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[nat]

Bill never really was a statistician. (As he'd be the first to tell you.) His real strength as a baseball writer was his willingness to ask questions, and to be open to unexpected answers. He used numbers to answer questions when he could, but it would be a mistake to include him in the list of genuine statisticians (Tom Tango, Michael Litchman, and so on) who study baseball.

Somebody said: "it is the Negro Leagues that were probably filled with a significantly higher percentage of non-MLB talent than the white, segregated major leagues ever were."

One thing to keep in mind is that Negro League teams often had smaller rosters than AL/NL teams. Looking at the 1943 Kansas City Monarchs (grabbed a team from the middle of Paige's career): they only had eight players who got >100 at bats. Only four other position players managed to get even 10 at bats. They only had seven pitchers who appeared in more than one game. It looks like the entire team was the starting nine, a bench bat or two, and a couple spare pitchers.

Comparing them to the 43 Yankees. The Yanks had, by my count, 13 position players who appeared in a substantial number of games, to go along with 10 pitchers who made more than a cameo appearance or two. Almost twice as many players on the roster.

Negro League competition wasn't all that diluted, compared to AL/NL competition, because there weren't as many guys on each roster.

[Peter_Spaeth]

I thought Bill James was heavily involved in developing sabermetrics.

[John1941]

Bill James was a statistician. Probably the best proof of that is his development of Win Shares, which was WAR before WAR.

[nat]

He was instrumental in developing sabermetrics, but that's his "using numbers to answer questions when he can". His actual mathematical acumen is limited. In various places throughout the Abstracts he denies being a statistician, and says that he's only interested in mathematics as it helps him understand baseball better. You'll notice that his work involves very little in the way of actual statistics - there're very few regression analyses to be found. And a lot of his work had nothing to do with numbers at all: short biographies of notable players take up a significant chunk of several of the Abstracts.

Win Shares is James' uberstat, but it's not WAR before WAR. It's premised on dividing actual team wins between players. Philosophically, it's the opposite of WAR. The question James wants his stat to answer is "who deserves credit, and how much credit, for each team win?". The question that WAR tries to answer is "how many additional wins would you expect from a team, if this player were to join it?" Win Shares is thus much more context-dependent than is WAR. It provides an interesting record of what happened, but, analytically, it's much less useful. It doesn't tell you much that's of much use for analyzing a trade, or for predicting a player's performance, and so on.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by nat

Bill never really was a statistician. (As he'd be the first to tell you.) His real strength as a baseball writer was his willingness to ask questions, and to be open to unexpected answers. He used numbers to answer questions when he could, but it would be a mistake to include him in the list of genuine statisticians (Tom Tango, Michael Litchman, and so on) who study baseball.

Somebody said: "it is the Negro Leagues that were probably filled with a significantly higher percentage of non-MLB talent than the white, segregated major leagues ever were."

One thing to keep in mind is that Negro League teams often had smaller rosters than AL/NL teams. Looking at the 1943 Kansas City Monarchs (grabbed a team from the middle of Paige's career): they only had eight players who got >100 at bats. Only four other position players managed to get even 10 at bats. They only had seven pitchers who appeared in more than one game. It looks like the entire team was the starting nine, a bench bat or two, and a couple spare pitchers.

Comparing them to the 43 Yankees. The Yanks had, by my count, 13 position players who appeared in a substantial number of games, to go along with 10 pitchers who made more than a cameo appearance or two. Almost twice as many players on the roster.

Negro League competition wasn't all that diluted, compared to AL/NL competition, because there weren't as many guys on each roster.

I was the one who said the Negro League stats were diluted down. I'm not arguing or disagreeing with your figures and statements, but you're using the wrong numbers.

I did some online research and am relying upon facts and figures I got off various sites. So if something I ended up using is wrong, I apologize, but blame the online sources.

