Happy Opening Day 2018!

It’s finally here. REAL baseball that counts in the standings is finally happening today!

Weather permitting, at 3:05 today (2:05 for those of you NOT sunning yourselves in Florida, of course), the Minnesota Twins and Baltimore Orioles will get the 2018 party started at Camden Yards in Baltimore.

I have to admit, I’ve gone back and forth in my mind this month concerning just how good this year’s Twins could be.

One day, I look at all the excellent work the front office has done with adding critical pieces, especially in the pitching area, and can’t help but be optimistic that the Twins will return to the postseason come October.

The next day, I look at just how good Cleveland’s rotation is and wonder whether the Twins have any chance at all.

Then I realize that Minnesota will get to play about a gazillion games against the Tigers, Royals and White Sox and my optimism returns… at least until I also realize that Cleveland also plays those three teams as many times as the Twins will.

And what if the White Sox young “can’t miss” prospects accelerate that organization’s own development curve?

But then again, if Cleveland has any bad luck at all, the Twins should be right on their heels this season, ready to pounce at the opportunity to steal an AL Central Division title.

See what I mean? My head just spins when I think about this stuff.

Thankfully, all of the “what if” crap can finally be replaced by watching the season all play out on the field.

Let’s get this show on the road!

One More Ft. Myers Minor League Photos Post

It’s hard to believe I’ve been in Ft. Myers for almost a month, but come Friday, I’ll be packed up and headed back to Cedar Rapids. In a matter of days, the Cedar Rapids Kernels will be introducing the Opening Day roster and a short time later, they’ll be suiting up to begin their Midwest League season under new manager Toby Gardenhire.

But for now, here are another few (actually, more than a few) final pictures from the back fields in Ft. Myers. I’ve never had anyone tell me I’ve posted too many pictures in a post here, but this may be the post that puts the limit to the test.

I’m hearing that the Twins have released a number of minor leaguers over the past couple of days, but I have not heard or seen a complete list, so it’s quite possible that some of these guys have gotten some bad news since I took these photos. That’s the unfortunate part of the business of baseball.

Travis Blankenhorn (Photo: SD Buhr)
Shane Carrier (Photo: SD Buhr)
Jermaine Curtis (Photo: SD Buhr)
Zack Jones (Photo: SD Buhr)
Levi Michael (Photo: SD Buhr)
Sean Miller (Photo: SD Buhr)
Max Murphy (Photo: SD Buhr)
Brian Navarreto (Photo: SD Buhr)
Williams Ramirez (Photo: SD Buhr)
James Ramsey (Photo: SD Buhr)
Leonardo Reginatto (Photo: SD Buhr)
Brent Rooker gets some instruction at first base from Justin Morneau (Photo: SD Buhr)
Wynston Sawyer (Photo: SD Buhr)
Cody Stashak (Photo: SD Buhr)
Ryan Walker (Photo: SD Buhr)
Tommy Watkins (Photo: SD Buhr)
Jaylin Davis (Photo: SD Buhr)
Tanner English (Photo: SD Buhr)
Stephen Gonsalves with Sean Miller at SS behind him (Photo: SD Buhr)
Caleb Hamilton (Photo: SD Buhr)
Brandon Lopez (Photo: SD Buhr)
Alex Perez (Photo: SD Buhr)
Fernando Romero (Photo: SD Buhr)
Brent Rooker (Photo: SD Buhr)
Ryan Walker (Photo: SD Buhr)
Max Cordy (Photo: SD Buhr)
Colton Davis (Photo: SD Buhr)
Eddie Del Rosario (Photo: SD Buhr)
Taylor Grzelakowski (Photo: SD Buhr)
Blair Lakso (Photo: SD Buhr)
Royce Lewis with the play at shortstop (Photo: SD Buhr)
Jose Miranda (Photo: SD Buhr)
Ariel Monetesino with a safe slide into second base (Photo: SD Buhr)
Ben Rodriguez (Photo: SD Buhr)
Ben Rortvedt (Photo: SD Buhr)
Carson Crites (Photo: SD Buhr)
TJ Dixon (Photo: SD Buhr)
Calvin Faucher (Photo: SD Buhr)
Jordan Gore (Photo:SD Buhr)
Kolton Kendrick (Photo: SD Buhr)
Royce Lewis (Photo: SD Buhr)
Jose Martinez (Photo: SD Buhr)
One of these guys is Seth Stohs of TwinsDaily and the other is Twins IF prospect Jose Miranda. I’ll leave it to you to figure out which is which. (Photo: SD Buhr)
Ariel Montesino (Photo: SD Buhr)
Alex Robles (Photo: SD Buhr)
Yunior Severino (Photo: SD Buhr)
Tyler Wells (Photo: SD Buhr)
Kernels manager Toby Gardenhire and Akil Baddoo (Photo: SD Buhr)
Andrew Bechtold (Photo: SD Buhr)
Trey Cabbage (I really want to know what he’s seeing in that helmet, don’t you?) (Photo: SD Buhr)
Andrew Cosgrove (Photo: SD Buhr)
Joe Cronin (Photo: SD Buhr)
Blayne Enlow (Photo: SD Buhr)
Moises Gomez (Photo: SD Buhr)
Alex Kirilloff (Photo: SD Buhr)
Emmanueal Morel (Photo: SD Buhr)
Jacob Pearson (Photo: SD Buhr)
Robby Rinn (Photo: SD Buhr)
Kadany Salva (Photo: SD Buhr)
Yunior Severino (Photo: SD Buhr)
Carlos Suniaga (Photo: SD Buhr)
Lewis Thorpe (Photo: SD Buhr)
Colton Waltner (Photo: SD Buhr)
Tyler Watson (Photo: SD Buhr)

