Cap'n Piranha

I mean, to be fair, a Miguel Cabrera comes along once every, what...10 to 15 years? No 16 year old should ever have that expectation put on him. Cabrera is Top 30 all time in HR, RBI (meaning he's been good for a long time--he'll definitely be top 30 in hits soone enough too), and top 60 in SLG, WAR, wRC+, and OPS. He's one of the handful of best hitters ever, and a surefire first-ballot HOF, with close to a unanimous vote. If that is the expectation for a 16 year old, the problem is not the kid, it's the expectation.

I was a daily reader of Seth Speaks, as the only place I could consistently get more than box scores for MiLB action. That came from wanting to follow the careers of the three hotshot international prospects the Twins had just signed; Miguel Angel de Sano, Max Kepler, and Jorge Polanco. I joined (I believe) the second day the site was open and live, as I spent the first day wondering if Seth had just forgotten to update his site that day.

I would put Rocco in the high (low?) teens--that is the 16-19 range. I can't quantify it, but I feel like I've seen an erosion in fundamental play in the past couple of years. I also just get the sense that Rocco is more a manager than a leader--that works when you have scads of talent that just needs to be pointed in the right direction and left alone. It doesn't work so great when the team needs inspiration, which given the listless nature of Baldelli's 5 playoff losses, I incline to believe. Again, no data to back this up, just a feeling.

If a player is the same guy as a 29 year old 5-year vet as he was when he was a 24 year old rookie, then that lack of player development is absolutely on the guy who oversees the coaches who work daily with that player. That individual is the manager. As yet, I have not seen consistent enough development from MLB players to say Baldelli is good at that part of the job.

I personally would see what I could get for Sano from an NL team who wants a DH+ with upside potential, and no commitment beyond this year if he doesn't improve. I would then make Garver a hybrid 1B/DH who could also catch 1x a week/as needed. Your 13 position players are therefore-- C--Jeffers C--Rortvedt C/1B/DH--Garver 1B/LF--Kiriloff 2B--Polanco 2B/3B/DH--Arraez SS--Yet to be signed FA 3B/DH--Donaldson 3B/DH--Miranda LF/DH--Larnach CF--Buxton RF/CF--Kepler UTIL--Gordon Martin, Lewis, and Celestino can come up when/if they show they're ready or injuries make it a necessity. Most guys would play 4-6 times a week if everyone is healthy, so that increases if there are any injuries.

Rooker for his career has a 96 wRC+ and -0.1 WAR. He strikes out 32.9% of the time while walking 7% of the time, and makes under 37% hard contact with a 30.9% CSW rate and a 32.9% chase rate. He is also already 27. Larnach for his career has a 89 wRC+ and 0.2 WAR. He strikes out 34.6% of the time, but walks 10.3% of the time, and makes under 34% hard contact with a 34.4% CSW rate and a 27.8% chase rate. He turns 25 in 3 days. Larnach's sprint speed of 26.5 ft/sec was faster than Rooker in 2020, but slower than Rooker in 2021. If the Twins were trying to win a WS in 2022, I'd say maybe keep Rooker, but as that is not the case, Larnach is definitely a better option than Rooker moving forward.

I'd have no problem with shifting pay out of arbitration, and into MiLB. I imagine neither would the owners. But I'm 100% certain the MLBPA would agree to re-segregate the league before they would agree to reduce the pay of MLB players in favor of MiLB players.

It's not crazy to say budgeting is absolutely the solution. Millionaires go broke all the time--Nicolas Cage had a $200M fortune, and wasted it all--do you really think a guy who can't manage to budget essentially at all on $500 a week is going to all of the sudden be incapable of being wasteful with $1000 a week? Stop assuming that every single MiLB player is an amazing steward of money, and therefore if they're struggling, it MUST be because of those darn greedy owners. Just because stories are all over the internet about destitute players doesn't mean the solution is more money. As I mentioned in a response to a different post of yours, I mentioned how a large percentage of NFL players go broke soon after retirement--there are stories all over the internet. Is that because they are not paid enough? While I feel bad for these players, and what they have to go through, when they are telling the story, it is demonstrably, and exclusively, one-sided. None of them have provided breakdowns of where their money went, even so much as how much they paid for rent, or food. Many of them predate the recent increase in pay, and as such, are no longer relevant to current MiLB pay. If every single MiLB player understood the finiteness of their resources, and spent wisely, I'm sure someone would still struggle, but the vast majority would not. It's not hypothetical, it's math.

