Phillies’ Mark Appel offers MLB simple solutions to key MiLB issues
Phillies minor-leaguer Mark Appel’s latest Twitter thread offers logical solutions to key MiLB issues
Philadelphia Phillies minor-leaguer Mark Appel wants to help Major League Baseball solve its Minor League Baseball problems, which seem to be getting worse by the day.
In a thoughtful and logical Twitter thread on Tuesday, the self-proclaimed ‘Career minor leaguer’ laid out the biggest hardships minor leaguers must endure and overcome if they want a chance at reaching the majors.
Career minor leaguer here.
— Mark Appel (@markappel26) February 15, 2022
My thoughts on minor league baseball’s problems and potential solutions:
Okay, let’s get to it…
— Mark Appel (@markappel26) February 15, 2022
The biggest issue everyone talks about is salary.
Some context:
- Minor league baseball players have to play about 7 seasons before they become free agents.
But I think the salary discussion speaks to the deeper issue: the stress of choosing between performance and survival.
— Mark Appel (@markappel26) February 15, 2022
Hear me out...
Baseball is a difficult sport and needs your utmost attention and focus to succeed.
The simpler your life, the better.
I think the three biggest decisions players worry about are:
— Mark Appel (@markappel26) February 15, 2022
- housing
- food
- off-season training
The goal should be to simplify these decisions and remove the barriers of making good choices.
Here’s how I’d do it:
2. Hotel
— Mark Appel (@markappel26) February 15, 2022
- Pros: convenient; no commitments
- Cons: too expensive for most (think $60/night on the cheap end)
In my 6 years, I’ve never been in a minor league city for more than 3.5 months, so I opt for hotels.
But most can’t afford that route.
FOOD
— Mark Appel (@markappel26) February 15, 2022
Players need to be able to find and afford food with nutritional value for performance.
Current Options:
1. Cook
- Pros: cheaper; ability to control healthy intake
- Cons: takes lots of planning/food prep; can only cook during home series AND IF you have a kitchen
I firmly believe that teams want to do this well.
— Mark Appel (@markappel26) February 15, 2022
Leaving food entirely up to the players is almost impossible because of the daily schedule.
My short answer is that teams should do everything in-house…
OFFSEASON
— Mark Appel (@markappel26) February 15, 2022
Players need training, housing AND food, but nobody is getting paid.
One of my biggest gripes with how MLB organizations run their minor league offseason is their “half-in, half-out” approach.
Many workout in the morning and work odd, low paying jobs (Uber, cashiers, etc) in evenings to make their dream work.
— Mark Appel (@markappel26) February 15, 2022
Workouts take place in retail gyms like Planet Fitness or 24 Hour.
Throw into a net, hit off a tee, build your own mound.
Players get creative.
At the end of the day, I think MLB teams should have this approach:
— Mark Appel (@markappel26) February 15, 2022
“Treat players with professionalism and expect professionalism in return.”
When MiLB players retire because they can’t afford it, even though they have the talent, it’s worse for baseball.
Comment below to let me know your thoughts! 👇
— Mark Appel (@markappel26) February 15, 2022
Also, share this and give me a follow @markappel26 if you found this interesting (regardless of your opinion!!)
Appel’s thread is thought-out, sensible, polite, and self-aware. He acknowledges that as a former top draft pick (the Houston Astros selected him first overall in 2013), he is in a far better financial position than most of his peers, a large portion of whom are living under the poverty line, meaning they make less than $13,000 per year. As a top draft pick, his paycheck is an outlier, the exception to the norm of being a minor leaguer.
The big payday did not prevent Appel from struggling in other ways, though it certainly alleviated one of the greatest hardships his teammates endured. He’s been traded (the Phillies acquired him in the Ken Giles trade), gotten injured, needed surgery, been designated for assignment, stepped away from the game in 2018, and returned last year to attempt a comeback. And on top of it all, the pressure of making good as the number-one pick was immense; less than half a decade after being chosen before anyone else, Appel was labeled “the biggest draft bust” in MLB history.
All this to say, rare is the MLB player who has an easy journey through the minor leagues.
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Regardless, the solutions Appel proposes are nothing new. It’s basic logic that people should be treated like human beings at their place of work, paid a living wage to do their jobs, and that if an employer wants their employees to succeed, they will do everything to eliminate obstacles, rather than piling them in front of their path. Yet somehow, these concepts are foreign and ridiculous to MLB, which has done everything it can to continue underpaying minor leaguers.
What the media, fans, and players are seeing (and have been seeing for decades) is the mistreatment of their fellow human beings. The structure of the minor leagues is not only unsustainable, but morally bankrupt and unacceptable.
The good news is that there are simple solutions, as Appel laid out in his thread. The only question is if the billionaires at the top will finally do the right thing.
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