MLB teams to provide housing for minor leaguers in 2022

[Mike Sixel]

We don't know the details yet........

 

[Rosterman]

Gonna be interesting to see how it plays in different markets. Housing in Vegas compared to, say, St. Paul. Does the team control where a player resides (with rules and regulations), or are players, if able, free to live how and where they want? The dorm situation has always been interesting, as players come and go. Who does housekeeping, do rooms have private baths or shared communal ones. What about food. Can players have fridges, for example. They ARE on the road half-the-time, and at the stadium almost fulltime.

 

[TheLeviathan]

1 hour ago, Mike Sixel said:

We don't know the details yet........

 

'Bout damn time really.

[a-wan]

These minor leaguers will never learn how to budget now.

[MN_ExPat]

5 minutes ago, a-wan said:

These minor leaguers will never learn how to budget now.

I think they'll be fine (most of them at least). 

These guys are playing for peanuts almost, The lodging doesn't have to be fancy, but something like this can go a long ways to giving many of them a sense of security they didn't have before.  I guess we shall see how this plays out.

[RonCoomersOPS]

3 hours ago, Rosterman said:

Gonna be interesting to see how it plays in different markets. Housing in Vegas compared to, say, St. Paul. Does the team control where a player resides (with rules and regulations), or are players, if able, free to live how and where they want? The dorm situation has always been interesting, as players come and go. Who does housekeeping, do rooms have private baths or shared communal ones. What about food. Can players have fridges, for example. They ARE on the road half-the-time, and at the stadium almost fulltime.

 

I'm fairly certain the billionaire team owners will be able to afford giving minor leaguers nice, comfortable accomodations regardless of which market they live in.

[Rosterman]

The Twins already have a "dorm" in Ft. Myers, single and double rooms, food service (I believe), recreation room hangouts. Plus the facilities in the various clubhouse spaces.

[Squirrel]

52 minutes ago, Rosterman said:

The Twins already have a "dorm" in Ft. Myers, single and double rooms, food service (I believe), recreation room hangouts. Plus the facilities in the various clubhouse spaces.

They do. But it’s not free. Players still pay. I think it’s still a really good deal and players aren’t locked into a lease, but someone in the know would have to confirm that

[roger]

Fantastic and long overdue.  Not clear, at least to me who will be providing it?  Is it MLB teams?  Or will MLB teams require the local franchises to do this?

[Otto von Ballpark]

1 hour ago, roger said:

Not clear, at least to me who will be providing it?  Is it MLB teams?  Or will MLB teams require the local franchises to do this?

Still not many details, but the reports all say the MLB teams will be doing it, which makes sense.

[nicksaviking]

Great, about time.

Now MLB, just don't drop the ball when it comes to who's living with the players. Lots of these guys have families; wives and kids, I'm sure that will be fine. But there are a lot of cultures represented in MiLB and many of the Latin guys are used to living with extended family. Don't go to battle over this stuff.

[Mike Sixel]

For "certain" minor leaguers......

Don't doubt for one minute this is a ploy to convince everyone that they just can't pay MLB players what they want in this CBA. And that they are being nice to minor league players. 

[Mike Sixel]

3 hours ago, nicksaviking said:

Great, about time.

Now MLB, just don't drop the ball when it comes to who's living with the players. Lots of these guys have families; wives and kids, I'm sure that will be fine. But there are a lot of cultures represented in MiLB and many of the Latin guys are used to living with extended family. Don't go to battle over this stuff.

No chance they do what is right here. We are now learning it is "certain" minor leaguers....

[nicksaviking]

5 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

No chance they do what is right here. We are now learning it is "certain" minor leaguers....

Well MLB will be making their own bed if they think they won't get raked over the coals by making a concession that helps out the Americanized players while still screwing over the players from the more impoverished Caribbean countries. Society finally seems to be catching up with this kind of stuff.

[bean5302]

Well, what I thought was a fair and helpful deal was the team signs leases instead of having their players sign leases to nearby apartments, then the team subleases to players. The optimal situation would be the team signs leases all the open rooms and buys out leases to a couple mid size apartments buildings to essentially turns those apartment buildings into dorms. I don't think it's a good idea to have MLB teams "own" the buildings. The apartment owners and management would still be in charge of operations, but it would ensure rooms were available and take away a big complaint many in these forums have made about how difficult they believe it is to find a place to rent.

It's worth noting this seems to be coming from the MLB team's revenues rather than MiLB revenues. 

[Otto von Ballpark]

17 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

For "certain" minor leaguers......

I saw that in the MLB statement too. Hard to read too much into it yet -- I suspect that they may exclude 40-man roster guys in the minors, who already receive elevated pay and benefits.

Of course, we have no idea how this housing benefit will be structured. There could be two separate components: arrangement assistance, plus a separate stipend to pay for it. Maybe all players will be eligible for the arrangement assistance, but only non-40-man guys get the stipend, etc. I expect it will all vary by city too, as some clubs offer different housing benefits already.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

I will echo others - 'bout time!