This is just...wow. Do you deny that through this entire thread, you have maintained MLB teams have historically ignored analytics? Do you deny that your hypothesis from this is that MLB teams are not using analytics right now, vis a vis the ability of (relatively) small amounts of money to markedly improve MiLB performance? And do you deny that even in the face of the reality that MLB teams have spent literally hundreds of millions of dollars in the past decade alone on analytics to improve performance, you still assert that MLB teams are blithely ignoring data hitting them right in the face? You're saying a multi-billion dollar a year industry that spends copious amounts of time and money studying, scouting, signing, and developing the players in their MiLB systems, will just stop caring about those assets because...they're old fashioned like that, I guess? I find this not at all plausible, and find it incredible that you do.

Dude, you made the assertion they are paid sub-minimum wages in your first post, not me. Minimum wage is also pre-tax, FYI. I've broken it down a million times--are people just not reading my posts? Find 3 other guys, and rent a 4BR house for $2k a month. Have each guy chip in $300 and share the grocery bill; Intuit suggests $892/mo for 4 people--so that's already $300 over that. The BLS says the average annual household grocery bill is $4,643, or less than $400/month. Statista says the average household is 2.53 people, so that's $152/person/month; obviously $300 basically doubles that. That's $800 a month, leaving probably around $900 a month during the season for all other expenses. Players should have no problem getting a job in the offseason to supplement that income that would perhaps leave less extra money, but certainly plenty to continue to meet their needs. Nor is the Rays' success because they do spend. My point is that the Rays are using the same logic as tanking teams--why spend $100M to win 65 games when you can spend $50M and win 55. The Rays have inverted it--why spend $100M and win 103 games when you spend $70M and win 98? This isn't meant to say the Rays have determined an extra $3M a year wouldn't equate to improved MiLB performance, but rather a demonstration that the Rays understand the link between spending and performance. It's a further point that if the Rays truly believed allocating an extra $3M a year to MiLB would result in improved performance, they would have no problem reducing their MLB payroll by that $3M. Again, it just defies rational thought to think that highly-educated, extremely-intelligent individuals in a suicidally-competitive industry where millions a year are already spent on securing incremental performance improvements wouldn't invest there. Of course more money makes someone's life more "livable", assuming they don't waste that money (which is not exactly unheard of in the world of professional athletes). But given that MiLB players already do have livable wages (see above), MLB is under no obligation to make their life more livable. Churning through candidates while offering legal wages because the pool is ever replenishing is not exploitation. It's supply and demand. Entry level is a perfectly apt description for this phenomenon, which repeats broadly throughout society, for all of time. People with less experience and/or skills start out making less, and progressively make more as their experience/skills develop. It's not evil or pernicious, it's an objective way to reward ability in the marketplace, and why 1st overall pick Carlos Correa is going to get $300M while 1st overall pick Tim Beckham had to sign a $1M contract.

I've read plenty of stories of NFL and NBA veterans going broke within 3 years of leaving the league. Is it because they're underpaid? If 7 adult men are sharing a 2 bedroom apartment, it is because most if not all of them have made serious budgeting errors. There's just no way around it. There is no world in which it is difficult for an MiLB player to allocate $500 a month to rent UNLESS they are making frivolous and irresponsible decisions with money. That issue will not go away if they are given more money. $75k PLUS their continued MiLB wages, PLUS whatever wages they earn in the 5-6 months they're not obligated to be committed full time to baseball is plenty. I am sure that every MiLB player can reach out to their coach, and get updates on their training plan. They can have zoom calls and send them video. Rent and food should not cost more than $1000/mo unless they're doing it wrong. It astounds me that I'm the only one actually attempt to present a budget on this thread, and everyone else just screams "No!", without offering even a shred of sourced evidence in response.

Which doesn't necessarily mean it would be bad. Far more players make under $1M than make over $15M, yet the MLBPA is still holding out for an increased luxury tax (which benefits the majority of the MLBPA not at all). Alternatively, MiLB players could be granted junior status, say 1/10 of a vote, or no vote at all, but an agreement to join the MLBPA should a strike occur, in return for access to a cash pool (if every MLB player donated 1% of their pay every year, the pool increases by $40M a year. The burden on a player making the $650k minimum is $40 a game. Seems a small price to pay for the complete removal of replacement players from the board).

