Royals will pay their minor-league players, won’t cut any, despite new MLB mini-trend
This year’s minor-league baseball season is in serious doubt because of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, but the Kansas City Royals will continue pay their minor-league players through the end of the season.
Royals general manager Dayton Moore confirmed during a video call with reporters Friday afternoon that the club will continue to pay its minor-leaguers and will not release any of them during the pandemic. MLB Network’s Jon Heyman first reported the Royals’ plans.
Moore said he has been “fortunate and blessed” to work with Royals chairman and CEO John Sherman and the rest of the investors in the ownership group that took over the franchise in November. He described their conversations about how to handle payment of minor-league players as very easy.
“The minor-league player, the players that you’ll never know about, the players that never get out of rookie ball or High-A, those players have as much impact on the growth of our game as 10-year, 15-year veteran players,” Moore said.
“They have as much opportunity to influence the growth of our game as those individuals that play for a long time because those are the individuals that go back into their communities and teach the game. They work in academies. They’re junior college coaches. They’re college coaches. They’re scouts. They coach in professional baseball. They’re growing the game constantly because they’re so passionate about it.”
In March, MLB announced that all minor-league players would continue to be paid through May 31 — their minimum stipend is believed to have been $400 per week — and receive medical benefits.
In recent days, several Major League Baseball organizations reportedly released a flurry of players. Others had committed to paying players through only a portion of the minor-league regular season, which typically extends to Labor Day.
The Seattle Mariners reportedly released more than 30 minor-leaguers from contracts this week, while the Oakland Athletics reportedly informed their minor-league players they would not be paid after May 31.
“We felt it was really, really important not to release one minor-league player during this period of time, a time when we needed to stand behind them,” Moore said. “The weekly amount that they get, truthfully, is not a whole lot of money. It’s not my money, let me just preface that, but in the scheme of things it’s not like they’re getting rich. John Sherman understood that from the very beginning.”
MLB suspended all spring training on March 12, and spring training facilities were shut down in the days that followed.
The Royals continued to allow minor-league players who couldn’t make it home, particularly those from Venezuela, to use the conditioning field and batting cages and throw side sessions at their facility in Arizona. They’ve shuffled through in groups of four or fewer.
Royals second baseman Nicky Lopez, the organization’s minor-league player of the year in 2018, reacted to the news that minor-leaguers would continue to get paid in a tweet that read, “Proud to be a Royal!”
Royals relief pitcher and Lee’s Summit native Trevor Rosenthal tweeted, “Definitely speaks to the heart and soul of this ownership and front office. Proud to be apart of this group right now. KC should be a proud city today as well. Good things to come.”
This story was originally published May 29, 2020 at 3:12 PM with the headline "Royals will pay their minor-league players, won’t cut any, despite new MLB mini-trend."