In terms of logistics, if indeed it's effective in 2022, it must be a housing allowance of some kind. It would be a monumental feat for 30 MLB teams to buy or build housing in all of their levels/teams in 6 months.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

43 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

For "certain" minor leaguers......

Don't doubt for one minute this is a ploy to convince everyone that they just can't pay MLB players what they want in this CBA. And that they are being nice to minor league players. 

I wonder if this is a CBA pre-negotiation tactic too

[lake_guy]

20 minutes ago, Sconnie said:

I wonder if this is a CBA pre-negotiation tactic too

Guaranteed it is.  It's noise the owners don't want coming into the CBA.  Having said that, hopefully this is a win-win scenario.  it won't be perfect day one but ya gotta start somewhere and this is a big step.

[bean5302]

I don't think the CBA really factors into this much. MLB players haven't traditionally cared about MiLB players when negotiating previous CBA's.

[nicksaviking]

31 minutes ago, Sconnie said:

I wonder if this is a CBA pre-negotiation tactic too

Probably. 

But I long ago lost faith in billionaire owners doing right by other people out of the goodness of their hearts. So them doing right by other people for completely self-serving purposes was probably always going to be the best we get.

[KirbyDome89]

1 hour ago, bean5302 said:

 The apartment owners and management would still be in charge of operations, but it would ensure rooms were available and take away a big complaint many in these forums have made about how difficult they believe it is to find a place to rent.

I think you're conflating availability with affordability. 

[DJL44]

Seems as simple as renting a block of hotel rooms at an extended stay hotel in each market. They should be able to negotiate a decent price for a block of rooms for 5 months. Hell, I bet some of the owners OWN hotels in these cities.

[bean5302]

46 minutes ago, KirbyDome89 said:

I think you're conflating availability with affordability. 

No, I'm not. Honestly, with that, I'm just leaving this thread considering how vitriolistic and nasty the last one related to this got. I didn't really check back in with this site for a week.

[roger]

3 hours ago, Sconnie said:

I will echo others - 'bout time!

In terms of logistics, if indeed it's effective in 2022, it must be a housing allowance of some kind. It would be a monumental feat for 30 MLB teams to buy or build housing in all of their levels/teams in 6 months.

I seriously doubt, Sconnie, that MLB teams will be buying or building any housing, unless like the Twins have done at their spring training complex.  No way will they want to get involved being a landlord in four or five different markets, markets that could change whenever they move a team from city A to city B.

More likely will work with the local teams to obtain X number of apartments for the baseball season., or as noted above a block rental deal with an Extended Stay property...if available in the market.

[Mike Sixel]

48 minutes ago, roger said:

I seriously doubt, Sconnie, that MLB teams will be buying or building any housing, unless like the Twins have done at their spring training complex.  No way will they want to get involved being a landlord in four or five different markets, markets that could change whenever they move a team from city A to city B.

More likely will work with the local teams to obtain X number of apartments for the baseball season., or as noted above a block rental deal with an Extended Stay property...if available in the market.

Concur. 

One thing people seem to miss when looking at how "easy" it is to get an apartment....what apartment wants to rent for 6 months? What apartment wants to rent to a group that will likely see turnover in it? It isn't as easy as "there are apartments out there" as some seem to think. This is, hopefully, a good first step. Hopefully it is free, and doesn't come out of their pay. 

[Sousy]

 

41 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

Concur. 

One thing people seem to miss when looking at how "easy" it is to get an apartment....what apartment wants to rent for 6 months? What apartment wants to rent to a group that will likely see turnover in it? It isn't as easy as "there are apartments out there" as some seem to think. This is, hopefully, a good first step. Hopefully it is free, and doesn't come out of their pay. 

Right - the hard part is finding a landlord that is friendly to the idea of a renter being in and out, and only renting for a few months at a time, maybe less depending on players being moved from A -> AA -> AAA... and putting it on a player to figure out all of those moves.

The Twins might be in a somewhat decent position with having onsite dorms in Fort Myers, and what has to be pretty cheap housing / cost of living scenarios in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and Wichita, Kansas.

[Twinsrtheworst]

17 hours ago, Squirrel said:

They do. But it’s not free. Players still pay. I think it’s still a really good deal and players aren’t locked into a lease, but someone in the know would have to confirm that

Are you positive it's not free in Fort Myers?  I was told by a few players the dorms at the facility were free.  With they should be.

[Squirrel]

1 minute ago, se7799 said:

Are you positive it's not free in Fort Myers?  I was told by a few players the dorms at the facility were free.  With they should be.

I thought I had read somewhere (on here, I think) that they do pay, but it is very reasonable. Maybe @Seth Stohs knows? 

[Squirrel]

I went back and found this thread from a couple years ago. Was a woman who ran the host family program for the Wahoos. Some interesting insights about housing for the players and some of the difficulties it is for players.

https://twinsdaily.com/forums/topic/32419-blue-wahoos-host-family-program/?tab=comments#comment-825813