Quote: (04-18-2016 12:30 AM)Switch Wrote:
With how expensive it has become to be a good player due to year round leagues, travel ball, and personal hitting and pitching coaches, many blacks and latinos are simply getting priced out of the game in the USA. This trend is not going to reverse itself any time soon, so expect baseball to become less black and more white/foreign as time goes on.
Quote: (04-18-2016 06:49 PM)dark_g Wrote:
Quote: (04-18-2016 12:30 AM)Switch Wrote:
With how expensive it has become to be a good player due to year round leagues, travel ball, and personal hitting and pitching coaches, many blacks and latinos are simply getting priced out of the game in the USA. This trend is not going to reverse itself any time soon, so expect baseball to become less black and more white/foreign as time goes on.
It's not just happening in Baseball, other sports are experiencing this also. And it's not just Blacks and Latino's being effected. Anyone(including whites) who don't have the financial means to pay to have their kid receive "elite" training is at a disadvantage.
In theory, sure, this makes sense, but I think it is overblown. 15-20 years ago this was probably the case, but the trends are already shifting.
For example, in 2001, Baseball America's Top 100 prospects had a total of 8 African American players in the rankings. Fast forward to this year's rankings, and the number is up to 18! 2015 was 13, and I believe 2014 was either 15 or 16 in the top 100. I was very surprised by these results, and considering the top 100 prospects generally provide a good representation of the demographics in the MLB, I would not be shocked to see the percentage of African Americans increase about 10%. This shift, I think is the result of either of 2 things:
1) African Americans families are increasing their presence in the showcase circuit
or
2) scouting departments are changing how they scout talent to draft and sign
1 seems unlikely, but I don't have anything to prove it or disprove either way. However, with number 2 there is an obvious shift in how scouting constantly changes. The big deal in baseball is looking for market inefficiencies. Billy Beane started the trend at the major league level; and now that the game is rapidly turning into maximizing player value as early as possible (due to quicker peaks and faster declines of players) the market inefficiencies are being sought in scouting and player development.
There are some believers in the northern high school player market inefficiency after Mike Trout, easily the best player in the 2009 draft got passed up 24 times before the Angels selected him. Since he was from Jersey, played ball only half the year, and probably never or rarely played any tournaments in Texas, Florida, NC, etc., he simply got overlooked, or scouts downplayed his abilities due to the level of his competition.
Whether its causation or not who knows, but, in the 2010 draft, 6 high school players were drafted in the first round from northern high schools, and 2011 there were 3, 2012 only 1, and back to 3 in 2013. Mike Trout was the only one drafted from a northern high school in 2009.
So looking for inefficiencies continues.
Now it seems finding speedy, athletic, toolsy players, many happen to be African American, is becoming popular. Granted it has always been popular to dream no talent, but not at the rate seen the past few years (hence why there are 18 African American in the top 100, and 5 or 6 would not fit the mold above). Guys like Byron Buxton, Tim Anderson, JP Crawford, Lewis Brinson, Nick Gordon, etc. have remarkably high ceilings, with a much better chance of reaching them than they may have had 15 years ago... Why? Teams invest in and care so much about their farm systems now, because of the surplus value to be gained paying a 23 year old rookie league minimum to put up a 3-Win season, instead of paying some veteran in free agency 15 million to provide the same value. Also, teams have much more confidence in their ability to transfer tools into actual skills.
Essentially, certain teams know how to maximize raw potential, and turn it into something useable at a much higher rate than 15 years ago. If anything, I expect this to continue. Scouts will become more savvy in their US recruiting, relying less and less on showcase tournaments, and we will see an increasing presence of African Americans in the MLB.