Toronto Blue Jays outfielder Nathan Lukes reveals why he nearly retired from baseball while struggling as a minor leaguer.
Lukes, who made his major-league debut with the Blue Jays in 2023, was a seventh-round draft pick by the Cleveland Indians in 2015. After being traded to the Tampa Bay Rays in 2016, Lukes toiled in the Rays’ minor-league system for many years before he signed with the Blue Jays organization in late 2021. After nearly two seasons with the Buffalo Bisons, the Blue Jays called up Lukes to the major leagues in 2023, and he has been a staple of Toronto’s roster ever since, even being a huge contributor for the team during its 2025 World Series playoff run.
However, it almost all ended for Lukes before it began.
Speaking candidly to FanGraphs, Lukes admitted that he nearly retired from baseball before the Blue Jays signed him.
“It’s been a journey. Five games into my career, this was in short-season ball, I broke my hamate and was out for the rest of the year. The next year, I started in Low-A, and halfway through I got traded to Tampa Bay at the deadline. I stayed with the Rays until my minor-league contract was up, then signed (with Toronto in November 2021),” Luke said. “It was getting to the point where it was almost time to think about hanging it up. But then, in 2023, (the Blue Jays) put me on the 40-man roster. Pretty much as long as I had that 40-man ticket, I was going to keep running with it.”
Nathan Lukes Talks Poor Minor-League Pay
While MLB players make good money, with stars like Kyle Tucker and Juan Soto making upwards of $50 million a season to play the game they love, minor leaguers don’t make anything close to that. Many of them even have second jobs to pay the bills.
“You weren’t getting rich (in the minors). I was getting poor. My wife was working at the time, which helped. Actually, it didn’t just help, it kept us running. At the lower levels, I was bringing home six thousand dollars a year after taxes, so I was making a thousand dollars a month. The most I ever made on a minor-league contract was $15,000. You can’t really do too much with that,” Lukes said.
While minor-league pay in baseball nowadays is much better than it used to be, it is still relatively low, and it is a reason why many baseball players are forced to walk away from their passion to pay the bills.
Fortunately for Lukes, he was able to make it all the way to the major leagues and become an everyday player for the Blue Jays. But not every minor leaguer is as lucky as Lukes, and for every Lukes that makes it to the big leagues, 10 minor leaguers are forced to give up their dream.
Nathan Lukes Banged Up in 2026
This season hasn’t been kind to Lukes. After starting the season 3-for-32, he revealed to the media that he had been dealing with vertigo since the beginning of the year. Then, after he received treatment for his vertigo and began to get hot at the plate, the Blue Jays put Lukes on the IL due to a left hamstring strain. Fortunately, this shouldn’t be a long-term injury, so Lukes should be back on the Blue Jays’ roster sooner rather than later. But for someone who had to grind for so many years on the minor-league circuit just to be here, losing anytime on the IL has to sting a bit. Still, he gets major-league pay while on the injured list, and that’s a lot better than what he used to make as a minor-league baseball player, when he once considered walking away from it all.
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