Nearly 200 Texas Rangers’ minor-leaguers to get financial help from Shin-Soo Choo
Shin-Soo Choo has made $147,521,800 in his major-league career, a number that doesn’t include deductions for taxes or the cut agent Scott Boras has received.
What’s left, though, is more than enough for Choo and future generations in his family to be more than comfortable.
He knows that. He knows what baseball has provided for him.
He also knows what life is like for minor-leaguers. He spent parts of seven seasons in the minors before becoming a regular in the majors.
Choo knows how much minor-leaguers are paid. Or not paid, to be more accurate.
But they have a friend amid the uncertainty minor-league players are facing in the coronavirus pandemic.
Choo has pledged to pay each of the Texas Rangers’ minor-leaguers who are not on the 40-man roster $1,000 each. There are almost 200 of them.
A few of them don’t need the assistance, and there are some with significant big-league service time who might not receive the payments. But for many, the $1,000 could make a difference in having to find a job while baseball is suspended.
The idea came to Choo as he was leaving spring training last month.
“It hit my mind, I don’t know why, but I thought about minor-league players,” he said. I worried about if the team or MLB would take care of these players. I didn’t want these guys to worry about money and just stick to baseball.”
Minor-league compensation has been a hot-button topic in recent years. Only a small portion of minor-leaguers sign life-changing bonuses, and roughly 25 pecent of signees last year received bonus of $20,000 or less.
A class-action lawsuit filed in 2014 by 45 players was allowed to move forward last year.
Choo said that many times while he was in the minors he saved his meal money, which was only $20 a day, for his wife and young son while he ate his meals at the ballpark. Choo said there were times when he didn’t have enough money for diapers.
MLB has agreed to play minor leaguers $400 a week until their season begins, which is better than nothing but is nothing compared to what major-league ballplayers will make.
Minor-leaguers will make between $290 and $502 a week this season, depending on the level where they are playing. The average major-league contract was $3,894,200 last season, but is likely to increase in 2020 after an offseason spending spree.
The minimum MLB salary is $563,500, and MLB owners agreed last week to cover $170 million in salaries over the first two months of the season while baseball is shut down.
So it’s easy to see why Choo has concern for minor-leaguers. He suspects that some MLB players feel the same concern and have made donations that didn’t become public.
Pitcher Adam Wainwright donated $250,000 to St. Louis Cardinals’ minor-leaguers.
“I don’t want to lose any player over money,” said Choo, who was to make $21 million this season.
Choo has also already donated $200,000 to the Community Chest of Korea in support of the city of Daegu, which he said has been hit hard by coronavirus.
It’s his way of helping from afar.
“I can help other people. That’s a good thing,” Choo said. “Baseball has given me a lot of things. I want to pay back to other people. It’s a serious situation all over the world, but I can help.”