So, since the National League was first formed in 1876, there have been 19,969 recognized MLB players through 2/17/2022, none of which appear to be solely Negro League players. And as of the end of 2020, MLB recognized approximately 3.400 Negro League player's stats as now being official MLB stats. These were taken from seven different Negro Leagues that operated during the period 1920-1948. And it appears that about 45 of those newly added Negro League player stats were for players that eventually made it into the majors, so I'll reduce the number of added Negro League player stats down to 3,355 (3,400 - 45) so as not to double count those players that did get into the majors also. Currently, depending on where you look, the black population in the US is at about the 12%-14% range. Back during the 1920-1948 period the Negro League stats were taken from, the black population in the US was even lower, at only about 10%. And finally, in 1956, Jackie Robinson's last year in the majors, the percentage of black players on MLB rosters was 6.7%. At the start of the 2020 season, the percentage of black players on MLB rosters had risen to 7.8%, still below the percentage of blacks overall in the US population.

Now without even adjusting for the increased number of teams and players over the past 60 years, starting with MLB's expansion that began back in 1961, if you take the overall total number of recognized MLB players in history and divide that by the number of years MLB has existed, you come up with an overall average of 136.8 new MLB players (19,969 / 146 Yrs) being recognized and added each year. Now if we do the same calculation for the Negro Leagues, we end up with them adding an average of 115.7 new MLB level players (3,355 / 29 Yrs) being recognized and added each year. The problem is, blacks accounted for only about 10% of the overall US population back then, and have historically represented an even lesser percentage of MLB rosters over a long period of time.

So based on those numbers and percentages, you would expect the average number of new black MLB level players being added from the Negro Leagues to be more like 13.7 players each year (136.8 MLB average X 10% black population), versus the 115.7 new MLB level players that were actually being added from the Negro Leagues annually. The 102 player difference (115.7 - 13.7) between these expected and actual average MLB level players being recognized and added each year by the Negro Leagues between 1920-1948 is most likely made up of players, the vast majority of which, that do not have MLB level talent, and are only playing at this level because Negro League teams needed to fill out their rosters with somebody. So as a result, it would seem logical to assume those Negro League stars that did have MLB level talent were able to feast on and pad and embellish their stats by playing a lot less MLB talent level players. Much, much, much more so than their white counterparts in the segregated major leagues. So to now take these Negro League stats and compare them straight across the board against everyone else in MLB is, I feel, totally unfair to all the regular MLB players, as they likely played against much higher overall MLB level talent throughout their careers, as opposed to their Negro League counterparts.

So if you want to go back and tell me again how the Kansas City Monarchs team having small rosters explains away the ridiculously disproportionate number of Negro League players that got their stats added onto MLB's records, and can do so with some actual facts, figures, and logical arguments, I'm all ears. Just promise you won't come back with some crap about how the black athletes just want to all play football and basketball now, and that's the best explanation you can give to explain how those Negro League players were all legit MLB level players back then. And so you know, I made sure to skew some of the numbers I was using so they'd actually go against the argument I was making. In other words, the numbers are likely even more ridiculously disproportionate than I was putting forth.

[nineunder71]

Throwing Zimmer was more impressive than the bat at Piazza, nod goes to Pedro over Clemens for this reason only.....

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by nineunder71

Throwing Zimmer was more impressive than the bat at Piazza, nod goes to Pedro over Clemens for this reason only.....

One of my favorite Pedro moments was during a Red Sox Indians game that was escalating in the 7th as Pedro threw a brushback pitch and then Nagy retaliated by drilling Jose Offerman. All hell breaks loose, the umpires warn both benches, and so on. Pedro then somehow persuades Jimy Williams to put him back out for the 8th and of course he immediately drills Alomar hard and he and Williams get tossed. Pedro protected his hitters and was unapologetic about it. His comment was something like things happen.

[Mike D.]

Originally Posted by BobC

And finally, in 1956, Jackie Robinson's last year in the majors, the percentage of black players on MLB rosters was 6.7%. At the start of the 2020 season, the percentage of black players on MLB rosters had risen to 7.8%, still below the percentage of blacks overall in the US population.

It's worth noting that this is true, but there was also a 40 year stretch from 1968-1998 that the % of black players was more like 14-19%.

https://sabr.org/bioproj/topic/baseb...ics-1947-2016/

[cgjackson222]

Originally Posted by Mike D.

