MLB, MiLB, and Layoffs

The coincidence was stunning.

This week, I was notified that I will be joining the massively swelling ranks of the unemployed, effective July 1. A day later, Jeff Passan of ESPN reported that hundreds of minor league baseball players would be losing their jobs, effective July 1.

Needless to say it’s been quite a week. Quite a month. Quite a year. In fact, if I could get Thanos in here to give the Infinity Gauntlet a twist and turn back the clock a smidge, I’d say goodbye to 2020 in a heartbeat and ask for a do-over. But what are you gonna do?

Sports journalism is in the toilet. This is not news so much as a long-running trend. But so, it seems, is baseball. In both cases, the problems are largely self-inflicted. And while the two businesses are vastly different, the two situations are incredibly similar. At least they are in my case.

(You can discuss this on the BSL Board here.)

In baseball, what you’ve got is a mother lion seemingly intent on eating her cubs, even at the risk of ending her own bloodline. Laying off hundreds of minor leaguers, many of whom make only about $1,300 a month (and only during the season) is amazingly short-sighted, and quite possibly self-destructive. Those who side with ownership on these kind of issues often like to argue that most minor leaguers will never reach the big leagues, so who cares anyway? This conveniently ignores the fact that that is exactly WHY they are needed. This is a sport so technically demanding that players typically need five, six, seven or more years to be ready for the majors. So who will those players play AGAINST as they develop? And how many of those future major leaguers will find other careers before they even get a chance?

I just produced a podcast series on a 40^th-round draft pick who was drafted as a 24-year-old. If he stays healthy, he has a legitimate shot at the big leagues. In this climate, he would never have gotten a look. And that’s just one example. The greatest defensive center fielder of the 2000s needed seven years of growth before he stuck in the majors. The best offensive catcher of all time was drafted in the 62^nd round. I could go on.

But for some reason, MLB has been pushing to downsize their minor leagues system for some time and has planned to contract perhaps a quarter of the MiLB teams before next season. They’re also cutting the amateur draft from 40 rounds to five this summer and pushed the international signing period to January. These, friends, were your talent sources. Owners seem to believe that they can tighten things up, slash their developmental system and still maintain the same quality of product at the big league level. And maybe they can. Maybe the quality of the sport will be just as good and attract the same massive, lucrative TV deals. This is the gamble.

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My situation is oddly similar. I work, at least for the next few weeks, for MSN, the online traffic firehose run by a little outlet called Microsoft. I work as a contractor alongside many experienced journalists in various fields, from news to business to health to tech. And of course, sports. Most of us have been around awhile. We know our stuff. We know how to write a good headline. We know what stories will resonate with our audience. And judging by the record-setting traffic numbers we’ve seen, we know how to attract eyeballs. And all of us – every single contractor — have been deemed expendable.

You see, Microsoft and MSN have been tinkering with automation for some time, and the thinking — at least from where I sit — is that the money they will save by not having any editors will make up for any drop in quality — and the ensuing drop in traffic. And while I won’t go into the details on the problems I’ve seen with automation so far, I assure you that the product will suffer.

This is a gamble.

Sound familiar?

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One thing I want to make clear is that the minor league cuts have very little to do with the COVID-19 pandemic that continues to ravage the planet. MLB wants you to think that. Just as they want you to think there is a need to negotiate cuts with their players before they can cobble together a season – even after they ALREADY negotiated cuts with players – they also want you to think that the lack of a 2020 MiLB season somehow makes it impossible to pay their minor leaguers.

This, of course, is nonsense. If David Price can pay every Dodgers minor leaguer $1,000 through the month of June, you know that every MLB owner can take care of these players during such uncertain times. Even the owner of the notoriously skinflint Oakland A’s is a billionaire, after all.

No, this is about pushing an agenda of gutting the minor leagues, about a $10-billion industry looking to save a few bucks even at the risk of doing damage to their product.

Same goes for the situation that I and my colleagues find ourselves in. This isn’t about a need to cut costs during a pandemic. This is a trillion-with-a-capital-T corporation looking to save a few bucks while potentially damaging the quality of their product.

In both cases, the virus is just convenient cover for them.

— — —

The minor leaguers who lost their jobs will be fine. They’ll find other work. They’ll find other passions. They’ll build new careers and do great things. Same goes for me and my colleagues. We’ll be fine.

The point here is not to whine about the unfairness of it all, or the seeming heartlessness with which these kind of top-level decision are so often made.

I just wanted to express sadness at the negative impact these decisions will have on two entities that I love. Because in my opinion, both baseball and journalism will suffer. And both deserve better.