Brewers players earn bonus cash in playoff shares

A lot of people contribute to a playoff team, and not all of them are making millions of dollars per year.

That’s why making the postseason can be such a big deal for so many in an organization -- it can mean a significant bonus for those who may have only had a cup of coffee in the majors, coaches or others in the organization not necessarily earning a big piece of the pie.

Teams that make the postseason get a share of the money generated by ticket sales, with players getting together to vote on who gets a share of the total pool. This year, the Brewers’ share of the Players’ Pool for making the Wildcard play-in game but not advancing to the NLDS was $1,212,917.19.

According to the league, Brewers players voted to issue a total of 62 full shares -- the same amount as last year, when they were the runner-up in the NLCS -- 22.325 partial shares, and one “cash award.”

Last year, the players voted to award 21 partial shares and four cash awards.

This year, a full share was valued at $14,292.30 -- a pretty nice holiday season bonus, although not as much as the $122,957 that was awarded for a full share last year. Predictably, the further you go in the playoffs, the bigger your Players’ Pool is. The Washington Nationals’ pool was more than $29,110,000, while the Houston Astros collected nearly $14.5 million. The New York Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals received roughly $9.7 million each as NLCS runners-up.

$14,000 might be next to nothing for the likes of Ryan Braun or Yasmani Grandal, but for guys like David Freitas -- who’s nearly 31 and hasn’t made close to $1 million in his career -- that is likely more than he’s made in entire seasons in the minor leagues.

It’s nice to see the players remain generous with the playoff shares, even with the much smaller pool this year. The Oakland A’s, who got the same pool as the Brewers as the wildcard losers in the AL, voted to approve 11 fewer shares than the Brewers, meaning an extra $4,600 each.