It's worth noting that this is true, but there was also a 40 year stretch from 1968-1998 that the % of black players was more like 14-19%.

https://sabr.org/bioproj/topic/baseb...ics-1947-2016/

Great point--when baseball was popular with black athletes, they made up a sizeable portion of MLB rosters relative to their population in the country as a whole.

I am still not sure what BobC is trying to get at by saying the % of blacks in the major leagues is not currently high. Is he not aware of the fact that it has a lot to do with baseball becoming less popular among black athletes compared to football, basketball or other professions?

If his point is that black athletes are not capable of playing in the majors, then he needs to do a better job presenting that case.

[Deertick]

Originally Posted by cgjackson222

Great point--when baseball was popular with black athletes, they made up a sizeable portion of MLB rosters relative to their population in the country as a whole.

I am still not sure what BobC is trying to get at by saying the % of blacks in the major leagues is not currently high. Is he not aware of the fact that it has a lot to do with baseball becoming less popular among black athletes compared to football, basketball or other professions?

If his point is that black athletes are not capable of playing in the majors, then he needs to do a better job presenting that case.

Jackie Robinson signing did not magically open up the floodgates for black athletes, or latino athletes for that matter. It wasn't until well into the latter part of the 50's that percentages combined reached 12%. I have no doubt that the lack of representation that BobC is alluding to has little to do with the overall quality of play of the Negro League. Besides the fact that the league ended shortly after the barrier was broken, so by the time the opportunities were more forthcoming, any feeder effect would be non-existent.
BTW, the fact that latino athletes are represented in MLB in roughly DOUBLE their demographic percentages is astounding to me. Coupled that with the 1300 roster spaces in the NBA and NFL occupied by black athletes and it is not so surprising the MLB representation is as low as it is.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Deertick

Jackie Robinson signing did not magically open up the floodgates for black athletes, or latino athletes for that matter. It wasn't until well into the latter part of the 50's that percentages combined reached 12%. I have no doubt that the lack of representation that BobC is alluding to has little to do with the overall quality of play of the Negro League. Besides the fact that the league ended shortly after the barrier was broken, so by the time the opportunities were more forthcoming, any feeder effect would be non-existent.
BTW, the fact that latino athletes are represented in MLB in roughly DOUBLE their demographic percentages is astounding to me. Coupled that with the 1300 roster spaces in the NBA and NFL occupied by black athletes and it is not so surprising the MLB representation is as low as it is.

The Negro Leagues likely ended as their star players were being signed to play in the majors and/or to minor league contracts with teams with MLB affiliations. And in the eyes of their fanbase, the Negro League teams saw themselves demoted to low minor league status, at best. Ownership probably saw drops in interest and attendance as a result, and likely made shutting a team down as a straightforward business decision.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by cgjackson222

Great point--when baseball was popular with black athletes, they made up a sizeable portion of MLB rosters relative to their population in the country as a whole.

I am still not sure what BobC is trying to get at by saying the % of blacks in the major leagues is not currently high. Is he not aware of the fact that it has a lot to do with baseball becoming less popular among black athletes compared to football, basketball or other professions?

If his point is that black athletes are not capable of playing in the majors, then he needs to do a better job presenting that case.

So you're basically just saying that I'm wrong because all blacks are overall so much better athletes than whites could ever be at pretty much every major sport, and the only reason for them not dominating over whites in any particular sport is simply because they aren't really so interested in that particular sport and therefore, choose not to play it. That about right?

Assuming so, it is senseless to waste my time trying to debate you as I've seen how discussions go with others of such thinking and understanding. Suffice it to say then that you are of the opinion that had baseball not been segregated back during the time of the Negro Leagues, from 1920-1948, that because all the black athletes back then were not yet so enamored with football and basketball that all the major league baseball teams from then would have most likely been made up of 50%, 60%, or maybe even 70% or more of black players then. I'm obviously so wrong for ever thinking to look at historical trends and percentages in trying to project or estimate likely numbers of a particular group's participation, and success, in certain sports. Thank you.

