Quote:
Originally Posted by Curtis
I can't give advice on how to do what you're asking, but I do know that contracts had to be honored through the end of a season in the 1946-1975 era. If you signed a player in March and released him in May, you'd still have to pay him though September.
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I don't think that's correct.
All contracts prior to 1947 had a ten-day clause which effectively meant clubs could release a player and only owe ten days' severance pay. (A small number of players were able to get that clause waived which converted it into a one-year guaranteed contract. This was a form of bonus, as opposed to the kinds of bonuses which awarded players extra pay at the end of the year for reaching various performance goals).
The ten-day clause was always considered as very unfair by the players, and in Sept. of 1946 it was finally changed to thirty days. Now players released during the season were entitled to thirty days' severance pay; if they were released during spring training or the off-season, however, they still received no severance pay at all. The 1970-72 CBA was the first to introduce severance pay for players released during spring training; it was thirty days. Players released during the regular season were entitled to sixty days' pay, and starting in 1972, players released after May 15 were entitled to their pay for the rest of the year. By 1976 players released at any point of the regular season were entitled to the rest of that season's pay.
Today, players under the reserve clause (i.e. those with less than six years of major league service) are entitled to thirty days' pay if released during the off-season or the first half of spring training, and forty-five days' pay if released in the second half of spring training. Players released during the regular season are entitled to their pay for the rest of the year.
Minor league players, in comparison, to this day are still entitled to no severance pay whatsoever and can be released with no prior notice.