hey what's up fellas how you doing man it's Anneli here hey what's going on guys how we doing man Antonelli here today we're talking about salaries in the major leagues and what you get paid when you get called up from the minor leagues to the major leagues and then what happens if you get sent back down okay so this happened to me a couple times I'm gonna go over it I just started a new series on YouTube rode to the show and I'm gonna be the show 19 and I've gotten this question I've done I've been going through the comments and I've gotten this question like 50 times in the last couple of days and so I want to take some time and give you my experience with it and exactly what happens it can be confusing there's a lot of numbers involved and some of the stuff has changed since when I play it but I looked up some of the numbers and so we're gonna cover all that okay so let's let's get in time machine and go back to 2008 when I made my major league debut okay first I was in triple-a when I write before I could called up I was in triple-a and I was making a whopping two thousand three hundred dollars a month now the first thing you have to keep in mind is that you only get paid during the season a lot of people get this confused okay you only get paid during the season and the minor league season is 5 months long you don't get paid in spring training you don't get paid in the playoffs you only get paid for April May June July and August okay that's the minor league season so I was making right around like 11,000 a little over $11,000 a year and that's before taxes and they take taxes out ok so please keep that in mind and I was in triple-a the highest minor league level you can be in before you go to the major leagues ok so I was making a sweet $2,300 a month before taxes for the 5 months that I played and in 2008 I was in Tacoma Washington I got called into the manager's office said congratulations you're going to the big leagues and and so I jumped on a plane I grabbed on myself packed in my suitcase jumped on a plane and went to LA flew in the Dodger Stadium and play against the Dodgers now I'm in the big league so what happens to my salary ok well in 2008 the might be minimum salary at the major league level was think what around 400,000 okay and so what happens is when you get called up there's a hunt right now there's a hundred and eighty-seven days in a major league season okay so remember you're only getting paid during the season but the major league seasons one extra month you play in September also okay there's a hundred and eighty seven days that's what the that's what there's considered in the major leagues okay and so if you get called up and you play for one day then you would get one one hundred and eighty seventh of that full salary everyone got that I don't understand so it just depends you get prorated it just depends how many days you're up there now you still get a check every you know you get two checks a month just like pretty much everybody does so it just depends on how many days you're there so when I first got called up I played for a month I got called up for the last month of the season okay and so I made thirty I think it was like I was probably up for like 30 or 31 days or something like that and so it came out for me to be right around 60 the $65,000 is what I got paid for that month which came out to just about $2,000 a day okay now it is a crazy feeling when this happens because I went from making right around $2,000 a month and the minor leagues to making $2,000 a day in the major leagues and I'm getting paid league minimum nobody in the league is getting paid less than me okay most of the players know you're getting paid like millions and millions and millions of dollars I put four hundred thousand dollars for six months of work and again for me it was one month of work that year I got sixty thousand dollars I can't really explain what what that feels like or how much that is especially when you get used up getting paid in minor leagues I like my first year in the minor leagues I made I think it was $1,100 a month for my first year and that slowly goes up from there so you're used to getting these checks where it's like you see the check in it and they're just there's nothing there so all of a sudden like I remember when I got my first paycheck at the major league level I was like what the hell is what the decimal point but what happened it was very very strange and like for the first time and again I was very lucky I got paid a lot of money for my for my signing bonus and I can only imagine what this must feel like for someone that was not given a signing bonus like someone drafting like the 23rd round it makes your major league debut they must they might pass out when they see their first paycheck at the major league level but I went from you know usually like eating chick-fil-a and Panda Express which I still did when I got put in the major leagues because I liked both of those two places but you know like after games like my wife and I at the time she when I first got called up she was my girlfriend at the time like we could go and go eat anywhere like we'd be like alright let's go get a steak over at Donovan's which is right across the street from Petco and it beat the bill would be like 300 dollars I'm like well it still