring up a player with no service time who will play for the minimum, especially if the team isn’t actually trying to win which is happening more often because teams are tanking in an effort to get good draft picks.
(Which, if you look at the history of first-round draft picks, is anything but a sure bet, but that’s a different column.)
I’ve known a bunch of middle-of-the-road Big League Players who had to be careful not to make too much money because that would make them targets of teams trying to cut payroll. So while players who make the Big Bucks get all the headlines, a huge percentage of Big League Ballplayers have more pedestrian concerns.
I had a good friend finally make it to the Big Leagues after six years in the minors and when I asked him what it was like to finally make it he said:
“It’s great…I paid off my college loan and bought some furniture.”
When his team came to Kansas City to play the Royals, we went out to lunch and I offered to pay and he said that wasn’t necessary because he was making pretty good money in the Big Leagues and I said:
“Yeah, but I’m going to make what I make a lot longer than you’re going to make what you make.”
After that depressing bit of information, he let me buy lunch.
Helping out the less fortunate and getting criticized for it
This off-season Max Scherzer signed a three-year deal with the Mets that’s reportedly worth $130 million which works out to $43,333,333 and 33 cents per year and I can’t help but think that his agent Scott Boras is working hard to get that last .3 of a cent rounded up and possibly add performance incentives like making Mr. Met come over to Max’s house and mow his lawn every time Max wins a game.
So if you don’t think it through (and MLB Owners are really hoping you won’t), you might ask what the Hell does Max Scherzer have to complain about and the answer is nothing.
Which gets us to the point I want to make:
People complain about greedy “Millionaire” Ballplayers going on strike or asking for better conditions which misses the point by a wide margin; the greedy “Millionaire” Ballplayers who have it made take a stand for the Non-Millionaire Ballplayers who are going to fight their way through the minors and spend a short amount of time in the Big Leagues and then go on to selling insurance or being a high school coach or giving hitting lessons at the local batting cage.
That’s what happens to the vast majority of professional baseball players.
Look at the concessions the players are fighting for and most of them affect players at the bottom of the ladder. Baseball has the best union in sports precisely because the “Millionaire” Ballplayers are willing to risk what they make to help out the guys who will never strike it rich.
And then those “Millionaire” Ballplayers get called greedy.
It’s no accident that Major League Baseball makes sure fans know exactly how much the players at the top of the salary structure make and absolutely nothing about how much the owners make. And they definitely don’t want you thinking about all the guys in the minors sleeping on couches and floors and eating peanut butter sandwiches because they can’t afford the jelly.
P.S.
If you want to read more about the Collective Bargaining Agreement issues, here’s an article:
https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2021/12/2/22814019/mlb-lockout-explained-in-5-minutes
Several correlations to making it big in the entertainment business.