MLB Giving Minor Leaguers Housing After Decades Of Criticism

ACROSS AMERICA — Major League Baseball is making sweeping changes to its much-criticized minor league system — but some say it's still not enough.

Playing minor league baseball is a grind. Everyone dreams of making it to The Show, as MLB games are dubbed.

But Even at Triple-A, the highest level of the minor league ball, many players make less than $10,000 for a 144-game season consisting of about five months. For others, the pay can only be a few thousand — and if you're playing week to week, it's a matter of a few hundred dollars. Many live in poverty.

Earlier this year, MLB promised to increase minor league salaries for various players by at least 38 percent and as high as 72 percent. On Sunday, the league announced it will offer some minor leaguers housing starting in 2022.

These actions followed decades of criticism about how MLB handles its minor league system; other sports such as the NBA and NHL generally pay their minor league players significantly more.

"We are in Year 1 of what's going to be some pretty significant steps forward here in the next couple of years," Morgan Sword, MLB's executive vice president for baseball operations, said in a statement.

But some say the salary increase wasn't enough and more needs to be done to support players who devote their lives to realizing the American childhood dream of playing major league ball.

"The (salary) increase was badly needed," wrote Ryan Fagan, senior MLB writer for The Sporting News. "It’s been decades since minor league ballplayers saw an increase anything close to this level of significance. ... This is a solid, long-awaited step in the right direction. But the percentages don’t tell the whole story."

Fagan cited The Associated Press' breakdown of the new minimum salaries for minor leaguers:

• Single-A: $10,500
• Double-A: $12,600
• Triple-A: $14,700

Fagan quoted Garrett Broshuis, a former minor league pitcher who's now a lawyer.

“Anytime there’s an increase in salaries, that’s a good thing, but much more needs to be done,” Broshuis told Fagan. “Salaries have been ignored for so long, that even with this increase, there are a lot players below the poverty line. … The percentages hide the fact that the amounts are actually fairly small. Because they haven’t increased wages in so long, you’re only talking about a few thousand more per player, for an entire year of work.”