THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

I asked the contact person of that paper for the list of African-American players they identified.  She said no.

Is that normal, for academicians to refuse to release information, so as for their results to NOT be replicable?

Why would you speculate that black players are disproportionately inclined to “small ball” skills? That comes uncomfortably close to the old racial stereotype, the one that claims that blacks are great natural athletes, but they’re not much good when it comes to developing those athletic abilities that require a lot of hard work and discipline. Plus, I see no empirical evidence whatsoever to suggest such a conclusion.

ChuckO, I think he’s saying the opposite: that it’s the small ball skills that blacks are better at.

I am influenced by the expectation of racial bias by baseball folks who perceive speed among blacks.

Therefore, my expectation is that I’d see a racial bias among blacks if speed is a central component.

I am not suggesting that blacks are necessarily better in these regards.  Rather, I’m suggesting the expectation of those who select ballplayers are racially biased (whether they are justified or not).

Endy Chavez, for example, is probably a relic in today’s world, but would have found himself right at home in the 70s and 80s.

But the small ball skills are the very ones that require the sorts of athletic abilities that the racial stereotypes say that blacks are best at, speed and quickness. And, just so I’m not being misunderstood, I’m not making an accusation of racism on Tom’s or anyone else’s part. I’m just pointing out that this particular thesis seems to fit with the stereotype.

I might also point out that, if it was indeed the case in the first few decades after baseball was integregated that blacks were disproportionately in “small ball” roles that may well have been due to the fact that baseball executives were operating under the influence of the ideas about the races that were prevalent at the time. Baseball wasn’t alone in that. Back in the 1950’s, when blacks started appearing in the NFL, it was mostly as running backs, and I don’t believe that it was because blacks didn’t want to be linemen and linebackers, not to mention quarterbacks.

Tom’s post hadn’t appear at the time when I was writing my reply. He’s making the same basic observation as I made in my last paragraph.

I might add that I don’t believe that institutional racism has anything to do why there aren’t a larger percentage of African Americans in major league baseball. Many African American observers don’t count black Latins as the same as African Americans, the newspaper columnist Terrence Moore here in Atlanta for one, and he seems to imply that there is some racism involved. That’s never made sense to me. In the eyes of a racist, there’s no difference between an African American and a black Latin. Both are members of an “inferior” race to them.

ChuckO:  I think you need to distinguish between two ideas:  1) that black players are disproportionately fast, and 2) that black players are less adept at “developing those athletic abilities that require a lot of hard work and discipline.” The first I think is almost certainly true; I don’t believe the second at all. 

Of the 25 active career SB leaders, just one is a white non-hispanic (Podsednik), and he ranks 25th (two if you want to include the racially-mixed Jeter).  I don’t know the proportion today, but there have been times when over 70% of MLB OFs were black.  I don’t believe that simply reflects racial bias on the part of coaches and managers --I think it reflects the fact that speed is an asset in the OF.  The idea that scores of white guys have ended up playing C, 1B, 2B, and 3B despite having the footspeed to play in the OF—trapped in the infield only because of racial stereotypes that labeled them “slow”—is just not plausible. 

To be clear, I’m not attributing this speed difference to genetic differences, which is a separate issue.  But I think it’s pretty clear that the fastest players in the game have been disproportionately black, and in recent years, probably disproportionately Hispanic as well.

You can’t walk off the island… you gotta run!

I think part of it is Latin American players signing at 16. At that age, everyone is raw and has limited “fundamental” skills. So the Hispanic ballplayers signed by major league clubs are selected virtually 100% due to athleticism.

College players are probably just the opposite. Very generally speaking, they weren’t athletic enough to sign out of high school, and have now had several years of college ball to refine their baseball skills. If there are a disproportionate number of white players among the college-drafted population, that could be what we’re seeing, too.

Great point Anthony.  It’s possible that there is a disproportionate number of Black players in HS and White in college, and a disproportionate of top players selected out of college.

I haven’t had a chance to put the data together, but I believe it is true that C baseball, or at least the successful player from C, have become less black over time.

I have detailed database that covers the 1987-1996 drafts.  Now it does not include race, but scanning through I can pick out the successful players that are black.  Here’s the list of black college players from the period:

Frank Thomas
Kenny Lofton
Albert Belle
Marquis Grissom
Brian Jordon
Eric Young
Charles Johnson
Mo Vaughn
Randy Winn
Jacque Jones
Michael Tucker
Darren Lewis
Doug Glanville
Tony Womack
Dave Roberts
Jeff Hammonds

I have less detailed information about the 1997-2007 drafts (and of course the more recent players haven’t had a chance to realize their potential).  But the list of significant black player or prospects from those 11 years is:

Ryan Howard
Curtis Granderson
Rickie Weeks
David Price (#1 pick from last year)

There are also some Ken Harvey, Michael Bourne types who have been complementary players for a short spell, but probably fall short of the bottom end of the previous list who were mostly solid regulars for a few years.

