Antolin making his MLB debut with the Blue Jays in 2016.
Dustin Antolin was drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays in the 11th round of the 2008 MLB Draft from Mililani High School (Mililani, HI). Dustin pitched two innings for the Blue Jays on May 16, 2016. Before his debut, Antolin played nine MiLB seasons in the Blue Jays organization. Dustin is the perfect person to discuss this topic with because he has seen both sides of the spectrum. He did not receive a large signing bonus. He played in the MLB, but spent almost a decade in the Minors first. He went through the grind and he reminisced with us about his career.
"Earlier in my career I did not make nearly enough to live comfortably. When you first start off in your career, you don’t get much at all. I believe it’s just under minimum wage. That being said, if you didn’t get a high signing bonus then you were grinding for sure.
I’ll just say that it didn’t feel like we were treated like professional athletes.
I feel like the only time that we worried about things was finding places to live and finding who you were going to live with. That’s probably the only thing. If you didn’t find that, then the big worry was about what you're going to do kicks in. I remember I had just got moved up a level and I knew some of the guys from Spring Training, but I was still the new guy. Everyone had their place to like so I was kind of stuck in that gray area, but I mean it all worked out to find someone to live with in the living room.
I remember when we had about 7 guys living under one roof. Rent was about $80. We did that just so that we could have a few extra dollars to have so we could do some of the things we wanted to. I’ll tell you what, 7 guys under the same roof for 6 months got a bit crazy at times. But boy they were good memories for sure."
- Dustin Antolin