Minor Leaguers raise issues with Whitesox application of new housing policy

[bmags]

from this post forward

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

this place is a riot sometimes;

call players entitled and ridicule them for wanting reasonable living conditions and pay - in line with federal labor laws; allowed and reasonable position in the eyes of the poster and moderator.

tell a poster his brain is broken for ridiculing employees for asking for reasonable conditions - comment deleted and poster needs to block because his feelings are hurt.

soxtalk 2022.

Edited July 14, 2022 by Look at Ray Ray Run

[ron883]

5 minutes ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

this place is a riot sometimes;

call players entitled and ridicule them for wanting reasonable living conditions and pay - in line with federal labor laws; allowed and reasonable position in the eyes of the poster and moderator.

tell a poster his brain is broken for ridiculing employees for asking for reasonable conditions - comment deleted and poster needs to block because his feelings are hurt.

soxtalk 2022.

"Facts don't care about your feelings" - Ben Shapiro

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

1 minute ago, ron883 said:

"Facts don't care about your feelings" - Ben Shapiro

"i just love that the players are entitled and soft for wanting reasonable pay and living conditions, but said poster can't even read posts on the internet that he deems mean without getting his feelings hurt leaving the thread and blocking people." - Ray Ray

[southsider2k5]

Here's what I don't get. 

These are supposed to be world class athlete's.    For the Olympics we put them up at multi-million dollar facilities where every single piece of their lives are managed to maximize their performances on the world stage in order so that when the few that survive go to the Olympics, they are taking every single advantage they can find to beat the rest of the world.

For MLB we do this thing where if they can survive cool, but then we wonder why they have to relearn everything once they get to the majors.

Why aren't any MLB owners seeing this as a competitive advantage to attract, maintain, train, and perfect every little advantage they can at the lowest levels, so that by the time they are major leaguers, they are miles ahead of their competition

Diet,  workouts, sleep, sleep patterns, education, etc are all small pieces that can generate potential gains.

But no one seems to see this as a way to take advantage.  Its so weird.

[Dick Allen]

3 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

Here's what I don't get. 

These are supposed to be world class athlete's.    For the Olympics we put them up at multi-million dollar facilities where every single piece of their lives are managed to maximize their performances on the world stage in order so that when the few that survive go to the Olympics, they are taking every single advantage they can find to beat the rest of the world.

For MLB we do this thing where if they can survive cool, but then we wonder why they have to relearn everything once they get to the majors.

Why aren't any MLB owners seeing this as a competitive advantage to attract, maintain, train, and perfect every little advantage they can at the lowest levels, so that by the time they are major leaguers, they are miles ahead of their competition

Diet,  workouts, sleep, sleep patterns, education, etc are all small pieces that can generate potential gains.

But no one seems to see this as a way to take advantage.  Its so weird.

Especially when you are willing to blow $9 million on a couple of months of Yonder Alonso.  The money they waste every year at the major league level would be enough to house and feed minor leaguers in luxury for decades.

I guess the mentality is the vast majority won't make it, but why not give everyone the best chance to do it?

Edited July 14, 2022 by Dick Allen

[southsider2k5]

Just now, Dick Allen said:

Especially when you are willing to blow $9 million on a couple of months of Yonder Alonso.  The money they waste every year at the major league level would be enough to house and feed minor leaguers in luxury for decades.

And all you need to do to pay for it is generate 1 decent player every few years from the extra to save you from free agency.

[chitownsportsfan]

No offense but if you want to live with your spouse or GF you can you know, pay for your own housing. I'm not seeing a lot of outrage at the Sox here. Complain to MLB baseball. There are quite a few things to b**** and complain about with JR, I'm not really seeing "pay for your low level minor league guys' own bedroom" as one of them.

[southsider2k5]

Look gang, we all know the policy against attacks.  I really don't want to suspend anybody for a nothing argument on this topic.

[Iwritecode]

31 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

Here's what I don't get. 

These are supposed to be world class athlete's.    For the Olympics we put them up at multi-million dollar facilities where every single piece of their lives are managed to maximize their performances on the world stage in order so that when the few that survive go to the Olympics, they are taking every single advantage they can find to beat the rest of the world.