[cgjackson222]

Originally Posted by BobC

So you're basically just saying that I'm wrong because all blacks are overall so much better athletes than whites could ever be at pretty much every major sport, and the only reason for them not dominating over whites in any particular sport is simply because they aren't really so interested in that particular sport and therefore, choose not to play it. That about right?

Assuming so, it is senseless to waste my time trying to debate you as I've seen how discussions go with others of such thinking and understanding. Suffice it to say then that you are of the opinion that had baseball not been segregated back during the time of the Negro Leagues, from 1920-1948, that because all the black athletes back then were not yet so enamored with football and basketball that all the major league baseball teams from then would have most likely been made up of 50%, 60%, or maybe even 70% or more of black players then. I'm obviously so wrong for ever thinking to look at historical trends and percentages in trying to project or estimate likely numbers of a particular group's participation, and success, in certain sports. Thank you.

BobC, you are really going off the rails now.
The SABR demographic statistics show that African Americans made up 15% or more of MLB rosters from 1968 to 1977, which is about double what is today. I am not the only person who thinks this could be due to a waning in popularity of the sport among blacks. SABR also thinks this. If you look at the SABR article, it says right on the bottom: "The past 20 years has witnessed a decline in African American players in the game....The prevalent opinion seems to be that the cause of the decline in African Americans is external to major league baseball: that African Americans are focusing on other sports as youths, either by choice or because of fewer opportunities to play baseball. As far as we are aware, this issue has not been studied — it is reasoned speculation."

I never said, nor do I believe that African Americans could make up 50% to 70% of rosters. I am simply pointing out that current demographics are not a great metric for measuring African Americans ability to perform in the MLB.

[obcbobd]

I note that a number of people have said Pedro Martinez is rated too high as is peak was not very long. Ditto for Trout, although his peak will likely grow considerably. So the total value for Pedro is quite less than say Tom Seaver or Walter Johnson. Still an argument can easily be made that Martinez is the best pitcher ever based on his talent and what he did 96-05. I draw the correlation to the Beatles. It is almost universally agreed that they were the greatest Pop/Rock band of all time by music fans. Few will say that the Stones or the Who or someone else should be considered the greatest of all-time as they were together for a much longer period of time.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by cgjackson222

BobC, you are really going off the rails now.
The SABR demographic statistics show that African Americans made up 15% or more of MLB rosters from 1968 to 1977, which is about double what is today. I am not the only person who thinks this could be due to a waning in popularity of the sport among blacks. SABR also thinks this. If you look at the SABR article, it says right on the bottom: "The past 20 years has witnessed a decline in African American players in the game....The prevalent opinion seems to be that the cause of the decline in African Americans is external to major league baseball: that African Americans are focusing on other sports as youths, either by choice or because of fewer opportunities to play baseball. As far as we are aware, this issue has not been studied — it is reasoned speculation."

I never said, nor do I believe that African Americans could make up 50% to 70% of rosters. I am simply pointing out that current demographics are not a great metric for measuring African Americans ability to perform in the MLB.

Good, then maybe there is hope you will finally understand my point after all. I am fully aware of the thinking and supposition that black athletes seem not as attracted to baseball today as they may have once been, and have some of my own thoughts and opinions as to why this may be the case, but that is irrelevant to this discussion. But I especially like your reference to the "reasoned speculation" to such thinking, as that is sort of the same concept or impetus behind my point.

In my earlier posts I worked up what I referred to as an average annual number of players being recognized as major league level ballplayers each year to kind of get a sense of how many players one would normally expect to be replacing and supplanting the previously recognized MLB players whose talent level had maybe dropped below that elite, MLB talent level, due to age, injury, or otherwise. I believe the concept and thinking, or "reasoned speculation" as you referred to it, is that a certain percentage of a given population can normally be expected to be of such an elite athletic talent or status. But by suddenly increasing the number or percentage of such people deemed to be at this particular, elite talent level, it doesn't automatically make that statement true. It more likely means that you are somewhat arbitrarily now expanding the number of recognized elite athletes by suddenly including athletes you previously would not have recognized as elite. In other words, you've diluted down the overall talent level to be able to include and deem more athletes as elite, not actually have suddenly gained more elite level athletes.

