Minor leaguers to be paid through April 8

Major League Baseball has announced that minor league players who are under contract, not already getting a major league per diem, and not staying at a team facility will be getting a lump sum payment equal to their daily per diem through April 8. Minor leaguers, who generally haven’t been paid by their teams since early September, have found themselves in limbo since the season has been delayed, as most have been asked to leave the team facilities and don’t have income coming in.

This basically kicks the can down the road for the time being, since teams will have to decide what to do with both major league and minor league players, who would be slated to start getting paid in April. With games not being played until June, at the earliest, MLB is going to have to figure out what to do for those players in the meantime. Jon Heyman is tweeting that major leaguers are expected to be paid pro-rata based on games played, but there’s a dispute as to whether service time will be pro-rated or not.