Report: Coronavirus Crisis Forces Texas Rangers to Implement Salary Reductions to Half Of Its Staff
The Texas Rangers have informed their full-time employees there will be salary reductions after May 15, according to the Dallas Morning News.
According to the report, about half of the Rangers' baseball and business operations employees will see reductions of 10-20 percent based on salary. Employees under a specific salary would remain immune to this round of salary reductions.
Earlier this week, The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal reported Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred would suspend Uniform Employee Contracts, allowing its clubs to furlough employees or reduce their pay. This action does not require clubs to do so, but it gives teams the ability to make difficult decisions for relief from financial crisis amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.
In a move to help brace for financial stress from the major loss of revenue, Rangers club executives took a 20 percent pay cut earlier this month to provide relief from the lack of revenue during the shutdown. The team was hoping to avoid pay reductions altogether, but with over a month of the season lost so far, revenue streams have seemingly forced their hand.
The decision to implement salary reductions is made in effort to avoid layoffs and furloughs for as long as possible.
"Our intent is to avoid any sort of layoffs or furloughs as long as possible – and indefinitely, if that's possible," Rangers General Manager Jon Daniels said via conference call earlier this week. "We haven't put a deadline or timeframe on that piece. Our hope is that there is no decision point on that specific piece of it. It's all predicated on the variety of factors, the biggest one is when the season restarts on what does that look like?"
A Rangers executive told SI's InsideTheRangers.com earlier this week that the club will not layoff or furlough its baseball operations employees through at least the end of May.
The Rangers are among the first few teams in MLB to expand their pay reductions. The Padres have implemented pay cuts to their baseball operations employees beginning in May, and the Mets have plans set in place to reduce all of their full-time employee's pay effective June 1, season or no season.
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