I had said before that I purposely allowed some of the facts and figures I was using to be skewed against my argument. Specifically, in coming up with my average number of 136.8 new MLB players being recognized each year, I did so using the number of recognized MLB players of all-time from Baseball Almanac, 19,969 through today, and dividing it by the 146 years, since 1876, that MLB has now been in existence. That 19,969 figure apparently does not include any of the approximately 3,400 Negro League players that were recently added to the MLB ranks (haven't come across the exact number yet), except for the 45 or so black players that did end up playing in the major leagues and were part of that 3,400. I compared that 136.8 average to the average annual number of newly recognized MLB players from the Negro Leagues I came up with of 115.7. I got to that number by dividing the 3,355 players (3,400 - 45 players that did play in the majors) by the 29 years (1920-1948) over which the Negro Leagues are now recognized as the equivalent of MLB. I then pointed out how at the time of the Negro Leagues the black US population was only about 10%, and historically, black players had never at any time comprised more than 19%-20% of all MLB rosters. As such, you would think (and here I go using that "reasoned speculation" of yours again) these two averages, 136.8 versus 115.7, should have been much, much farther apart, with the average number of Negro League players being significantly less. The fact that these averages are so close though would seem to indicate that maybe we're granting MLB status to more black players than we should be, and thereby significantly diluting the talent level of MLB level players back then simply to include more blacks. And since at that time the leagues were segregated, the inclusion of all these additional black players, and subsequent severe dilution of the overall level of MLB talent, is going to fall mainly and squarely on the Negro Leagues.

I purposely skewed the overall average number of new MLB recognized players each year by using MLB's entire 146 year history. Since MLB expansion began back in 1961, the number of MLB teams has grown from 16 to 30. So naturally you would expect the average number of new MLB players each year since expansion to be much higher, and to have raised the overall annual average going back to the Negro League years. The point being, given the black percentage of the US population and historical representation of MLB players, 115.7 new MLB level Negro League players being recognized annually versus the 136.8 new MLB players being recognized annually overall is absurd enough, but it is actually much worse than that.

In going to Baseball Reference, I found you can look up the number of MLB players who made their major league debuts, by year. And it appears Baseball Reference now includes all the Negro League players in their stats. So going back to just the Negro League years of 1920-1948, I found that a total of 5,602 players made their MLB debuts during this time, of which approximately 3,400 were the recently recognized Negro League players. (I am not going to adjust that number this time by the 45 players who also made it into the major leagues eventually because I'm now restricting my comparison to just the Negro League years (1920-1948), and it is probably statistically insignificant for purposes of this argument anyway.) So that means that about only 2,202 (5,602 - 3,400) white players from the segregated major leagues became MLB level ballplayers during this time, versus 3,400 or so Negro League players. Or to compare them as averages, 75.9 white players per year (2,202 / 29 Yrs) versus 117.2 black players per year (3,400 / 29 Yrs) were being recognized as MLB level players during this time. Before I was looking at 136.8 to 115.7, whites to blacks, as the comparison, which was already absurd enough given the black US population % and MLB overall historical representation % of blacks. But now after focusing on just the specific years in question, I'm looking at 75.9 to 117.2, whites to blacks, which now turns things even more upside down and has MLB recognizing considerably more black players as major leaguers each year on average during this time than it does whites. Yet again, blacks only made up 10% of the US population back then.

