Ever since he took over as MLB commissioner in 2015, Rob Manfred has demonstrated an absolute hatred for the game of baseball.
He’ll let a World Series champion get away with an unprecedented cheating scandal. He’ll push for unpopular rule changes. He’ll operate in bad faith with the players union. And, of course, he’ll oversee a system that takes advantage of minor-league players in order to line the pockets of his employers: the owners.
But it remains astounding how Manfred can make objectively false statements about baseball while believing his own lies. That happened during Tuesday’s media availability at the MLB All-Star Game when Manfred — who makes $17.5 million per year — was asked about the unlivable wages minor leaguers take in a year.
Asked Rob Manfred if his owners don’t pay minor leaguers a living wage because they can’t afford to or because they aren’t interested in doing so.
“I reject the premise that they're not paying a living wage,” Manfred said.
— Hannah Keyser (@HannahRKeyser) July 19, 2022
When asked about why the owners feel they can’t pay minor leaguers a living wage, Manfred said that he rejected the premise that minor leaguers are not paid a living wage. The only way Manfred’s statement is true if you take it as him saying that they are paid a wage and that they are living human beings because otherwise the spin was laughably wrong.
In 2017, Ted Berg detailed the conditions that minor leaguers live through just to chase the dream of a big-league career.
Though there have been some reforms in the past five years, Triple-A players still make about $14,000 per year on average. Players in rookie ball and lower levels of the minor-league system can make as little as $4,000 annually. They are not paid during the offseason, and they are not paid during spring training. Just recently, teams have started providing housing for players during spring training as short-term rents over three months in Arizona and Florida could cost most of a minor leaguer’s annual salary. Most players did not receive six/seven-figure signing bonuses and have little financial foundation to work with.
Advocates for Minor Leaguers head Harry Marino calls Manfred’s comments about minor league wages “callous” in a statement. Took less than an hour for them to fire back pic.twitter.com/O4j5EX9WAX
— Chelsea Janes (@chelsea_janes) July 19, 2022
Nothing about that situation is livable, and MLB continues to do all that it can to avoid paying minor leaguers fairly. This latest remark from Manfred understandably had baseball fans ripping the commissioner.