The class action filed in Federal Court is part of an effort to change Major League Baseball‘s “farm” system for recruiting talent.
The system used by Major League Baseball (MLB) since 1965 to identify and develop prospects in the minor leagues results in the labor exploitation of players, raises a lawsuit filed in the United States Court for the District of Puerto Rico that seeks to cover all minor league players and the professional organization is found to be in violation of antitrust laws.
The lawsuit is part of a series of other similar lawsuits that have been active since at least 2014 and seek changes to the “farm system” that feeds off the minor leagues. The legal actions are encouraged by recent expressions of the Supreme Court that are interpreted against the exemption that the same court granted to MLB in 1922 to remove it from the application of federal antitrust laws.
The lawsuit is against MLB commissioner Rob Manfred and the 30 professional teams that make up the league. The plaintiff is the pitcher Daniel Concepcion, who has played with the Criollos de Caguas and the Kansas City Royals, but, if accepted by the court, intends to represent all players who were or are in the minor leagues from 2012 onwards.
The main allegation is that MLB and the owners of professional teams have acted in concert to create a monopsony in the minor leagues, which is an economic concept that describes a situation in which there is only one buyer for a certain product.
The lawsuit alleges that this product is the players and that the only buyer is MLB and the owners of professional teams through the agreements they have reached to subject these players to a contract that represents the only opportunity they have to reach the majors. , but it also ties them to a scheme in which they are prohibited from negotiating with a team other than the one assigned for seven years and are paid sub-minimum salaries, among other onerous conditions.
“Without players, the MLB and the teams would not exist. However, MLB and its franchises pay the majority of the players, which are the minor leaguers, depressed compensation,” the letter ensures.
Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred.
Photo: mlb.com
Although the final figures will depend on the discovery of evidence, the document indicates that these agreements set minor league salaries at $1,100 per month for “rookies”, $1,250 for Class A teams, $1,500 for Double A teams and $2,150 for Triple A teams. But this Salary is only for five months a year, the regular-season months, even though the contract requires players to participate in year-round events, like spring training and potential postseasons. During the regular season, it is a full-time equivalent job.
Unlike the players of the majors, those of the minor leagues do not have a union that represents them before the team owners and MLB, for which they are regularly “exploited”, according to the brief before federal judge Aida Delgado Colón.
Typically, prospects enter the “farm” via “draft” between the ages of 18-22. In that exercise, a major league franchise acquires them through a contract that is the same for all and that prohibits them from negotiating with teams other than the one that selected them. At that young age, the average player is not represented by lawyers but by so-called “scouts” who are usually former players with corporations dedicated to identifying prospects. Players of Hispanic background, such as Puerto Ricans, make up about 40 percent of minor league players, according to the lawsuit.
“For the next seven years, the MLB team controls the rights to the minor league player. By the expiration date of the contract, much of that player’s value as a prospect has been extinguished by age,” it is stated about the arrangement that Some 6,000 players play across 160 minor teams across the United States each year.
These conditions contrast with the economic value generated by MLB, translated into revenues of $12.4 billion, an average value of $2 billion per franchise, income from national television rights of $1.84 billion and local television rights of $2.1 billion.
“There are no legitimate, pro-competitive justifications for these monopolistic restrictions on compensation and the inability of minor league players to offer their services to teams that compete for them and pay them higher compensation. Major League franchises they lose the ability to build more competitive teams, fans miss out on enjoying a better baseball product, and the economy misses out on the increased tax revenue, jobs, and economic growth that would come from expanding the purchasing power of the minor league player,” he argues. Concepción in the lawsuit filed by lawyers from California, Illinois and Puerto Rico.
To see the demand, click here.
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