Aaron Senne

Aaron J. Senne

• Bats Left, Throws Left
• Height 6' 2", Weight 180 lb.
• School University of Missouri
• High School Mayo High School

• Born November 5, 1987 in Rochester, MN USA

BR Minors page

Biographical Information

OF/1B Aaron Senne had a brief minor league career, playing a total of 152 games in the Florida Marlins/Miami Marlins organization in 2010, 2012 and 2013. He hit .296 in 60 games for the Jamestown Jammers of the New York-Penn League in 2010, then after not playing in 2011 after undergoing Tommy John surgery, hit .284 with 10 homers and 53 RBIs in 84 games for the Greensboro Grasshoppers of the South Atlantic League in 2012. However, he started the 2013 season by going 2 for 25 for the Jupiter Hammerheads of the Florida State League, returned to the disabled list and then announced his retirement from the game on June 12th. Before turning pro, he had been drafted three times, first by the Minnesota Twins coming out of high school in the 13th round of the 2006 amateur draft, then again by the Twins in the 39th round of the 2009 amateur draft, out of the University of Missouri, and finally by the Marlins in the 10th round of the 2010 amateur draft. He hit .400 with 16 homers and 59 RBIs in his senior season for Missouri.

Senne v. MLB

While his playing career was unremarkable, he became prominent for an apparently quixotic lawsuit he filed on February 7, 2014, along with two other former minor leagers, known as Senne v. MLB. The lawsuit alleged that Major League Baseball was in violation of federal minimum wage laws by not granting minor league players minimum wage or overtime pay. The suit was taken up by former minor league player Garrett Broshuis as lead attorney, and gathered momentum as numerous other players joined in. MLB knew it had a problem on its hands and tried all sorts of dilatory manoeuvers before turning to the "nuclear option": lobbying Congress to pass a law in 2018 exempting it from federal minimum wage laws. All this forced the plaintiffs to change their approach and, the law passed by Congress not being retroactive, they focussed their efforts on minor league players in the state of California, where penalties for violating federal labor standards are particularly harsh, and those who participated in instructional leagues and spring training in Florida and Arizona, where the violations were readily apparent, given such participation is mandatory for players - and completely uncompensated. The period covered ranged from 2009 to 2017, with some variations, covering an estimated 23,000 players. MLB unsuccessfully appealed to the Supreme Court to have the suit dismissed, but lost a crucial ruling on October 5, 2020, which allowed it to proceed. Initial rulings in March 2022 by the Federal magistrate in charge, Judge Joseph C. Spero of the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, CA, were in favor of the players, hinting that a trial might not go well for MLB.

By that point, the lawsuit was no longer an existential threat to MLB (if it had ever been), since it had throughly re-organized the minor league system in 2021, and armed with the law passed by Congress in 2018, did not fear any precedent being established. It decided to settle the case, treating it as a sort of nuisance suit. On July 15, 2022, it announced a settlement amounting to $185 million to prevent the lawsuit from advancing to trial. This sounded like a lot of money, but in its own statement about the settlement, MLB pointed out that it paid over $450 million in signing bonuses for amateur players annually. In effect, this settlement was peanuts, and players covered by the lawsuit were likely to make a paltry $5,000 to $5,500 each. Broshuis and the other attorneys working on the case for all these years did better, as $55.5 million of the settlement was directed to them. Still there were some other gains for players, such as MLB discontinuing its practice of banning teams from paying their minor leaguers for taking part in spring training or instructional league play.

After baseball, while the lawsuit was proceeding, Senne returned to the University of Missouri where he earned an MBA. He became a manager for the DISH network, providing satellite television service in the western U.S. He settled in Denver, CO, and later worked in the digital imagery field.

Further Reading

• Ronald Blum (Associated Press): "MLB to pay minor leaguers $185 million to settle lawsuit", Yahoo! News, July 16, 2022. [1]
• Michael McCann: "Judge uses NCAA cases to find MLB joint employer of minor leaguers", Sportico.com, April 7, 2022. [2]

Related Sites

• University of Missouri bio