After news broke that the Washington Nationals were planning to cut minor leaguers' pay from $400 to $300 a week for the month of June, Nats players committed to covering the stipend reductions on their own. Now, the Nationals have reversed their decision and announced that they will be paying minor-league players their full stipend.
Nationals reliever Sean Doolittle had announced the plan to aid Washington's minor leaguers on Twitter:
After hearing that Nationals minor league players are facing additional pay cuts, the current members of the Washington Nationals Major League Baseball club will be coming together and committing funds to make whole the lost wages from their weekly stipends.
All of us were minor leaguers at one point in our careers and we know how important the weekly stipends are for them and their families during these uncertain times.
Minor leaguers are an essential part of our organization and they are bearing the heaviest burden of this situation as their season is likely to be cancelled. We recognize that and want to stand with them and show our support.
Doolittle said the players had a Zoom call and the decision to help the organization's minor leaguers was unanimous.
As part of a March agreement with the MLB Players Association, MLB had committed to paying all minor league players $400 a week through May, but with the agreement's expiration, clubs are making individual decisions regarding minor leaguers. The Oakland Athletics told their minor league players that their weekly stipends would end in June.
The Kansas City Royals, Minnesota Twins, Houston Astros, Cincinnati Reds, Red Sox and Pittsburgh Pirates have committed to paying their minor-league players their current weekly $400 stipend and receive benefits through Aug. 31, which is when the 2020 Minor League Baseball season was scheduled to reach its conclusion.
The reduced pay also comes after teams are collectively expected to release hundreds of minor leaguers, with most organizations cutting somewhere between 30 and 50 players. The Nationals reportedly cut 40 minor leaguers.
In a typical year, teams release a dozen or more players heading into the season as a means of clearing space and giving those who were waived a chance to latch on elsewhere. But with the spread of the novel coronavirus forcing the league to shut down weeks before the start of the season, it has left MLB teams with larger rosters than they would have otherwise had at this point in the year.
Both Los Angeles Dodgers lefty David Price and Texas Rangers outfielder Shin-Soo Cho have pledged to pay all of the minor-league players in their respective organizations $1,000 during the shutdown.
