Advocates for Minor Leaguers 2021 MLB Draft Handbook

Advocates for
Minor Leaguers

2021 MLB Draft
  Handbook

Congratulations!
You’ve been drafted by an MLB team. You
are one of the very best baseball players in
the world.
Once you sign your contract, you will be
employed by one of MLB’s 30 teams as a
professional baseball player.
Your next stop is the Minor Leagues. Here
are some things you can expect.

Minor League
   Uniform Player Contract
First, you will sign the same Minor League
Uniform Player Contract (UPC) as every
other Minor League player.
Unlike Major Leaguers, Minor Leaguers do
not have a union to represent their
interests. As a result, Minor Leaguers had
no say in the drafting of the UPC.
Because your new team wasn’t forced to
consider your interests when drafting the
UPC, it didn’t. Instead, it agreed with the
other 29 teams to pay you (and every other
Minor Leaguer) less than you are worth.
While federal antitrust laws generally
prevent employers from engaging in this
kind of behavior, MLB is exempt from
those laws.
Until either MLB’s antitrust exemption is
struck down or a union is formed to
protect your interests, MLB teams will be
permitted to force Minor Leaguers like you
to sign the UPC.

Contract Length
The UPC will bind you to the team that
just drafted you for the next seven seasons.
That means you won’t be able to seek a
better contract with one of the other 29
teams, as you would be able to do in
almost any other industry.
Your baseball career is now in the hands of
your current team.

Seasonal Pay
Although the UPC will require you to
provide services to your MLB team all year
round, you will not receive a paycheck for
much of the year.
You’ll only be entitled to paychecks during
the “championship playing season,”
meaning the regular season and the
playoffs.

The “championship playing season” does
not include spring training, extended
spring training, fall instructional league,
mini-camps, development camps,
exhibition games, post-season training,
winter league games, or winter “offseason”
training.
Therefore, you should not expect a
paycheck for any of the work you perform
during those periods.

Pay Scale
Here is the standard salary that you should
expect to receive each week. This is before
taxes.

        AAA                $700/week

         AA                $600/week

  High-A & Low-A           $500/week

      Complex              $400/week

Remember, you’ll only receive that amount
during the “championship playing season.”
The rest of the year, you won’t receive a
salary.

In-Season Housing
You should expect to face challenges
related to housing during the season.
Most of you will have to find a place to
sleep the night before “home” games,
which may be far more difficult and costly
than you think.

   • Short-term leases are less available
     and more costly than normal leases.
   • Your application for an apartment
     may be rejected due to insufficient
     income (because your salary will be
     so small).
   • If you’re promoted to a new level,
     you might have to break your lease
     and pay an early termination fee. If
     your roommate is promoted, you
     may be left paying his rent.
The apartment you find will likely be
unfurnished. In many cases, players buy an
air mattress to sleep on during the season.
Sleeping on an air mattress may make on-
field performance more difficult than you
are used to.

Some of you may be directed to live in a
team hotel or apartment complex. The cost
of this could be extreme. This year, some
Minor Leaguers spent more money on the
team hotel during a two-week homestand
than they made in after-tax salary during
those same two weeks.
Some of you may be encouraged to live
with a host family. This is an arrangement
befitting an amateur playing college
summer ball, not a professional athlete.
Teams are starting to recognize that the
usual approach to Minor League housing is
impractical and hinders development.

   • For example, the Houston Astros
     are providing Minor Leaguers with
     furnished apartments this season,
     while the San Francisco Giants and
     Philadelphia Phillies are providing
     players with a housing stipend.
Going forward, you can expect other
teams to follow in their footsteps—it’s just
common sense.
Until that happens, expect housing to be a
major issue impacting both your
performance and your wallet.

Meals
You should expect a pre-game snack and a
post-game meal before and after Minor
League games, and you should receive
some meal money during road trips.
Not all that long ago, Minor Leaguers
could expect to eat a steady diet of peanut
butter and jelly before games and leftover
concession stand food after games.
Luckily, most teams have started to realize
that this approach to nutrition does not
work for professional athletes. As a result,
meals have begun to improve recently.

   • For example, the Los Angeles
     Dodgers have a team chef that
     accompanies their Minor Leaguers
     on the road and serves nutritious
     meals.
Not all teams are the Dodgers, however,
and some players still face serious
challenges when it comes to meals.

For example, earlier this year, some Minor
Leaguers were served this meal after a
game:

Even if you’re never served a meal like
that, you will be forced to pay for a
significant number of meals during the
season. Eating enough to stay in shape can
be costly. And remember: that cost will
come out of your very limited paycheck.

Name, Image, and Likeness
While the NCAA recently announced a
rule change allowing college athletes to
profit off their name, image, and likeness
(NIL), you won’t have that right in the
Minors.
Instead, when you sign the UPC, you’ll
give your MLB team the right to your
name, voice, face, and more:

Advocates for Minor
          Leaguers
About Us
Advocates for Minor Leaguers is a non-
profit organization comprised of current
and former players and other individuals
who see how Minor League players are
being treated and know something needs
to change.
Today, we seek to provide the collective
voice that Minor Leaguers have lacked and
work to effect lasting change at the Minor
League level.

Our Work
So far this year, we have been able to
improve life for Minor Leaguers simply by
raising awareness about the way players
have told us they are being treated.
Over the past two months, we have raised
awareness about housing and meal issues
facing players in various organizations. In
each case, our speaking up led to a reaction
from the MLB team and an improved
situation for Minor Leaguers.

When we reported that roughly one-third
of all MLB teams were paying players a
salary during extended spring training, the
San Francisco Giants changed their policy
overnight and promised some players
thousands of dollars in back pay.
When we raised awareness about the New
York Mets’ treatment of their Minor
Leaguers, they promised a comprehensive
review of their entire Minor League
system. We are currently awaiting the
outcome of that review.
As players continue to come to us with
their issues, we will continue to speak out
and effect change.

Final Thought
As you begin on this new journey, never
forget that you are one of the best baseball
players in the world. As soon as you sign
your contract, an MLB team will begin
profiting off your exceptional talent. You
deserve to receive a fair portion of that
profit.
If at any point you feel that you are being
treated unfairly, please come to us and tell
us what you are experiencing.

We can be reached on social media
@milbadvocates; by email at
milbadvocates@gmail.com; or by phone at
908-418-0560.
We will fight for you, because your voice
matters.
We wish you luck.