For MLB we do this thing where if they can survive cool, but then we wonder why they have to relearn everything once they get to the majors.

Why aren't any MLB owners seeing this as a competitive advantage to attract, maintain, train, and perfect every little advantage they can at the lowest levels, so that by the time they are major leaguers, they are miles ahead of their competition

Diet,  workouts, sleep, sleep patterns, education, etc are all small pieces that can generate potential gains.

But no one seems to see this as a way to take advantage.  Its so weird.

The article is only about how the White Sox do things though. It hints that other organizations do things much differently/better.

[Tony]

2 hours ago, kitekrazy said:

I don't see how this is even related?  I'm going to play bad baseball because of IKEA furniture?  Minor league players use to be housed with people willing to take them.

I can't read the article but the Reinsdorf is cheap bias never ends.  What is slowly happening in sports is the desire to pamper athletes who are yet making it to the big time.  Check other professions in the entertainment industry.  I guess it would be called paying their dues.   Oh like an extended stay is going to use high end furniture?

It is amazing the overhead of owning a MLB club and for a sport that is 3rd in popularity.       

Haven't read the entire thread so not sure if someone else has mentioned this, but consider for a second that Colson Montgomery, someone playing Kannapolis currently, probably is in the Top 3 most valuable assets the Sox could trade in the entire organization. Cease, Robert and Anderson would be the only ones with possibly more value. 

And that's with the Sox having one of, if not the worst farm systems in baseball and supposedly a World Series-ready roster. For a team with a good farm system, those players might make up spots 1-2-3 of a most valuable list. 

Maybe they should be treated just a tad better than they currently are, given how much value they have to the organization? 

[chitownsportsfan]

4 minutes ago, Tony said:

Haven't read the entire thread so not sure if someone else has mentioned this, but consider for a second that Colson Montgomery, someone playing Kannapolis currently, probably is in the Top 3 most valuable assets the Sox could trade in the entire organization. Cease, Robert and Anderson would be the only ones with possibly more value. 

And that's with the Sox having one of, if not the worst farm systems in baseball and supposedly a World Series-ready roster. For a team with a good farm system, those players might make up spots 1-2-3 of a most valuable list. 

Maybe they should be treated just a tad better than they currently are, given how much value they have to the organization? 

Colson Montgomery just got paid a 3 million dollar signing bonus. If he can't afford a 1 bedroom apartment this summer he done goofed up.  MLB needs to just mandate better conditions. I don't blame the Sox for doing what MLB requires. 95% of the guys in Kannapolis are doing it for the love of the game and will never sniff MLB baseball. They are free to pursue other interests. They are not hostages to the Sox.

Now all that said, I do feel they should be compensated better. But again, that's something league wide, not just the Sox.

[JoeC]

59 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

And all you need to do to pay for it is generate 1 decent player every few years from the extra to save you from free agency.

...or to have a few extra trading pieces compared to what you would have had.

All it takes is a 0.1 Leury investment.

[JoeC]

...or, as a coach once told me, you can't make chicken soup out of chicken shit.

[Tony]

17 minutes ago, chitownsportsfan said:

Colson Montgomery just got paid a 3 million dollar signing bonus. If he can't afford a 1 bedroom apartment this summer he done goofed up.  MLB needs to just mandate better conditions. I don't blame the Sox for doing what MLB requires. 95% of the guys in Kannapolis are doing it for the love of the game and will never sniff MLB baseball. They are free to pursue other interests. They are not hostages to the Sox.

Now all that said, I do feel they should be compensated better. But again, that's something league wide, not just the Sox.

This sort of opens up pandora's box though. Ok, they're meeting MLB requirements. They're also meeting MLB requirements by fielding a roster of 26 MLB players, but as fans, we expect more than what they are giving us. We expect the organization to do better. Just because a league sets a bare minimum, we shouldn't accept that amount of effort. 

Value in minor league players has risen SIGNIFICANTLY over the last 10-15 years. A great majority of them don't have value, but the most important ones hold a tremendous amount. And they seemingly haven't adjusted housing situations enough to go in line with that value. 

