THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Monday, October 27, 2008

Minorities

I am not a fan of Hoban, as I am not a fan of most mathy saberists.  Call it a bias on my side.  A good number of them simply go through mathematical gymnastics that really make a believer out of nobody, other than those who are predisposed to drink the kool-aid (either because they are also mathy, or they know the name).  Now, you may think that I fall into this category.  I don’t, or at least I try hard not to be.  I lay out all my work, and when I have the option to get mathy or not, I avoid it.  Bill James once said that his ideas need to be orphans, that he lays out his case, and then, they need to survive on their own.  (I don’t think he’s always true to that idea, but for the most part he probably is, and it’s a great philosophy to have.) Hoban employs two mathy things: Win Shares (which would not survive without James’ name attached to it) and whatever he’s doing at that link.

However, when you deal with group studies, alot of the problems I have with the gymnastics go away.  And, I love any study that examines the minority component of sports, be it Blacks (or non-North Americans) in baseball, or Europeans in the NHL, or even french-speakers on the Canadian national team.

In the NHL, if you look at first round picks over the last decade, or if you look at the top 50 players, year-in and year-out, you will find the same thing: 50% of the best players or best prospects are Europeans.  However, two-thirds of NHL players are North Americans.  I remember a similar study of the Canadian national team (with a usually english head coach): that even though players from the Quebec, Ontario, and Western Junior Hockey leagues have a certain proportion of NHL drafted players, this is completely skewed with their junior national team.  The reason is that given the choice between two similar players, there is an english-bias.  The same applies in the NHL (though there is also a cost component there): for a 4th line player, you may as well go local than international.

Hoban shows us that, among nonpitchers, a large proportion (40%) of the best players in baseball in the last 50 years are black.  But, as we know, 40% of all nonpitchers in baseball are not black.  It’s almost certain a case of racial bias, similar to the hockey bias noted above: given the choice between two very similar players, MLB will (or did anyway) lean toward the white guy.  Now, I don’t think this bias necessarily still exists today.  The pool of players changes, and the bias may be at the college level (and to a lesser extent, high school level).  When I looked at players born outside of North America, the average talent level of those players is comparable to the average talent level of North American players.  If there was a bias, we’d expect the average minority players to be higher than the white players, because, the contention is, there is a disproportionate number of good players within each ethnic or racial class of players, other than white; so they serve to drive the average up.  Like I said, this does not exist among non-USA born players, in this era.

I would love to see a database of players, based on their race, perceived race, and/or skin color.  Lots of people do these studies, and their base research should be provided to further the study of the issue.