I’m not sure if the racial mix at the HS level has changed, if perhaps more quality black players are drafted out of HS now, but significant black players have become more infrequent from the collegiate ranks.

Looking at the top 25 active SB leaders that Guy referenced in #7, I count 5 college players, 11 high school players, 8 amateur free agents and Ichiro.

I think the HS/college factor is interesting to explore, but I can’t imagine it explains more than a very small fraction of the disparity.  Whether you look at SBs, triples, or playing time in CF, players of African descent are hugely overrepresented in all categories associated with speed.  And this was true in the 1970s and 80s (perhaps more so), as Tango noted, when there were far fewer Hispanic players, and very few players (I assume) came the college route. 

It’s also worth noting that in the NFL black players totally dominate the positions demanding speed: WR, RB, cornerback.  And all these players of course went through college programs.

Don’t scholarships go more for football than baseball?  I thought I read that they have a very limited number of baseball scholarships, and those are “partial”, while it’s different in football.

I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that MLB players who attended college are more likely to be white.  I just question how much impact that could have on the skill sets of MLB players at the end of the day.  I guess the theory here is that some number of white players have an “extra” chance to develop their baseball skills, despite less innate athletic ability, because they play ball in college.  I just can’t imagine this happens enough to make much difference.  I guess we could answer this by looking at minor league SB and triple leaders, but I’d be shocked to learn these lists are dominated by white minor leaguerers.

Another way to state the theory is there is a population of slow black and/or Latino players who could have developed sufficient skills to make the majors, but never got the chance because they didn’t demonstrate sufficient athleticism at age 16.  I suppose that could be true, which would mean there should be more minority catchers, 1Bmen and 3Bmen than we see.  But while this might narrow the speed gap in terms of average speed of white vs. minority players, it wouldn’t change the fact that the fastest players were overwhelmingly non-white.

This is quickly running off topic..
Let’s look at football. Name the three positions where intelligence is going to be more important than anything else, I think of QB, C, MLB, all three positions where whites (I believe) are more common.

Lets look at three that require mainly shear athleticism, RB, CB, WR. These are dominated by blacks.

I don’t know if it is genetic, or cultural, or bias by evaluators (I know I heard of black QB’s being moved to WR before Moon and them.) In anycase, it is readily apparent to me that blacks show up in athletic positions, and whites in the ‘heady positions’.

I also agree that age of signing the contract is a factor. Blacks sign disproportionately out of high school and latinos even younger, while white players are disproportionately out of college.

I don’t think imposing the dichotomy of athletic/"heady" is the right approach—there’s no inherent tradeoff between those two skills.  After all, there are also far more whites on the line than at cornerback—but I can’t imagine anyone thinks it takes more intelligence to play the line.  I’d put positions on a continuum in terms of how important speed is to success at the position.  Almost certainly, we’d find the proportion of blacks is higher at “speed” positions.  Now, if blacks are underrepresented at a position even after accounting for speed, then it’s fair to explore why that is.  Certainly that was true at QB for many years, and maybe it still is (I don’t know the percentage). 

I think there was bias against black pitchers in MLB for some time as well.  I could be wrong about this, but I think I recall an article (probably late 80s or early 90s) showing that black pitchers had a much lower ERA than white pitchers overall.  If so, that almost had to mean a bunch of black pitchers were stuck in the minors who were good enough to be in the majors.  My sense is that this is not the case today, but I haven’t looked at the numbers.

Actually, the wonderlic scores are highest for linemen, specifically, (according to wikipedia) the highest wonderlic scores are, in order, OT, C, QB, OG the lowest are (in reverse order) HB, FB, WR, CB. So many people do imagine that linemen are smarter, and they are correct. Although I would have guessed the interior line would have been higher than the tackles.

Re: Tango’s #11...baseball teams have 11.7 scholarships to give out.  Football teams at the DI-A level have 85, and I believe DI-AA is 65 (but don’t quote me on that one).  Basketball teams have 13.

There are 296 DI baseball teams and ~120 DI-A football teams.  So that’s 3,463 baseball scholarships available and 10,200 football scholarships.  That’s before even considering DI-AA and smaller division football programs, many of whom are in the group of DI baseball schools.

College baseball is really only an option for those who can already afford it, or those who are good enough to get a precious full ride (I don’t know whether schools ever give full rides).