(Answering these one by one so I don’t have to do it all at once if something comes up…)

Most minor leaguers come from college nowadays. Minor leaguers join the farm system in one of two ways:

1. kids in the US, Canada, and Puerto Rico are eligible for the Rule 4 draft after high school graduation; if they attend a D-I or D-II college, after their junior year or after they turn 21; and JuCo players are eligible for the draft whenever.


2. As minor league free agents: players from outside the US, Canada, and Puerto Rico are free agents when they turn 16 (like Michael Inoa), players eligible for the Rule 4 draft who went undrafted are free agents (like Justin Fiske), and players drafted with a team who stick around for 6 years without being added to their drafting team’s 40-man roster may file for minor league free agency (like Ryan Ludwick).

Players signed are under control for 6 years after they start playing, when they can file for free agency. Some players, like Rick Porcello, who signed a major league contract when he was drafted will need to be a regular within four years after being drafted, since he’ll be out of options by then. (The fourth-year option loophole that allows Reyes to be in the minors right now without clearing waivers would apply.)

Players who aren’t added to the 40-man roster can be taken in the Rule 5 draft by other clubs 4 years after being drafted for college-aged players and 5 years for high-school aged players.

Minor league free agency and the rule 5 draft were added so that teams couldn’t horde talent and take away talented young players’ most potentially productive years—they make for some interesting discussion before the winter meetings, too, when 40-man rosters need to be set.

I don’t know too much about how much minor league contracts cost, but the pay isn’t great.

You have to add them to the 40-man roster to keep players in your system protected from the rule-5 draft and minor league free agency. Occasionally, a player on the 40-man roster will request his release. This happened most recently with John Gall, whose release was granted. He went to play in Korea, then signed with the Marlins AAA team the following season. He’s on the Olympic team this year.

Once you put a player on the 40-man roster, you have 3 option years on the player when he can freely be called up and sent down. An option year goes unused if the player isn’t sent to the minors all year except for rehab assignments. After so many years of Major League service time, the player has the right to turn down an assignment on options. Pujols, for example, has never used any of his options, but if we wanted to send him to the minors, he’d have the right to tell Mo to screw himself and he could file for free agency. Brett Myers recently approved the Phillies decision to option him to the minors so he could work out his problems.

Top picks usually can live off a stipend drawn from their million dollar plus signing bonus. Other players have winter jobs. Chuck James, for example, worked at Lowes installing windows and doors during the winters to make ends meet when he wasn’t playing minor league baseball. After his breakout 2006 season when he was a big part of the Braves rotation, going 11-4 with a 3.78 ERA, he went back to his usual winter job during the offseason and amazingly wasn’t recognized. He figured it kept him well conditioned.

I can’t think of a recent example where they didn’t even get conditioned in the minors.

Huston Street pitched in only 11 minor league games before joining the A’s bullpen full-time.

Ryan Zimmerman was a september call-up in the year he was drafted and never looked back.

now, these questions aren’t swirling around in my head every time someone asks me about mather, or rasmus.
Thanks so much!

who i know off of the top of my head that never played in the minors are Dave Winfield and Robin Yount. Also, Nancy Drew was a september callup in the same season he was drafted. it seems to me on wikipedia they have a list of players who never played in the minors, but i can’t seem to find it.

Is Catfish Hunter his real name? Cause, that, frankly, is kinda sad.