Just because an entity would like to keep their legal obligations at one level doesn't mean they wouldn't operate at another level of their own free will. According to the US government, only 0.3% of hourly workers make minimum wage (source). I'm not aware of some great push by companies to bring the minimum wage up; why are employers in the United States paying more than they are required to 99.7% of the time? Trust me--if the Rays were allowed by MLB to spend $3M for a marked improvement in the quality of their MiLB players (bearing in mind the Rays repeatedly trade established big leaguers in years they expect to compete for MiLB players), they would.

Some parts of the league are steeped in tradition. Most are not. It's why starting pitchers get pulled after 2 times through the order. It's why every team carries 8 relievers. It's why every team employs shifts. It's why every team has dozens upon dozens of people working in analytics departments. It's why every team invests substantial money in machinery to quantify things like launch angle, spin rate, foot speed, etc. I just refuse to believe that teams who have invested literally millions of dollars over the past decade into finding any way possible to improve performance would be aware of a way to improve performance, have the freedom to implement that way, and have that way cost a relative pittance, but still just shrug their shoulders and, essentially, say "meh, I don't care if I have better players than my competitors". It just defies any kind of reasonable viewpoint to think that way, unless you are hopelessly, irretrievably committed to the idea that mLb TeAmS BaD!!!

Where are these average rent figures coming from? I definitely paid more than $650 a month when I lived on my own. Searches I did in a handful of MiLB cities a few months ago showed 4 BR houses for rent for $1000-$1200 in most of them. This idea that MiLB players are paying half their wages for rent, or have no option other than to cram 7 people into 3 bedrooms just cannot happen without irresponsible budgeting. It just can't. 3 guys on one team can split a $1500/month place (which will almost assuredly have 3BR), $1500 a month for groceries ($375 a week is surely enough to feed 3 people so long as they're not spending wastefully), and they could still have $700-$800 a month to pay for all other bills. As I've always said, that's not a cushy existence, but it's not an impossible one to achieve either. $50k over 4-5 years is a significant reserve. According to this article, people under 35 have a median net worth of $13.9k. That means an MiLB player who cleared $50k on their bonus could spread it out over 4 years, and still be better off (from a net worth standpoint) than 50% off their age peers, even if you assume there is no further striation within the under 35 group (I would imagine the further you are from 35, the more likely you are to below the median). If you make $11k while playing, $9k in the offseason ($10/hr times 40 hours times 23 weeks), $2k from per diems and ST stipends, that should be about $19k after taxes. Add $11k a year from a bonus, and they can now spend $2500 a month for 4.5 years before the bonus is out. $2500 is more than enough for a single 18-24 year old to live on, unless they are not budgeting.

I see, yet again, you declined to name even one MLB team that isn't using analytics. As your contention can be boiled down to "If teams weren't so opposed to analytics, they would realize the value in paying MiLB", your consistent refusal (inability?) to name even on team opposed to analytics shows your entire argument to be baseless and without merit. I reject it categorically, along with your bizarre attempts to paint me as the one employing fallacious thinking.

So this actually furthers my point then--players below AAA have even more time to supplement their income--practically half the year. There are any number of jobs available for $10+ an hour whereby a AA or down player could make $9.2k pre-tax (10*40*23 weeks). Spring Training isn't paid in the traditional sense (which I very much disagree with--if an employer is requiring you to work, they are required to pay you), although housing is made available, 2 meals a day are provided, and a weekly stipend is paid. I think that should change to the standard MiLB wage PLUS the housing and meals. It seems not shocking to me that entry level employees working half the year would have other jobs in the other half of the year. This is the crux of the entire debate; I agree it conceptually makes sense that enhanced pay + perks allowing MiLB players to be full-time would enhance development. However; is there any real-world data to support this? There are plenty of first-round picks who can worry about nothing other than development, and yet don't make the majors, or flame out quickly when they do. As such, my contention is that teams have either undertaken the studies that show minimal or no return to this enhanced package, or they are barred from doing so from the MLB level. It's also possible that any gains made in performance by an MiLB player disappear on getting to MLB (that is, if enhanced pay + perks yields a 10% increase in performance, does that gap continue over an MiLB player who didn't get the pay + perks once both players hit the majors?)

I'll admit I hadn't been following this closely, so I am perhaps missing some things. That out of the way, some of the comments were interesting. As it seems clear Skaggs took these pills of his own free will, there can be no homicide/manslaughter charge here, I would think (unless it can be proven that Kay knew the pills had dangerous amounts of fentanyl in them). As such, why is Matt Harvey getting immunity when he engaged in the same actions as Kay? In an alternate universe, it could just as easily have been a pill from Harvey that killed Skaggs. It also seems relevant that the ME who examined the toxicology report admitted that the fentanyl levels in Skaggs could have risen post-mortem--therefore, it would appear there is no way of knowing precisely how much fentanyl was in Skaggs' system at time of death, and it's therefore hard to blame fentanyl for the death. If the argument is that though the fentanyl wasn't at a lethal level, it was the "straw that broke the camel's back", certainly that argument could be made for the alcohol as well (i.e. had Skaggs taken the fentanyl with no alcohol in his system, he would have lived).

