Shin-Soo Choo giving money to minor leaguers

Veteran Texas Rangers outfielder Shin-Soo Choo has arranged to donate $1000 to each of the Texas Rangers’ minor league players, according to multiple reports. With there being roughly 190 minor leaguers with the Rangers, that comes to around $190,000 that Choo is providing.

While the primary focus over the Coronavirus/COVID-19 national emergency and its impact on baseball has been on the major league season being delayed, minor leaguers are also in limbo, and unlike their major league counterparts, they’ve generally been making poverty wages and are not well situated to survive a shutdown. Minor leaguers are being provided an additional amount through May 31 equal to what their team’s spring training per diem is, but they aren’t receiving their regular paychecks (which aren’t all that much to begin with).

Choo, 37, is in the final year of the seven year contract he signed with the Rangers prior to the 2014 season, and was originally slated to make $21 million this year, though that will probably be reduced due to MLB almost certainly having to play an abbreviated schedule in 2020 (if games are played at all). He’s widely respected and is considered one of the really good people in the game, and his making an effort to help ease the financial troubles that the franchise’s minor leaguers are experiencing right now is just one more piece of evidence on that front.