Texas Rangers Committed to No Layoffs or Furloughs of Baseball Operations Employees Through End of May
Editor's Note: This story has been updated since originally published.
The Texas Rangers are committed to pay their baseball operations employees through the end of May, a team source tells InsideTheRangers.com.
A report from ESPN on Thursday morning said that the Rangers were the "first known team not to commit to paying baseball-operations employees through the end of May." However, a Rangers executive confirms that the club will not layoff or furlough any of its employees through at least the end of May.
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 is no way forces clubs to do so, but it gives teams the ability to make difficult decisions for relief from financial crisis amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Regarding the Rangers, the fluidity of the situation will dictate what steps they take. However, ownership is taking every step necessary to prevent employee layoffs and furloughs, viewing it as a last resort. The team is committed to keeping everyone employed through the end of May and potentially further.
In a move to help brace for financial stress from the major loss of revenue, Rangers club executives took a 20% pay cut earlier this month to provide relief from the lack of revenue during the shutdown. There still looms the possibility of further pay reductions, but no decision has been made yet regarding further employee pay reductions. If any pay cuts are eventually decided, they will not go into effect until May 15.
"We've had no salary reductions for anybody other than the executives through at least May 15, and it may be longer than that," Rangers General Manager Jon Daniels said via conference call on Monday. "Our intent is to avoid any sort of layoffs or furloughs as long as possible – and indefinitely, if that's possible."
"We haven't put a deadline or timeframe on that piece," Daniels continued. "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?"
Major League Baseball brought in $10.7 billion of revenue in 2019. With the season currently on hold for the foreseeable future, the loss of many sources of revenue has taken its toll on MLB clubs. Under normal circumstances, teams would already have brought in nearly a month's worth of regular season revenue. The season was originally scheduled to begin on March 26.
How this situation progresses will ultimately dictate any drastic steps Rangers ownership may take. The fluidity of the pandemic makes the future impossible to predict. We could see baseball at some point this summer or the regular season could be canceled altogether. The survival of many MLB jobs hang in the balance amid the crisis caused by COVID-19.
For now, the Rangers are committed to keeping everyone employed.
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