Advance native Garrett Broshuis wins $185M settlement for minor league players

Court documents filed Friday in California show Garrett Broshuis reached a $185 million settlement with Major League Baseball in the class-action lawsuit Aaron Senne et al v. Kansas City Royals Baseball Corp., aiding 20,000 past and present minor league players if approved by the court.

Associated Press file

For the past 8 1/2 years, Advance-native Garrett Broshuis has been working on a case that hits close to home for him.

Broshuis, a former minor league pitcher, initiated the class-action lawsuit Aaron Senne et al v. Kansas City Royals Baseball Corp. which alleged Major League Baseball violated basic wage laws by underpaying players.

According to a court document filed in California on Friday, Broshuis and his team were able to secure a $185 million settlement from MLB which, if approved by the court, will affect approximately 20,000 current and former minor league players.

In this May 26, 2004 file photo, Missouri pitcher Garrett Broshuis (40) throws in the first inning against Oklahoma during the Big 12 Conference championship tournament in Arlington, Texas.

Associated Press file

"We're really happy with it," Broshuis said. "When we brought this case, nothing like this had ever been done before. So we took on a lot of risk, more risk than a normal case, and we put a ton of hours into this. Because nothing like this had been done before there were a lot of novel issues. It's a complicated case, and the fact that we were able to secure this type of settlement and get some changes to the minor league contract, it's a really good result that we're really happy with it."

According to court documents, first-year minor league players were, until recently, paid a fixed salary of $1,100 per month during the regular season, and "virtually all players" go unpaid during spring training.

"When a player is required to work, they should be paid for that work," Broshuis said. "For far too long, players have been forced to work for months out of the year without being paid at all. Most people are shocked to realize that, historically, minor league baseball players, most of them have made less than $7,500 for an entire year of work. When you go to spring training, you don't get paid for an entire month. You're working seven days a week, very often 50-60 hours per week, and you're not getting paid for that. Then, even during the season, you're very often below the minimum wage, and that's the type of thing that we were trying to rectify."

When the case was first brought about in 2014, Broshuis said many of these issues weren't being talked about publicly.

"It was sort of the big secret that nobody talked about and players were afraid to rock the boat," Broshuis said. "Journalists weren't really writing about it, either, and that's changed. There are a lot more writers focusing on this. There are players who have started to band together to try to fight for better rights and you're starting to see some change now.

"For instance, teams are paying for housing for players and that was always a huge thing for players, because if you get traded in the middle of the season or got promoted or demoted in the middle of the season, you've just got to pack your bags and leave real quick. At the new place, you've got to hurry up and find a new apartment and you also have to worry about your lease at your previous place. The fact that you're getting housing provided now makes it a lot easier on players. They've also gotten rid of something called clubhouse fees, which was this antiquated system where the players themselves had to pay a daily amount to the clubhouse attendant who was washing laundry and stuff like that. You'd have these minimum wage workers who were paying the salary of the clubhouse attendant. It just didn't make sense."

Broshuis played in the minors for the San Francisco Giants organization for six seasons from 2004-2009, but said it seemed like he was taking a step down from playing college baseball at the University of Missouri.

"When I first got into a minor league baseball, in some ways it was a step down from what I had experienced at Mizzou,” Broshuis said. “At Mizzou, I had a regular apartment. It wasn't even great, you were living the college lifestyle. But it was better than what I was experiencing when I first got into pro ball. Guys were cramming six, seven guys into a three-bedroom apartment, just sleeping on air mattresses. People were eating fast food as often as they could, or peanut butter and jelly at the ballpark all the time. That's no way to eat as a professional athlete. You're only going to be as good as the fuel you put into your body, and there were just some things that just didn't make sense at all. Even from a player development standpoint, it didn't make sense."

Boshuis is pleased with the outcome of the case, but acknowledged the difficulties he and his team encountered along the way.

“It's an odyssey. This is a case that, in the middle of it, we had to go on appeal,” Broshuis said. “It was a big fight over whether it could even stay a class-action or not, which makes a difference between you representing a handful of guys versus all the thousands of guys out there. We had to deal with that appeal, we won that appeal and they tried to appeal it all the way to the Supreme Court. This case was quite the odyssey, but after 8 1/2 years we were almost at the point of going to trial, and we're happy to avoid trial and reach a settlement that we think is going to benefit a lot of guys.

“Why should professional baseball be a step down from college baseball? That just didn't really make sense and you shouldn't have to accept that. Just because that's the status quo doesn't mean that you can't try to improve the status quo. I’m happy we were able to make a difference and just start bringing about some change.”

Click here to view documents related to the suit.