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The San Francisco Giants announced on Wednesday that they would pay their Minor League players through Sept. 7, which is when the presumably-canceled Minor League season was scheduled to run through.
San Francisco had previously committed to paying the players their weekly stipends through the end of June, but their plans for July, August, and September were unknown.
The Giants announced that they will continue to pay their minor leaguers a weekly stipend through Sept. 7, which was the original end of the minor league season. They previously had committed to do that through June 30.
— Alex Pavlovic (@PavlovicNBCS) June 10, 2020
It’s hard to view this as anything other than the emphatically correct move. Not only do the players deserve to get their paychecks — which are already horrendously low — but keeping goodwill with your farm system is well worth the roughly $1 million that this will cost the multi-billion dollar entity that is the San Francisco Giants LLC.
#SFGiants confirm they'll pay minor leaguers through the end of the minor league season.
— Kerry Crowley (@KO_Crowley) June 10, 2020
Smart move. Should help them as they recruit undrafted free agents after Round 5, too.
So whether you’re looking at it from a business standpoint or an ethics standpoint, it seems pretty clear that the Giants made the right decision.
It’s still unclear what the Giants will be able to do to help their Minor League players develop in this lost season. If there is a 2020 MLB season, it will almost surely be with increased roster sizes, which means a few of those Minor Leaguers can get some big league reps and further their growth at the MLB level.
But the rest will be stuck without a season. Presumably the Giants will do some things to make development easier for those players, whether it’s video instruction, opening facilities, or providing equipment. We’ll just have to wait and see.
It will be a down year for development for nearly all of the Giants Minor Leaguers. But at least they’ll still get their paychecks, small as they may be.