made $1700 more than that today so what's the big deal it's really crazy the other thing to keep in mind is that your meal money meal money sometimes I say mail money people think it's and ail its meal money and ei elements how to pronounce that correctly tonight you get paid meal money at the major league level to get in the minor leagues - but in the minor leagues when I was playing to get $20 a day at the major leagues you got $100 a day so what meal money is is when you go on the road let's say we're going on a ten day road trip to Fenway to Boston and then we're gonna go up to Toronto or something um for those ten days you're way you get $100 a day in cash that you can spend on meals okay again in the minors it's 20 in the majors it's 200 probably a lot more now I don't know what it is right now I'm gonna have to try to call somebody and figure that out so when you get on like the plane to fly or you know if you're if you're getting on the bus to go up to LA or something they give you a bunch of cash right before you go and so you're on a ten-day trip you get thousand dollars cash which is like crazy to think of like I'm already getting paid $2,000 a day what do I need another pound of dollars in cash for but that's what they give you at the major league level okay so that's how the money works okay now a couple things when you get called up you have to be on the 40-man roster alright so the 40-man roster is just 40 guys everyone in the big leagues is on the four man roster and then there's you know the pen distort let's say is 25 guys in the big league roster right there's another 15 guy somewhere rather they're injured or whether in triple-a or maybe double I usually triple-a they're on the 40-man roster and those are the guys that can get called up okay so you have to be on the 40-man now once you win the 40-man your minor league salary changes okay so let's go back again I'm making $2,000 a day or excuse me yeah look let's just you I'm making $2,000 day in the major leagues season ends next season starts okay I go to spring training I don't hit grade I hit okay they send me back down the triple-a now when I go back down the triple-a this time I don't get paid my normal $2,300 a month like I did a little less than a year ago now I get paid forty man minor-league money which is much different so the first year you're on the 40 man in the minor leagues when I was playing it was around like $45,000 for the year and then the second year you're on the 40 man it was like $65,000 okay so when you get on the 40 man your minor league salary drastically changes okay so before the 40 man you get paid nothing barely anything when you get to the 40 man then you can actually start to make a living so in 2009 I played that whole year in triple-a and I made like 45 ish I think it was $45,000 so for that year and again you get paid only during the season so those checks are cut it and divide that by five April May June July and August all right that's what I made when I was in the minors in 2009 okay now 2010 comes around now I'm getting paid in the minor leagues second man forty man so now I'm getting paid like 60 something thousand dollars but I got called back up to the major leagues out here and I was paid the entire season in the major leagues okay I got hurt I got wrist surgery and I got hand surgery I didn't play a single game in 2010 this is crazy I didn't play a single game in 2010 but I got paid major league salary the whole year okay so I got paid right around 400,000 again a little bit a little bit more than but right around there I got paid that for the six months of the season so again I went back to getting paid a little over 2,000 a day for every single day now that year it was I wasn't technically called up right at the beginning of year I don't know the exact date I cannot remember but it was in April somewhere in April okay so again 187 days in a big league season let's say I was up for I think I was probably up for like a hundred and sixty of those days so you just do the division I'm not smart enough to figure it out on the fly but you know I was there for most of the year I got paid like five 300 and I don't know eighty thousand seventy thousand somewhere right around now and also got paid this is crazy too I got paid meal money for the whole season but I was hurt and like I wasn't even with the big league team when they went away I stayed in spring training in pure Arizona to rehab my injury yet they paid me meal money because technically I was on the roster I guess I was on the team so I used to get like you should give me you know when the team went on like a 12 day road trip or something I'd get money and I'd be like I'd just be sitting in Arizona be like I guess some there's more money to go bike in and out burger because in and out was right next to it this was the worst my wife I need to have my wife on here to talk about this because I should I shouldn't say this actually I'm gonna say so she she lived with me that year in Arizona and all we did was well I've rehabbed all day she just kind of sat at my apartment and watched like new was that Nick and Jessica newlyweds is that what it was called back in the day like she was being newlyweds man she watched newlyweds all day long and then I get home and like all we ate was that go to in-n-out