Baseball fans have recently been alarmed by the fact that League clubs have cut payouts or refused to pay lower league players at all. National Washington and Oakland Athletics have attracted attention. Let’s take a closer look at the situation.
National has announced its decision to reduce the scholarships paid to players in the lower leagues from $ 400 a week to 300. This decision immediately caused a lot of criticism from fans, as well as the reaction of the baseball players of the main team. Representatives of the Nats roster quickly agreed that they should help less protected colleagues in the organization, and decided to pay the Farm players the difference out of pocket.
Such negative feedback has had an impact on the leadership of the reigning champions. Perhaps the Lerner family was suddenly embarrassed (which is doubtful), or the owners of the Nationals were afraid of a bad reputation (which is more likely), but Lerner sent a letter to the farm system players informing them that the scholarships would still be paid in full.
In itself, the situation with the reduction of weekly scholarships for the Lerner family seems absurd, because such a move, would save only some 80-90 thousand dollars by the end of this month. No other league team has come up with such a thing, although Oakland Athletics stands alone as an organization that has refused to pay scholarships to farmers in principle.
But not everything is so bad here. Faced with a wave of public outrage, the club’s management began to retreat. In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, club owner John Fisher said that the players in the lower leagues will not only be paid support for the first week of June but they will continue to pay it until the end of the previously planned season in the MLB.
Scott Boras turned out to be humanistic in the current situation. The famous baseball agent decided to express support for his clients among lower league players who have recently lost their jobs or will lose them soon. And not verbally, but financially. The agent promised farmers of Boras, who were expelled from the clubs, to pay out of his pocket (certainly not a small one) all the necessary funds by the end of the 2020 season. So no one will be left to fend for themselves. It is difficult to say exactly how many of Scott Boras’ clients were thrown out into the street at once, but according to local sources, at this time MLB clubs have already released about 1,200 people from the farms.
In such difficult times, you can always see good people who come help.
Also, you can read why Baseball Players Refuse to Start the Season.
Comments
Loading…