And again, I'm not going to fault any fan for wanting a little more than the bare minimum from the team they root for.  

[southsider2k5]

32 minutes ago, Tony said:

Haven't read the entire thread so not sure if someone else has mentioned this, but consider for a second that Colson Montgomery, someone playing Kannapolis currently, probably is in the Top 3 most valuable assets the Sox could trade in the entire organization. Cease, Robert and Anderson would be the only ones with possibly more value. 

And that's with the Sox having one of, if not the worst farm systems in baseball and supposedly a World Series-ready roster. For a team with a good farm system, those players might make up spots 1-2-3 of a most valuable list. 

Maybe they should be treated just a tad better than they currently are, given how much value they have to the organization? 

Following up on this, the Sox made a $3 million investment in Colson Montgomery.  Can you imagine buying a 3 million house, but doing no maintenance or upkeep on it?  Why do baseball teams do the same with their minor leaguers.  Already having put $3 million into him, why wouldn't you spend say $10-20k more over the life of his MiLB experience to maximize his chances at being a superstar at the major league level, giving him every single advantage possible?

It isn't about "pampering" or anything else other than protecting your investment.

[Iwritecode]

It's actually incredibly difficult to find news stories about which teams have the best run minor league systems as all the articles are just about ranking the talent rather than how they are taken care of. But here's one about the Dodger's system which seems to be one of the best in all of baseball.

https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/theyre-the-model-how-the-dodgers-player-development-machine-rolls-on/

 

[chitownsportsfan]

15 minutes ago, Tony said:

This sort of opens up pandora's box though. Ok, they're meeting MLB requirements. They're also meeting MLB requirements by fielding a roster of 26 MLB players, but as fans, we expect more than what they are giving us. We expect the organization to do better. Just because a league sets a bare minimum, we shouldn't accept that amount of effort. 

Value in minor league players has risen SIGNIFICANTLY over the last 10-15 years. A great majority of them don't have value, but the most important ones hold a tremendous amount. And they seemingly haven't adjusted housing situations enough to go in line with that value. 

And again, I'm not going to fault any fan for wanting a little more than the bare minimum from the team they root for.  

Neither am I. I'm just not ready to go to the mattresses here. More revenue should get into the hands of the minor league players -- but most of them are guys that out of HS or Juco or college chose to continue pro ball because it's fun, ladies love it, and hey chase the dream. They can go sell cars or insurance (and most of them will be very successful at that) whenever they want but they choose to stay in low level pro baseball for the reasons I listed.  Every job or career path has pros and cons, especially at an entry level. I hope one day more money trickles down to them, but in the current world we live in I personally will save my outrage for economic situations other than low level minor league guys not having their own bedrooms if they choose to utilize the club's provided housing.

[Dick Allen]

1 hour ago, chitownsportsfan said:

No offense but if you want to live with your spouse or GF you can you know, pay for your own housing. I'm not seeing a lot of outrage at the Sox here. Complain to MLB baseball. There are quite a few things to b**** and complain about with JR, I'm not really seeing "pay for your low level minor league guys' own bedroom" as one of them.

Most A ball players make $500 a week, AA $600 a week, AAA $700 a week, and that is only during the season. Getting your own place is going to trim the food budget to cat food. The guys who received big bonuses should be fine, but the vast majority can’t do it.

[Tony]

19 minutes ago, chitownsportsfan said:

Neither am I. I'm just not ready to go to the mattresses here. More revenue should get into the hands of the minor league players -- but most of them are guys that out of HS or Juco or college chose to continue pro ball because it's fun, ladies love it, and hey chase the dream. They can go sell cars or insurance (and most of them will be very successful at that) whenever they want but they choose to stay in low level pro baseball for the reasons I listed.  Every job or career path has pros and cons, especially at an entry level. I hope one day more money trickles down to them, but in the current world we live in I personally will save my outrage for economic situations other than low level minor league guys not having their own bedrooms if they choose to utilize the club's provided housing.

I guess I can walk and chew bubble gum at the same time. Not everything has to be the biggest deal in the world. You can disagree with how things are being handled but also not be as cut and dry and say "THIS IS THE WORST THING IN THE WORLD." I don't think anyone has done that here. 

