Report: MLB Lawyer Argues Minor Leaguers Should Not Be Paid During Spring Training

A lawyer for Major League Baseball said in federal court on Friday that minor league players should not be paid during spring training, according to a report from Evan Drellich of The Athletic.

The lawyer said that minor leaguers should not be paid because they should be considered trainees.

The talking point was part of a larger argument for MLB as the league tried to get an eight-year-old lawsuit regarding minor league compensation thrown out. MLB is a defendant in a class-action lawsuit that is set to begin trial on June 1. 

“It is the players that obtain the greater benefit from the training opportunities that they are afforded than the clubs, who actually just incur the cost of having that training,” argued Elise Bloom, the legal representative assisting Major League Baseball.

“During the training season, the players are not employees, and would not be subject to either the Fair Labor Standards Act or any state minimum wage act.”

Garrett Broshuis, a lawyer for Korein Tillery, is a former minor league player who is the legal representative for the players. Broshuis pushed back on Bloom's assertion.

“All of a sudden they aren’t employees during the time periods where we call it ‘training,’ even though they’re operating under the same employment contract that requires them to perform services, quote, ‘throughout the calendar year,’” Broshuis said.

The arguments made in court on Friday against the pay of minor leaguers is an extension on statements made by MLB representatives in court last year. 

A year ago, Denise Martin, a senior vice president at NERA Economic Consulting, wrote to the court on behalf of MLB. Martin stated that players participating in spring training receive a $2,200 weekly value from their teams.

“This figure is an estimate of the costs plaintiffs would have had to incur had they attended a baseball prospecting camp instead of participating in the minor leagues,” Martin said at the time.

Bloom, who represented MLB in court on Friday, said last year in an argument against player pay that players “gained generally beneficial life skills from their time in the minor leagues.”

It’s important to note that while the owners and MLB Players Association continue to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement that will inevitably impact player pay, the agreement will not directly impact minor league players, as minor leaguers are not part of MLB Players Association.