 

Will Congress Screw Minor League Players Today?

If you believe that maintaining the status quo in minor league baseball is important, you aren’t going to like this article.

However, if you believe that some things – like simple human decency in the area of fair pay – are more important than whether or not the current minor league model is continued, I suspect you’ll be joining me in raising your voice in objection to what Major League Baseball (along with their weak sister organization, Minor League Baseball) are conspiring with members of the U.S. Congress to do as early as today.

The Washington Post is reporting that MLB lobbyists and a handful of Congressmen plan to attach an amendment to the $1.3 trillion spending bill that must become law this week in order to avoid another government shutdown. That amendment would specifically hand baseball an exemption to federal labor laws for their treatment of minor league ballplayers.

Congressmen in MLB/MiLB’s pockets introduced a separate bill to grant this exemption a couple of years ago, but it has gone nowhere. So, now, it’s apparently time to slip the provisions into a bill that has nothing whatsoever to do with anything related to baseball.

It’s what’s commonly called a “Christmas Tree Ornament” amendment that gets attached to a big “tree,” in this case the critical spending bill. And guess who’s getting the big present? Yes, 30 multi-billionaires who simply don’t want to share even a fraction of the enormous revenues that fans are giving them with the very poorest of their players.

And the amendment’s supporters aren’t even being up front with their intention to hang this ornament on the spending bill tree.

According to the Post report, the amendment has not been included in any of the drafts of the bill distributed thus far. The intent, clearly, was to hang this particular ornament on the tree at the last minute, when nobody was looking closely enough to even notice it.

Let me pose this question, for any of you who may still think there’s nothing wrong with 20 year old ballplayers working for far less than minimum wage. If giving MLB this exemption is the right thing to do, why hide it this way, even from other members of Congress?

Players at lower levels (such as with the Class A Cedar Rapids Kernels) are making maybe $1,200 per month. That’s GROSS pay, by the way.

The players that will be sent to Cedar Rapids at the beginning of April aren’t getting paid that while they’re down in Ft. Myers for spring training, either. They get paid only for time spent on an active minor league roster. In the minor leagues, that’s five months… at most. Many players play in “short season” leagues that run only three months during the summer.

Just for reference, I made better money working for a fast food burger chain… in 1976.

MLB has obviously been threatening the minor league organization, along with those who own and operate affiliated minor league teams, with all manner of catastrophic consequences (up to and including contraction of teams/classes within the minor league system, no doubt) should MLB end up required to pay their minor leaguers anything remotely close to a livable wage.

