I was listening to a local radio station this morning, and they were talking about today’s baseball games and pitching matchups, and the guy said “The veteran Wade Miller will be taking on future Hall of Famer Randy Johnson…”
Say what? The veteran Wade Miller? Isn’t this his third year in the league? So my question is, at what point do you become a veteran? I’ve noticed this in the past - a player that I keep waiting to come into his own gets traded, I forget about him, then the next thing I know he’s a “veteran”. What’s the cut-off?
I wish I could shed some light on this, but I’m as baffled as you. I have now become accustomed to the Red Sox’ Trot Nixon (27 years old, with 3 years of big league experience) being referred to as a “veteran.”
Perhaps it has more to do with an “attitude” than with age or experience…
So if Peter Gammons calls Albert Pujols a veteran, he suddenly becomes a veteran in everyone’s mind? Certainly the Player’s Association has quantified it, since aren’t you guaranteed more base pay after a certain number of years? (I don’t mean the 5-years-one-team-10-years-in-the-majors rule).
the major league minimum is $200,000 regardless of service time (though nearly no decent players with any amount of service time make the minimum.) Veteran, for practical purposes, means anyone who has lost his rookie status.
and the consensus then, as now, is that there is no hard and fast rule. It does seem strange to hear of 3-year players being referred to as “veterans.”
The minimum salary is indeed $200,000, as determined by the Collective Bargaining Agreement between the MLB and the MLB Players Union (which I cannot find online)…this site confirms the minimum, as well as noting that the minimum these days is more than the average salary prior to 1982. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/baseball/mlb/news/2000/04/05/mlb_salaries_ap/