burger a lot because it was right next door there was a chick-fil-a literally 10 feet away from my apartment this is bad news like there was a lot of bad food around there and I can eat anything and not put on any weight and she's kind of like that too but she probably wasn't used to being on my diet and eating in and out every single day so she but she wasn't very happy about that and she didn't come back to me again she said she couldn't she had to work out more and not just live with me and eat in-n-out burger so the rest of my career I lived on my own and then she would just fly out or drive out anyways I digress so let's get back to the salary stuff okay so now 2010 I played in the major leagues I don't play in the major leagues I collect major league money and that's how much I get paid now a couple things to keep in mind is that major league minimum salary has change so I said when I was playing it was $400,000 a year right around okay now in 2019 I just wrote this down I think it's five hundred and fifty thousand dollars for minor league minimum salary so I was making two thousand a day in the major leagues these guys now making around three thousand a day minimum okay and so that's just even even more bonkers and it's only been about ten years late night even 10 years later nine years later but inflation I guess and all that stuff cost of living goes up so you get paid a lot more money to play let me see what else I shot it down here I think that basically covers everything so the key to keep in mind again is that you're gonna get paid for how many days you spend in the major leagues out of that 187 and when you go back to the minor leagues you're gonna go right back to getting paid minor-league salary and again it's the same thing is gonna be prorated in the minor leagues okay but a lot of people la I get a lot of questions say like hey you spend one day in the major leagues you get paid the entire league minimum like no no no that's not that's not how it works they wouldn't call you up for just a day if they were gonna have to give you you know $500,000 for five hundred fifty thousand dollars to play one game that'd be quite a living that would be that would be nice people already say major league players get paid too much that would be absurd if that happen but and the craziest thing I'll end it with this the craziest thing to think about is when you're getting paid that much like I said I'm looking at my paychecks I'm just like what the hell is going on I cannot imagine guys that are getting paid 20 million or 30 million dollars a year to play baseball which I thought that I was stealing I mean a lot of people say it was stealing but I felt like I've got to be stealing right now play I'm playing baseball like I've played this game my whole life for Oh usually I have to pay to play baseball my whole life anyone that's played travel ball or anything like that you usually have to pay to play baseball I had to go to college I got a scholarship I still had to pay a decent amount of money to go play cause baseball and the minor leagues you still are pay you paid nothing and then all of a sudden you're getting paid all this money just felt very very strange for that to happen but that's the way to so hopefully that covers everything there is to know about minor-league and major-league salary I'm thinking really quickly if I forgot anything I guess the only thing that would change is after three years of playing for league minimum so if you're in the major leagues for three years pretty much three years then you're eligible for arbitration and then you're gonna make a lot more money okay you make league minimum for those first three years after in the major leagues and then after that you're gonna go you know depending on how well you do you're gonna get three years of arbitration where you're gonna make a lot more money and then finally you become a major league for the agent where you can sign for like 20 million dollars a year if you're good enough and if you if you deserve that or I guess can convince someone to give it to you so that's how it works and those guys when you get sent back down to the minor leagues when you're making like forty two million dollars a year in some reason you get sent to the minor leagues you actually go down there you make forty two million dollars a year in the minor leagues okay so like when you sign those huge contracts it's not like you're gonna go from you know I'm not making forty two million dollars a year this year and the majors and then they send me them the minors and I'm going down to making fifty thousand no no no you keep making that money is guaranteed that's what you're making whether you play in in the major leagues whether you're playing and the minor leagues whether they you say you know what I'm not planning I'm gonna go play in the backyard with the ball with my son you're making forty two million dollars a year ok so you don't to worry about it once you get to that point this is only for those guys that are making you know league minimum all right hopefully that all makes sense thanks so much for watching I appreciate it go check out my road to the show series a lot of people seem to be enjoying that so let me know what you think leave the questions in comment section below and we'll talk to you later you
