Spring Training, February 2023. A 22-year-old outfield prospect named Marcus Rivera (not his real name, but his situation is real and documented dozens of times over) wakes up at 6:15 a.m. in a host family’s spare bedroom in Peoria, Arizona. He has a 97 mph fastball. He has a .312 batting average from his first full season in Low-A. He also has $11.23 left in his checking account until Friday. His monthly salary: $800.
That number is not a typo.
According to a 2022 report by Advocates for Minor Leaguers, the average Low-A player earned between $400 and $700 per month during the regular season prior to the 2021 wage increase. After MLB’s much-publicized pay raise under the 2022 Collective Bargaining Agreement, Low-A minimums rose to roughly $19,800 annually — but only during the roughly five-month season. Off-season earnings: zero. Benefits: minimal. Housing: often crowded, often volunteer-based, often a stranger’s couch dressed up with a fitted sheet.
Here is what the numbers tell us: MLB generated $10.8 billion in revenue in 2022, according to Forbes. The league’s 30 franchises collectively employ approximately 6,000 minor leaguers at any given time. Do the math on what a fraction of that revenue would mean for those athletes. Then ask yourself: have you ever actually checked what your favorite prospect earned last season?
The Scale of the Problem Is Bigger Than One Sad Story
Rivera’s story is not the outlier. It is the norm. A 2021 study by the Economic Policy Institute found that minor league baseball players earned a median wage equivalent to roughly $7.50 per hour when total seasonal hours were factored in — well below the federal minimum wage of $7.25, and a rounding error compared to what their labor generates.
The sport’s development pipeline requires players to spend an average of three to five years in the minors before reaching the majors, according to Baseball Reference’s historical service time data. Three to five years. During that window, many players are 19 to 25 years old, living far from home, unable to hold second jobs during the season due to travel schedules and mandatory team activities, and completely prohibited from marketing their own likeness in most minor league contracts until recent NCAA-adjacent rule shifts began to bleed into professional ball.
Have you ever looked up your team’s top prospect on Baseball Reference and checked his service time clock? Pull it up right now. Look at how long he has been in the system. You will feel that number differently after reading this.
Did You Know: In 2021, MLB eliminated 40 minor league teams as part of a restructuring deal with affiliates. Approximately 1,000 minor league roster spots disappeared overnight. The league called it “modernization.” Players called it what it was: fewer jobs, fewer paths, more pressure on the ones who remained.
Why This Keeps Happening (And Why Fans Let It)
The reason this system has survived so long without serious public revolt comes down to one word: mythology.
Baseball has constructed one of the most durable cultural narratives in American sports: the grind. The bus rides. The small towns. The character-building struggle before the lights get bright. It is a genuinely compelling story. Scouts tell it. Broadcasters love it. Movies get made about it.
I have heard the “process builds players” argument from three different team executives at industry events. It sounds much better in a conference room than it does in a host family’s spare bedroom at 6:15 in the morning with $11 in your account.
The mythology serves a financial function. It reframes poverty wages as romantic rites of passage. It turns exploitation into a storyline. And for decades, it worked. Players internalized it. Fans celebrated it. Congress largely ignored it — because MLB’s antitrust exemption, granted by the Supreme Court in 1922 in Federal Baseball Club v. National League, meant the league operated outside the competitive labor market rules that govern virtually every other industry in America.
That exemption is the root of the problem. No ability to negotiate freely. No power to walk away to a competing league that might pay more. No external pressure forcing the market to correct. Just a closed system, a development mythology, and billions flowing upward.
Warning: The Save America’s Pastime Act of 2018 explicitly exempted minor league players from federal minimum wage protections. It passed with almost no public debate. MLB lobbied for it. It was repealed as part of the 2022 CBA reforms — but the antitrust exemption itself remains untouched. The structural problem is still there.
The Counterargument (I’ve Heard It, and Here’s My Problem With It)
Side B: The Front Office Case
Teams will tell you the math is more complicated. And honestly? Some of it is. Organizations invest millions in player development infrastructure: coaching staffs, training facilities, nutrition programs, travel costs, equipment. Many argue that the total compensation package, when non-cash benefits are included, is more competitive than the base salary figures suggest.
The development timeline argument has some merit too. Not every minor leaguer is going to reach the majors. Statistically, fewer than 10 percent of drafted players ever appear in an MLB game, according to Baseball America’s 2023 draft analysis. Teams take on real financial risk developing players who never return that investment.
I don’t dismiss that entirely. Running a minor league operation is not cheap.
But here is where the argument falls apart for me: the players carry all the downside and none of the upside. If a prospect fails to develop, the team releases him and moves on. If he succeeds, the team controls his rights for six-plus years of service time before he reaches free agency, suppressing his market value during what are statistically his most productive athletic years. The risk is shared. The reward is not.
Pro Tip: If you want to understand the full scope of minor league compensation across every organization, go to minorleaguers.org and check their salary tracker. The variation between organizations is significant. Some teams have made genuine voluntary improvements. Others have done the bare minimum required by the CBA. You can see which is which.
What Fans Actually Need to Know Right Now
The stat that changes everything: According to a 2023 report from Advocates for Minor Leaguers, even after the 2022 wage increases, the average minor league player still earns below the poverty line for a single adult in most markets where teams are located, when adjusted for seasonal employment and cost of living.
This is not a distant policy problem. Every ticket you buy, every jersey you wear, every streaming subscription you pay for funds the system exactly as it currently operates. That is not a guilt trip. That is a fact about where the money flows.
What fans actually need to know is that this issue has a political fix within reach. The antitrust exemption repeal has bipartisan support in concept. The Fairness in Antitrust in National Sports (FANS) Act has been introduced in Congress multiple times. It has not passed. It keeps not passing because MLB lobbies aggressively against it and because public pressure has never been loud enough or sustained enough to force the vote.
That changes when fans decide it matters. It has not changed yet. But the groundwork exists. The advocacy organizations exist. The legislative language exists.
The only thing missing is volume.
Your Next 3 Steps
Step 1: Go to advocatesforminorleaguers.org right now and read their current salary tracker. Find your team. Find the level. See exactly what a player in your organization’s Low-A affiliate is earning this season. Put a real number to the jersey you’re wearing.
Step 2: Look up your team’s top three minor league prospects on Baseball Reference. Check how long each one has been in the system. Calculate the years. Then look at what an equivalent developmental athlete in the NBA G League or NFL practice squad earns during the same window. The comparison will do the work.
Step 3: Contact your congressional representative and ask them directly where they stand on repealing MLB’s antitrust exemption. The Save America’s Pastime Act repeal was a start. The antitrust fight is the real one. Representatives respond to constituent volume. Find your rep at house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative and send the message today. One email is nothing. Ten thousand emails is a hearing.