And this is exactly why I asked if you believed that black athletes were overall so much better than white athletes, and that therefore you must have believed that had there been no segregation in baseball back during the time of the Negro Leagues that all the major league rosters would end up being 50%-60%-70% black then. To which you said NO! Well then, let's assume there was no segregation and bias back then. The number of MLB teams would likely have remained at 16 throughout this time, and thus they likely also wouldn't have needed anywhere near the 5,602 MLB players that debuted during these years. But all other things equal, and with no discrimination and bias, you would expect that of the entire 5,602 players that MLB considered as now being at the major league talent level from back then, whatever number of players they actually needed to keep filling the rosters at that time would likely have been somewhat along the same lines as the breakdown of white and black players now recognized as having MLB level talent, which according to actual historical data I'm presenting, would have been 60.5% black (3,400 / 5,602) versus 39.5% white (2,202 / 5,602). And as I mentioned earlier, players making their major league debuts are basically replacing aging and injured players, or others that for whatever reason(s) are primarily no longer able to perform at a MLB talent level. So, all other things equal and no discrimination and bias involved, if you go through 29 straight years averaging about 60.5% of the players making their major league debut with your team being black, want to hazard a guess as to what percentage of the team's roster is probably going to be made up of black ballplayers at the end of that 29th year?

I truly wasn't going to waste any more time responding to you, but your "off the rails" comment pissed me off. I have been presenting as much factual data and information as possible to support and prove the validity of my point, and have gone to the added trouble of explaining in detail how I used that information in my calculations. But it seems the main argument I am getting back from you and others includes really nothing in the way of factual data or detailed calculations, but mostly revolves around the "reasoned speculation" that today's black athletes don't like baseball as much anymore. No real proof, data, or facts, just commentary like there being 1,300 black athletes playing in the NBA and NFL now, and that is apparently all the explanation needed to account for the low percentage of blacks in MLB today. That kind of argument assumes that the 1,300 blacks currently in the NBA and NFL today could just have easily been playing MLB, if only they wanted to. (I wonder what Jordan would have to say about that?) And frankly, that kind of logic and thinking is a bit insulting to all black athletes as it kind of implies they only have a really small number of elite athletes that would otherwise be capable of making it into the majors.

So with this additional information I've now added, you are faced with a dilemma. You said that MLB would not be made up of rosters with 50%-60%-70% of the players being black. But if you go back to the Negro League years and look at the actual numbers of MLB players being recognized, and assume a somewhat equitable representation of the talent of players along racial lines, if there was no segregation and bias you would expect that MLB rosters would end up being mostly black, which you said they wouldn't! But if out of that pool of MLB recognized players back then, and without segregation and bias, you still ended up with MLB rosters being predominantly white, that would mean that a huge portion of those black players wouldn't have beaten out their white counterparts for all those MLB roster spots after all. And if that were the case, that would mean most of those Negro League players back then really didn't have MLB level talent and shouldn't have all just been arbitrarily added as major league players, and thereby let those Negro League players that did have MLB level talent get to pad their stats by playing against overall less talented players. But you didn't agree with that reasoning by me either, did you? Well, you can't have it both ways.

So what are you right about and what are you wrong about? And please don't just tell me that blacks athletes don't like baseball is the answer to everything. And don't be afraid to maybe try throwing some actual facts and data in, as well as maybe showing your calculations and work. Who knows, you might get some extra credit if you do.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Mike D.

It's worth noting that this is true, but there was also a 40 year stretch from 1968-1998 that the % of black players was more like 14-19%.

https://sabr.org/bioproj/topic/baseb...ics-1947-2016/

Doesn't really matter or affect the Negro League situation and questions as the numbers I was pointing out were so disproportionate back then that even if we take into account the higher % of black MLB players at certain times in history, as you pointed out, and double the expected average annual number of black players to be recognized as MLB level players each year from 13.7 to 27.4, it still comes nowhere near the actual 115.7 Negro League players they began calling major leaguers each year. The Negro Leagues were basically a few major league players spending their years playing in the minors, and padding their numbers against weaker overall talent. And is why to me, any Negro League player on any all-time records or lists is suspect, and likely may not fully deserve the acclaim, ranking, and standing they are being afforded. I am not saying anyone was not a great player, but there is evidence that if people are basing at least some of their opinions on stats, they may not be as accurate and comparable as one would hope, and otherwise expect, due to the reduced overall level of talent they were primarily playing against.