Royce Lewis' Quotes Are Half-Right about Baseball’s Contract Structure

[JADBP]

2 hours ago, USAFChief said:

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

Bullet Points:

1.  Unlike NFL and NBA (both of whom have salary caps), MLB is dominated by 3-4 teams with enormous payrolls and great teams.
 

2.  This leads to a very inequitable and distorted competitive balance. 
 

3. This, in turn, suppresses fan enthusiasm  across the remaining 28-29 teams. This shrinks the entire sport of baseball while 3-4 teams win most championships. 
 

4.  Look at the NBA as an example.  They exploded in popularity once they rebalanced the payrolls and MANY teams won, instead of 3-4 consistent winners. 

[JADBP]

OH I wanted the Twins to take Green so badly, was stunned when they took Lewis.  Oh well...

[glunn]

On 8/31/2025 at 11:27 AM, Pat said:

Interesting.  He can't take care of his family on $760,00+ a year plus per diem.  That is certainly hard to swallow. That is more like my lifetime income. 

Pro sports players need to make their money young so that they have enough for a lifetime.  If all goes well (and considering his injury history), Lewis might make it to age 35. If he loses his swing, he could be washed up in 2 years.

After paying taxes, Boras and living expenses Lewis might now have around $4 million of assets, but that might have to last him for 70+ years, unless he proves good at some other vocation. He needs to earn a lot more to guarantee lifelong prosperity. 

I feel sympathy for the young players who did not get big signing bonuses, especially the ones who skipped college. I wonder how they feel when they wash up and college scholarships are not available to them.

[NYCTK]

16 hours ago, JADBP said:

In the last 10 years, 7 different teams have won the  NBA. Championship.  

In the last 10 years, 8 different teams have won the World Series.

 

[USAFChief]

On 9/2/2025 at 12:23 AM, glunn said:

Pro sports players need to make their money young so that they have enough for a lifetime.  If all goes well (and considering his injury history), Lewis might make it to age 35. If he loses his swing, he could be washed up in 2 years.

After paying taxes, Boras and living expenses Lewis might now have around $4 million of assets, but that might have to last him for 70+ years, unless he proves good at some other vocation. He needs to earn a lot more to guarantee lifelong prosperity. 

I feel sympathy for the young players who did not get big signing bonuses, especially the ones who skipped college. I wonder how they feel when they wash up and college scholarships are not available to them.

Why?

 

[nicksaviking]

7 minutes ago, USAFChief said:

Why?

 

Instead of putting his time and effort of his formative years into a profession he'd learn in college, he's doing it on the ball field. It's not like going back to school to become a doctor or lawyer is something a 30-year-old with a wife and kids can do without significant hurdles.

I didn't care for the last comments Royce made about changing his swing and tanking his stats even further, but he's not wrong. Which player has this coaching staff successfully help adjust their offensive game? He can still sink lower, and he only needs to look at his contemporary prospects, Julien and Miranda. So many prospects have come up and looked fantastic. Then the other teams adjust to them, and pretty much every single time, the Twins coaching staff is unable to get the players to adjust to the adjustments. I have zero faith in the coaching staff myself, and I have nothing riding on it.

 

[LA Vikes Fan]

I think it's important to recognize that ballplayers have very short careers. The median MLB career length is 2.7 to 3.5 years, according to AI, with the average longer but skewed by a small subset of players that have very long careers so the median is the better measure. That's the MLB v career length, it doesn't include the 95% of ballplayers who try but never make the majors. Add to that the fact that Lewis has had two career altering and perhaps career threatening injuries and I can understand his concerns. It's not like he's guaranteed to make 750K plus for 5 years and then millions. He might make 750K plus for a couple of years, then be wandering the landscape looking for one year MLB or even less lucrative MiLB deals, or even out of baseball with no other skills to fall back on. These guys aren't set for life unless and until they get a long term guaranteed contract and most if not almost all of them never get that. Most of them don't have other skills to make a living. 

I also don't understand the complaining about his bonus amount or what he makes compared to the "average guy". Lewis makes more money that the average guy because his services create more wealth than the average guy. We are a capitalist society. He who creates more economic activity and wealth is worth more to our society. He does something none of us can do. Pro athletes make more money than most everybody else because they provide more economic value than most everybody else. In other words, they make more because they are worth more in economic terms. Lewis has one shot at real wealth from his unique talent over the next few years. It's understandable that he's worried about that.  