There are more than 10 rounds in the first 10 rounds of the MLB draft--Comp round A and B have to be included, and while not every team partakes of those, 13 out of 30 did in 2021. Most teams don't sign all 40 of their picks--according to this article, only about 30 will sign. Because teams lose the comp attached to the pick if a player doesn't sign, my guess is that the vast majority of a team's top 10 picks sign (for example, you have to go back to 2015 to find the last time the Twins didn't sign all of their Top 10 picks, according to The Baseball Cube). Also, most teams will have at least 2-3 highly paid international free agents every year, which means that every year, just about every organization is probably acquiring 12-14 players with take home portions of their bonus above $50k. If we assume those players take 4-5 years to matriculate through the system, that's 48-70 players with substantial financial reserves (if they're smart about it). MiLB players are like school teachers, other than they actually have far more opportunity to make money outside of their "main" gig than teachers. Every MiLB player gets the better part of 5 months (October, November, December, January, most of February) to work; call it 21 weeks, whereas a school teacher might get only 2.5 months--half of June, July, most/all of August. Get a $9/hr job (not particularly difficult in a world where Amazon pays warehouse workers an average of $16 an hour--source is indeed.com. Heck, both McDonald's and WM pay over $10/hr to start; are there any MiLB players that wouldn't be able to walk into any of those places and get a job more or less on the spot?), work it 40 hours a week for those 21 weeks, and they make $7,560. Add that to the $11k they make during the MiLB season, and at $18,560, they are more than 20% above the full year minimum wage (assuming 2,080 hours worked per year at $7.25) of $15,080.

It's not fallacious, because I am assuming that all (or at least essentially all) current FOs are using analytics to guide, and even drive their decisions. I don't disagree baseball in the past has eschewed adoption of analytics (although it seems you would like to retract your original statement of 100 years of ignoring analytics, and revise it to 45, given your Bill James example); I'm saying analytics are no longer being ignored, therefore the rationale cannot be that individual teams are not open to investing in MiLB players due to an unwillingness to embrace analytics. Thus, the only rational explanations left are that MLB as a whole does not let any team break the pay and perk structure established, or that teams are completely free to spend whatever they want in at least perks for their MiLB players, but after running the analytics, have determined it to not be a worthwhile investment. I asked you which front offices don't embrace analytics, and I can't help but notice you did not respond, preferring instead to attempt to lecture me on Ostrichism and revised analytical history. As such, I'll ask again, directly--which current MLB teams do not use analytics in their decision making? If you respond to nothing else in this post, please respond to that question, since the basis of your entire argument is that MLB teams are choosing to not employ widely-available and valid analytics. Failure to do so will leave me with no other conclusion regarding you other than the one you so arrogantly and incorrectly applied to me; you are so deep in your own certainty regarding the short-sighted stupidity of MLB teams that you cannot even bring yourself to consider any other realities.

