The answer seems to be yes.
The Minor League Baseball season is scheduled to start on March 31st but Tony Clark, the Executive Director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, whose group is representing minor league baseball players in a collective bargaining negotiation, said something which gets to the mindset of MLB owners and their thoughts on the business of the minor leagues. According to Clark, MLB owners want to get rid of more minor league teams if the minor league players want better pay and working conditions. Clark has already dismissed the thought of MLB owners cutting more minor league franchises. MLB owners are gutting the minor leagues. The owners want to pay minor leaguers less money and view the minor leaguers as seasonal employees or interns. The minor league players want to get a livable wage which is something MLB owners are fighting.
Major League Baseball owners launched an assault on the minor leagues starting in 2016 when two members of Congress, Cheri Bustos, an Illinois Democrat and Kentucky Republican Brett Guthrie introduced the Save America’s Pastime Act which was meant to marginalize minor leaguers by denying them overtime pay. In 2018, the Barons of Baseball got a gift from Congress and President Donald Trump. The Save America’s Pastime Act became law. It saved Major League Baseball owners pennies on the dollar in the overall scheme of things as minor leaguers don’t make much money. But that was not enough for MLB owners. The Lords of the Diamonds decided to get rid of 42 teams to save money. In 2020, Major League Baseball team owners killed off entry-level short season rookie leagues leaving just 120 teams as 42 clubs ended operations. Politicians in the United States Senate complained about their state losing teams but, in the end, Major League Baseball officials didn’t care. They saved pennies on a dollar. They won.
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