You see, despite the millions of dollars MLB’s billionaires have paid their lobbyists, 30 wealth old white guys only can carry so much clout with Congress. But when you threaten the hundreds of minor league teams in Congressional districts across the country and get the front offices and fans of those teams involved with personal lobbying to save their local teams, now you’ve got yourself some effective lobbying. Lobbying that MLB didn’t even have to pay for, just use a little not-so-subtle coercion.

Don’t think this is what’s going on? Listen to this quote within the Post story from Pat O’Conner, the head of MiLB.

“We’re in 42 states, 160 cities. We’ve got over $3 billion of infrastructure, much of which is still being paid off by the clubs and the communities where they exist,” he said. “This is about constituents, this is about jobs at home, and this is about quality of life at home.”

So, obviously, the concern is for the, “quality of life at home,” for the local fans, rather than the quality of life for players, many of whom are from poor Latin American countries and most of whom did not receive anything close to the large signing bonuses that get all the media attention when they sign contracts with a MLB team.

The minimum wage in the big leagues is approaching $600,000. For the roughly price of one minimum wage big leaguer on each team, MLB could afford to pay an extra $1,200 per month to 100 of their minor league players (that’s four rosters worth of players). For under a million of their precious dollars per year, MLB owners could effectively make this issue go away.

The Twins reportedly will have an Opening Day big league payroll of $130,000,000 (and they are only in the middle of the pack among their MLB peers in payroll). Think about that for just a moment.

It’s not a coincidence that minor league pay is determined by negotiations with the MLB players’ union – a union that minor leaguers are not actually members of.

In effect, the billionaire owners are putting the screws to minor league operators and fans (not to mention the players) in order to save themselves from having to spend a small fraction of 1% of their annual revenues on additional minor league pay.

The contract between MLB and MiLB that sets the terms for how affiliates operate together is due to expire in 2020 and MLB isn’t going to renew it until this matter is resolved. They are obviously using the contract as leverage to get the minor league organizations to lobby Congress on their behalf.

It’s coercion, plain and simple, and it’s shameful.

Yet, because Congress is Congress, don’t be surprised if it’s also effective.

More Photos from Spring Training’s Back Fields

I spent a few days, earlier this week, hanging out on the minor league fields at the Twins’ spring training site in Ft. Myers and built up the photo library a little. I thought I would share a few of the pictures I’ve taken here. Admittedly, I’ve spent most of my time near the Class A level games/workouts, but there are a few AA/AAA shots mixed in, as well.

(All photos by SD Buhr)

Kevin Marnon
Sandy Lugo
Alex Kirilloff
Andrew Cosgrove
Trey Cabbage
Christian Broussard
Clark Beeker (P) and Wander Javier (SS)
Matt Albanese
Todd Van Steensel
Ben Rortvedt
Bailey Ober
Derek Molina
Ryan Mason
Stephen Gonsalves
Blayne Enlow
Randy Dobnak
Nick Brown
Charlie Barnes
David Banuelos
Riley Widell
Kai Wei-Tai Teng
Tanner Kiest
Andro Cutura
Melvin Acosta
Andy Wilkins (1B) and Ariel Montesino (runner)
TJ White
Tyler Wells
Rainis Silva
Ben Rodriguez
Sean Poppen
Ariel Montesino
Jose Miranda
Royce Lewis
Randy LeBlanc
Zack Jones
Wander Javier
Taylor Grzelakowski
Edwar Colina
Andrew Bechtold
Vadim Balan and Ben Rodriguez
Vadim Balan
Akil Baddoo

Twins Minor Leaguers: Spring Training Photos

(Photo: SD Buhr)

The big leaguers at Twins’ spring training had the day off on Thursday, but the minor leaguers were hard at work on the back fields this morning. It gave me an excuse to bring out the camera as I watched past, present and future Cedar Rapids Kernels get in their workouts.

 

Kernels hitting coach Brian Dinkelman chats with Royce Lewis, Also pictured: Christian Broussard. (Photo: SD Buhr)
Trey Cabbage (45) and Alex Kirilloff (27) await their turns in the batting cage. (Photo: SD Buhr)
Infielders Royce Lewis (8), Wander Javier (19 with ball), Carson Crites (33) and Jose Miranda (24)
Kohl Stewart (Photo: SD Buhr)