SI's Bri Amaranthus and Chris Halicke discuss the latest happenings with baseball players salaries amid the coronavirus shutdown.
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00:00We are all hoping and optimistic that there will be a 2020 MLB season, but if there isn't, or if it is condensed, which it could very likely be, how would that affect players' salaries?
00:14Well, player salaries are a big thing, obviously, and thankfully for the players, in the agreement that they do have with Major League Baseball right now, they will get, at least when it comes to the Major League side, they will get some sort of income in 2020, even if the worst-case scenario plays out and there is no baseball season.
00:34What that is right now is $170 million given to the Players Association for them to divvy up into different tiers of players, and pretty much as an advance on their salary for right now, and if a season is played, then it'll just go as an advance to their salary, and if there is no season, then they keep whatever money that is as their income for 2020.
01:02On the Minor League side of things, you have many, many minor league players that aren't protected by a players' union or anything like that, and so Major League Baseball did come to an agreement to pay these minor league players $400 a week through the end of May, and it's definitely not something that they can rely on like they would normally get or anything like that.
01:30But it is something, and then you have guys like Rangers outfielder Shinsu Chu, who is also aiding and taking care of the minor league players as well, whenever he donated $1,000 to each of the 190-plus minor leaguers in the Rangers organization.
01:46So that's a really, really great thing. You're seeing players help out the minor leaguers. Hopefully, you'll get to see more players follow suit and help out those guys as well. Salaries are a big thing right now, not just in baseball, but just in the world in general right now. A lot of people are out of work because of this, and baseball players are also affected by it.