Yes, there are bigger issues to be upset about. But who is keeping track of this made up list? You can only think X amount of things are wrong, and when the list fills up, you just will overlook other issues? 

I just think you're being stubborn for no reason. 

[CentralChamps21]

12 minutes ago, Dick Allen said:

Most A ball players make $500 a week, AA $600 a week, AAA $700 a week, and that is only during the season. Getting your own place is going to trim the food budget to cat food. The guys who received big bonuses should be fine, but the vast majority can’t do it.

Just to put this into context, if you make $500/week and have to be at the ballpark for 5 hours a day, 6 days a week, that's $16.67/hour. Minimum wage in some states/cities is $15.

[JoeC]

Then subtract the clubhouse dues, surcharges for leasing a short-term apartment, . . . .

[bmags]

1 hour ago, Dick Allen said:

Most A ball players make $500 a week, AA $600 a week, AAA $700 a week, and that is only during the season. Getting your own place is going to trim the food budget to cat food. The guys who received big bonuses should be fine, but the vast majority can’t do it.

Exactly. And let’s remember this isn’t a situation where all that matters is you get people that try hard and want to play ball. That doesn’t cut it.

Sox are competing with the best orgs in the world for the best talent in the world. And they are acting like they are competing against the best talent in the world.

[South Side Hit Men]

1 hour ago, Iwritecode said:

It's actually incredibly difficult to find news stories about which teams have the best run minor league systems as all the articles are just about ranking the talent rather than how they are taken care of. But here's one about the Dodger's system which seems to be one of the best in all of baseball.

https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/theyre-the-model-how-the-dodgers-player-development-machine-rolls-on/

Compare and contrast to the White Sox, who provide minor leaguers slum housing arrangements, and have creepy pederasts like Omar Vizquel groom disabled children while other coaches like Wes Helms watch and laugh while it's happening.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons team development ranks among the worst in baseball year in and year out. 

Here come the Sox, the Mighty White Sox

Take the attack, Yeah, and we'll back you White Sox....... 

[caulfield12]

3 hours ago, southsider2k5 said:

Here's what I don't get. 

These are supposed to be world class athlete's.    For the Olympics we put them up at multi-million dollar facilities where every single piece of their lives are managed to maximize their performances on the world stage in order so that when the few that survive go to the Olympics, they are taking every single advantage they can find to beat the rest of the world.

For MLB we do this thing where if they can survive cool, but then we wonder why they have to relearn everything once they get to the majors.

Why aren't any MLB owners seeing this as a competitive advantage to attract, maintain, train, and perfect every little advantage they can at the lowest levels, so that by the time they are major leaguers, they are miles ahead of their competition

Diet,  workouts, sleep, sleep patterns, education, etc are all small pieces that can generate potential gains.

But no one seems to see this as a way to take advantage.  Its so weird.

Because the teams always shared or outsourced this responsibility with the independently owned minor league affiliates.

Below the AA/AAA level, there aren’t huge profits and there are frequently losses, although franchise values continue to escalate.

The biggest concerns clubs used to have was simply the safety of the playing surface, locker rooms and training facilities.

 

Essentially, the major league teams would have to buy those owners out.

Or what has happened to the Clintons and Burlington’s in the past couple decades…they simply disappeared.  Further cost cutting.

 

I made it part of my job to help all the Latin American players (especially Dominican) players with finding apartments to rent and even ordering at McDonald’s or providing rides home from the ballpark (for home games), but it was always so messy with players coming in and out constantly, tracking people down for utilities or phone charges (when there were land lines and they used intl long distance constantly), it was a massive headache for both affiliates and their players who were of course owned by the MLB affiliates.  Things are better now, but the lower level teams, a lot of the season ticket holders essentially took care of the players.  And, as noted, married players or those with fiancé’s or gf’s staying with them the entire summer created a whole separate array of problems.  It reinforced the cliques from the beginning, mostly by nationality. First round picks had fancy cars, no roommates and a luxurious lifestyle while the money lasted…relievers stuck together, Christians who didn’t like to go out every night, etc.