One of the casualties of the COVID-19 pandemic was minor league baseball. Thousands of players were sent home with no promises of a paycheck. Most teams, including the Angels, promised to pay minor league players $400 per week through August.
According to reports, Angels minor league players are saying they have not received their stipend money. Worse, the Angels are the only team to have done this.
Here’s the tweet from Minor League Advocates:
Honestly, I can’t hold back here. This is a new low for Arte and the Angels. A move that makes me question whether I want to continue being a fan as long as Moreno continues to owe the team. These players already live hand-to-mouth providing the team with future talent. To leave them out in the cold when they need help most is inexcusable. Doing so after promising to help them in unconscionable.
One Angels minor leaguer responded to a text, saying, “I was paid 361 dollars August 21st. And that was it for August”
Update: An Angels team spokesperson released a statement tangential to this issue, per Fabian Ardaya:
From an Angels team spokesman:
— Fabian Ardaya (@FabianArdaya) September 2, 2020
“Angels have fully paid all of their minor league contracts for the 2020 season.” https://t.co/VJCJWldAvc
Fully paying minor league contracts is definitely not the same thing as paying $400 per week until the end of August…
Just wondering BTW if the Angels decided to sign undrafted players after all?
I referred to the LaStella NoBatReto Deal as a partial salary dump and I stand by that. Arte was thrilled to not pay a legit major leaguer for another month, based on this very thread.
Here’s some more nuance: https://twitter.com/Alden_Gonzalez/status/1301293867413590016?s=19
Basically, the Angels claim they paid each player what that player would have made in a regular year. The players say the Angels incorrectly assume none of them would have been promoted mid-season. Also, the Angels are the only team to do that.
Clearly giving players $400/week during a pandemic is too much to ask.
I mean, awful.
This franchise is virtually impossible to like sometimes.
Really discourages me from spending any more than I have to at the ballpark.
Would love to know what Arte has contributed to politcal campaigns in the same time period he couldn’t afford to give 20 year olds with nowhere to play baseball an extra $800 like every other freaking team in the sport.
This has always been the Arte Moreno M.O.
He will flush money down the toilet like its nothing on the big league club but has absolute disdain for his ushers, front office employees and minor leaguers. The people who need it the most and cost the least.
Which I simply don’t get. Arte comes from a pretty working class background. Army vet, used his GI bill to go to college. University of Arizona, not Harvard.
I generally assume those of us who grew up working class share a certain set of values, of respect for hard work and the little guy. That we don’t forget where we came from. And that our word is important.
At least that’s the way it is with me. I’m so disappointed to be proven time and again that isn’t the case with Arte.
so did this guy…….didn’t stop him from being a ruthless 19th century robber baron tycoon
Cornelius Vanderbilt
Seems like background isn’t as much a factor as we’d assume. I can think of people born into fabulous wealth who are grateful, humble, and kind to those with less. And then I can think of formerly working class folks who get rich and almost seem to hate the class they came from. People are mysterious.
I’m with you. This makes it really hard to spend any money that would support Arte Moreno.
By the way, the official statement that the contracts were paid is simply an argument that the $400 stipends aren’t owed and the promise isn’t enforceable. It seems pretty clear they weren’t paid.
So now which is it? Did they pay now after it has come to light, or had they already been paying and Advocates For Minor Leaguers has some other reason for claiming they hadn’t been paid? $400.00 per week for however many players in their system should still be peanuts in the grand scheme of their business expenses.
Seems like both statements could be correct if “salary” and “stipends” are different things.
I added an update that I reached out to a minor leaguer in the system who was paid once in August.