Having said all this, Lewis  needs to keep those concerns to himself. He comes across kind of like the rich guy who complains about this taxes. Very few have sympathy for that guy.  

[RpR]

The average length of a Major League Baseball player's career is 5.6 years. This average is based on studies of position players from the early 20th century to the mid-1990s and is skewed by the many shorter careers, as about 20% of players leave after their first year and a small number of players have careers lasting 20 or more years. 

[USAFChief]

6 hours ago, nicksaviking said:

It's not like going back to school to become a doctor or lawyer is something a 30-year-old with a wife and kids can do without significant hurdles.

 

 

Why?

People in all walks of life put themselves through career changes in their 20's, 30's, 40's.

Playing baseball for a living when you're young doesn’t entitle you to a lifetime of retirement. 

[glunn]

5 hours ago, USAFChief said:

 

Playing baseball for a living when you're young doesn’t entitle you to a lifetime of retirement. 

I don't see anyone saying that. My point was that a young player could fail and be left with what seems like a fortune today, but might not last until he dies 70 years from now.

On AVERAGE I suspect that an average schoolteacher is more financially secure over the long run than an average baseball draft pick. The difference is that the few players who have successful careers can make a fortune. I can see why someone who might make a fortune if his career takes off might also be worried about becoming a financially insecure "has been" if he washes out. In that context, changing his swing seems risky from his perspective. I appreciate his candor.

[nicksaviking]

15 hours ago, USAFChief said:

Why?

People in all walks of life put themselves through career changes in their 20's, 30's, 40's.

Playing baseball for a living when you're young doesn’t entitle you to a lifetime of retirement. 

Sure, but if you're good enough it can lead to a lifetime of retirement. Why would he willingly give up making that money now? Is he supposed to be a masochist just so as not to rock the boat?

If he truly believes that the Twins coaching staff could prevent him from doing that, I understand why he'd speak up. And really, all evidence points to him being right; those guys in no way look like they know what they're doing.

[ashbury]

We've probably all run into people, in our respective lines of work, who were old and kind of dead wood but were hanging on as long as they could because they were in their peak earning years.  Unless and until their work quality slipped so much that they got fired, we might grumble about them but could at least see things from their point of view.  (And I freely confess to having been exactly that kind of dead wood in my final couple of years as well.)  The usual pay structure in the US is such that you don't hit your peak earning years until close to the end.  It leads to some perverse incentives but all in all seems acceptable to the employers and the work force alike.  Don't hate the player, hate the game.

Big time sports operate differently.  Peak earning years may not happen instantly (baseball and basketball and football each have their own rhythms to this), but they still come at a very early age in the human lifespan.  I can't get much more worked up about an athlete in his 20s, not even dead wood yet, trying to protect his peak earning years in whatever way makes sense to him, than I can about the dead wood dudes where I worked.

As an aside: elsewhere we see posters beg Derek Falvey or Joe Pohlad to just "tell us the truth."  Royce Lewis spoke his mind, and we see what kind of blowback that earns someone in the public eye.

[Squirrel]

 

41 minutes ago, ashbury said:

As an aside: elsewhere we see posters beg Derek Falvey or Joe Pohlad to just "tell us the truth."  Royce Lewis spoke his mind, and we see what kind of blowback that earns someone in the public eye.

 

[Woof Bronzer]

30 minutes ago, ashbury said:

As an aside: elsewhere we see posters beg Derek Falvey or Joe Pohlad to just "tell us the truth."  Royce Lewis spoke his mind, and we see what kind of blowback that earns someone in the public eye.

I think there's a difference between Falvey/Pohlad brazenly lying to fans about the trade deadline, and Lewis expressing an opinion about contract structures.   I'm glad Royce speaks his mind, and I wish more players would do it.   That doesn't mean he is exempt from criticism.  And I'm sorry, a millionaire using "contract anxiety" as an excuse for not performing is absurd.

My old neighbor was ex-NHL and his philosophy was, focus solely and totally on being the best player he could be, and the money and all the rest would work itself out.  His agent negotiated all his contracts, and he had a financial guy manage investments and set him up for the future.  He just played hockey.  

If Royce discovers a bit of humility, stops worrying about his contract and stats, puts the work in, and starts performing at a high level again, the money will follow.  He has the talent.