MLB pays 0% of their MiLB players minimum wage. The minimum MiLB salary is $500 a week, which when divided by the federal minimum wage is just under 69 hours. Try again. Appel is hardly an exception. The majority of players in MiLB have received significant signing bonuses (some more significant than others). Even if they hadn't, $1700 every 4 weeks (an estimate of what an MiLB player would make post-tax) is enough for a decent, if somewhat austere lifestlye. MiLB players might not be able to have multiple streaming services, or live by themselves, or get a new car, etc. but a player who finds roommates, pools grocery money, hangs on to his older car, and lives a more spartan life will have no problem living on what he is paid. That's even more true if a signing bonus is split over multiple years. In 2021 for example, every player picked in the first 10 rounds gets at least $142k in a signing bonus (source). Even if 60% of that goes to taxes/agent fees, that's still $57k; use $1000 to supplement income every month, and they won't run out for almost 5 years. The Rays have 4 straight years of 90 or more wins (if you pro-rate 2020, where they played at 108 win pace; I think we can all agree a team that finished 40-20 despite only playing AL/NL East teams would not have gone 49-53 in the 100 games that weren't played, had 2020 been normal). Maybe the Rays don't spend because they understand the concept of diminishing returns; why pay $10M/$20M/$30M more every year to win maybe 3-5 more games, when that is not the difference between making the playoffs or not? That said, do you really think that the team which relies on prospect development more than any other team in the game, if given the option to significantly enhance their already best-in-class prospect development for only $3M-$4M a year, wouldn't do that immediately? Do you think the Rays would rather add 5 to the FV of every prospect in their system, or sign Michael Wacha? The Rays spent $70M on MLB payroll last year--if investing $750k to $1M in each of their MiLB teams would be so impactful in improved performance, you don't think they would be happy to go down to $66M-$67M in order to offset that? Especially because, and this is they key point, if $4M buys greatly improved performance from MiLB players, in 2-4 years, the Rays would be able to build their roster almost entirely with players with less than 4 years of service time, meaning they could have a payroll of $40M--SAVING THEM $30M A YEAR. If indeed the owners are so greedy that all they care about is money, wouldn't they gladly invest $3M today to save $30M in 2 years, especially when they can take the money for said investment from somewhere else? Paying entry level workers an entry level wage is not exploitation. A very low percentage of the people in 2022 America are truly exploited, and just because someone feels that they are does not make it so.

I wasn't aware that SABR was founded in 1922. Also, pray tell, which front offices are ignoring analytics? Your insistence that the baseball operations outfits across the league are all data-haters is just absolutely baffling to me, unless, a la the movie Frequency, you're communicating with us from 30 years ago. Quick--who's the President right now?

It's most interesting to me that the MLBPA won't allow MiLB players to join--what could they possibly have to lose? I would think threatening the owners with not just their current workforce, but far and away their best source for replacement players would be of great interest to the MLBPA. Since there is a non-zero chance this lockout continues for awhile, and a non-zero chance the owners proceed with replacement players should that happen, were I the MLBPA, I'd be feverishly working to court MiLB players.

Ignoring of course that I feel the same about your positions. Also, I will apparently have to be clearer, as you seem to not comprehend my position; I have no problem with MLB deciding to invest more in the minor leagues. I'd have no problem if the Twins bought 15 3BR houses near each of their MiLB teams' stadiums for their players to live in for free. I'd have no problem with the Twins hiring a chef to provide two meals daily, free of charge, at the stadium, and up the per diem to $50 a day when on the road. I'd have no problem with the Twins increasing the pay for their minor leaguers. The issue I have is when the greedy, wrong, evil terms start to get thrown around, as if the owners are somehow exploiting MiLB players--they are not. Absent a nice signing bonus, playing MiLB ball will not be a luxurious existence--that's generally how it goes for 18-24 year-olds trying to get their foot in the door--I know because I worked 60 hours a week for about what MiLB players are making at a minimum. When I budgeted, I was fine. When I moved into a one-bedroom apartment with no roommate, and insisted on having cable TV, paying for covered parking and an in-unit W/D, eating out multiple times a week, etc. I had money issues. As I pointed out before, if MLB draws a hard line on what teams can do with their MiLB players, in terms of pay and perks, then that explains why teams have so little "care and concern" for investments--they're not allowed to have those things. If any MLB team is allowed to enact those perks, and yet they haven't, what does that say? I've posed this hypothetical multiple times, and yet never received an answer; does anyone think that teams like The Rays, A's, or Guardians would not take supposed burdens off their MiLB players if they were reasonably certain the return would be significantly improved performance? I say no; that means either those teams are simply not allowed to do that, or that they have looked into it, and feel the money is better spent elsewhere. There is no third conclusion to be drawn.

Appel was quite clear in this that he never had to struggle. And yet he has never thrown a single pitch in a MLB game--proof there is no inviolable connection between not "struggling", and becoming an MLB player. I find it interesting that Appel never mentions MiLB players returning to their colleges in the offseason, where they would theoretically have contacts that would get them access to good workout facilities. Some of these colleges might even be quite happy to throw a few dollars at these MiLB players as a sounding board for their current players. Failing that, are the team's minor league facilities not open during the offseason? Are you telling me the Twins wouldn't welcome their players with open arms if they wanted to spend the winter in Ft Myers? The obvious answer to your third point is that either all teams are required to walk the same line, or studies have been done that show these kind of changes don't actually make much of a difference, if any at all. Do you really think the Rays, who have built their success on doing things differently and developing their minor leaguers, wouldn't gladly shave $2M-$3M from their MLB payroll if it would take their MiLB development to an even higher level?