Discussion Question: African American Pitchers

Trevor Reckling should be a good one.

David Price.

Hmmm, not sure how to say this without possibly offending blacks/whites/pitchers, but I have a theory as to why there are more (non-latin) black position players than pitchers.

In general, I would say that blacks are better athletes than whites, altho of course there are many exceptions. I am just saying in general. Exhibit A: Olympic 100 meters, 200 meters. Also in general, position players are better athletes than are pitchers (of course exceptions here too). Exhibit A: David Wells. I know I will get some responses from (ex)-pitchers, but the stereotype that “pitchers aren’t athletes” has some true roots.
It could be that blacks are more suited to play the field than the slow white guy whose only hope is to stand atop the hill and that is their best hope to “make it”…..I was reading somewhere last week that the possible reason for so many latin catchers is bc they are willing to do anything to “make it” bc they don’t have a Plan B like most American kids do. Hence, they’ll don the tools of ignorance and take a beating to increase their odds of sticking.

There are all kinds of potential minefields in a discussion like this, so everyone should be respectful please. So far, so good, but let’s keep it that way.

I’m thinking SPECIFICALLY about relative lack of pitchers. The current percentage of African American players in the majors is between 10 and 13 percent, which is about in line with their percentage in the general population. But the pitcher percentage seems much lower than that. It’s the pitchers that I’m thinking about.

First and foremost, I believe that this issue makes a lot more sense when framed as a socio-economic problem rather than a racial one. It’s not that there are too few black people playing baseball, it’s that there are too few inner-city poor people playing baseball, and inner-city poor people happen to be overwhelmingly African-American.

Poorer communities have less access to high-level coaching to help develop baseball “skills,” but can still develop athleticism to help them excel in sports that emphasize athleticism over skills (i.e. basketball). More than any other activity in the game, pitching requires a ton of coaching to perform at the highest level. There are guys who are simply natural hitters, and have very little strategy involved in their at-bats. Pitchers without a strategy are “throwers,” and don’t succeed at the Major League level You have to learn different pitches, learn how to set each pitch up, learn strategy to get through a lineup multiple times.

Essentially, I think poor inner-city kids get less/worse coaching, and pitching is the activity that requires the most coaching to perform at the highest level. I think the same argument can be applied to the oft-asked question of why there aren’t more black quarterbacks.

But the bottom line is that the issue must be addressed as a socio-economic problem to be properly resolved. Perhaps an MLB team could start a baseball academy in the inner-cities similar to those in Latin American countries to give talented kids access to the kind of high-level coaching it takes to succeed in MLB.

At what age do pitching prospects become pitching specialists, generally speaking?

I mean, to be recruited or drafted as a pitcher, you have to be having success as one by your junior season in high school, I’m guessing. While hitters are drafted out of high school and college even if they haven’t played primarily baseball but have good tools, like Xavier Avery for example. But I can’t name too many players drafted as pitchers who didn’t have at least a breaking ball by their junior year of high school.

of the Mets

He is the opposite case from Aaron Hicks … a good HS hitter and pitcher who chose pitching.

I’ve interviewed Jackson twice and never thought to ask him about that. Mistake on me!

I am very much a free speech guy and give posters a lot of lattitude, but there are two things that WILL get you banned around here: racism and homophobia.

Keep this discussion focused, folks.

and my next door neighbor was Mike Young, former ROY runner up, for the Orioles, in the early 80’s, and we played baseball all the time, because it was easy to pick up a tennis ball, s bat,and there were plenty of fields around, and California, had more money, to keep up maintenance. The times were also different, the African American, community, was more tight knit, you had the same group of friends for many years, and we could ride our bikes, for a couple of miles, to a park, and our parents didn’t worry as much, because we had all grew up together, and we had a future MLB player, who would also escort us from time to time, who also, knew all our parents, and our parents knew his family. Now, you see kids, by themselves, shooting hoops in front of the house or the backyard, because, there are not many kids in the neighborhood, who can go to a park, because with the violence of today, you would have to be with an adult, to make sure you are safe. This is just one of the many differences, I have noticed over the years, but I hope it changes, because I like having my son, see someone, that looks like him, and from where he is from, in the Major Leagues.

I think that baseball suffers so much in status compared to football now that upper middle class kids outside of DC choose football and basketball over baseball. I think in the past, baseball was kind of the side sport for some kids who played football and basketball during the spring. Some of these kids fell in love with the sport or developed superior talent and chose baseball.

Now basketball is more of a full year deal. Kids who are serious about basketball must play AAU ball (which ain’t cheap for those who make an economic argument) and don’t play baseball. With increased specialization you have to choose between baseball and basketball earlier in the game.

With football it’s very much a status issue and a physical tools issue. I worked with a kid in the DC Metro area (upper middle class kid) who was a decent football prospect and a strong baseball prospect. Let’s just say the girls he was interested in loved the football player more than the baseball player and when he ended up choosing college he choose to go to a Historically Black College to play football and baseball rather than focus on baseball. I also think there are some kids who dig football who don’t see baseball as something that will help their offseason training as much as track.

If you want to increase the presence of black players, it has to be in the same way that baseball succeeds in many communities around the country. Minor league teams need to be present in the black community and establish relationships and training and development at very young ages. In the inner city, the minor league teams aren’t there. The major league teams are there. Out of the inner city, there aren’t as many minor league teams. But the Bowie Baysox are located may be 10-15 miles outside of DC in an upper middle class black community in the middle of a public school system that offers almost zero support for baseball.

If you want to start with the disparity in baseball, focus on why Prince George’s County, a hotbed for basketball and football and a middle class/upper middle class black community offers zero baseball prospects. Ironically, one of the few local baseball prospects from the DC area, Justin Maxwell for the Washington Nationals came up in Olney, MD from Montgomery County an area with far fewer African Americans.

Likewise, Washington’s main African-American ballplayer is a toolsy outfielder (speed) who started out playing hockey and used baseball as a fallback when it didn’t work out. Elijah Dukes played both baseball and football I believe. I think for the pitchers, that’s a type of player that starts pitching at a far younger age, has more baseball bloodlines, and needs to be reached earlier on in the development than the phyiscally toolsy position players who tend to crossover to baseball.

Be very interested in thoughts on these and other matters.

create an incentive for teams to build Domincan style academies in the US.

The obvious reason MLB teams don’t build academies is becuase of the draft. Teams figure why train/teach players on your own dime only to see them get drafted by another organization?

Here’s my solution: players that are fulltime at a team’s academy are “protected” for a set ammount of rounds in the draft. The number of rounds a player is protected is dependent on how long that player has been attending the academy.

For example: Johny Washington has been going to the Kansas City Royals Academy located in rural Alabama since he was 13 years old. Because of this he is protected from other teams in the draft until the 25th round. That is the Royals have until the 25th round to draft Johny after which he can be drafted by any team.

Now, example B is Jamal Johnson. Jamal has only been attending the Royals Academy for 1 year. The Royals can still protect him, but only for something line 1 or 2 rounds. This would keep teams from trying to float ringers in such as a Aaron Hicks. If the player has been at the academy for less than a calendar year he cannot be protected at all.

I think it would obviously have to be ironed out, but would certainly create an incentive for MLB clubs to invest with these kids

2010 in top 30 (6) Heyward, Jennings, Brown, Hicks, Carter, Taylor
2000 in top 30 (4) Corey Patterson, Vernon Wells, Dee Brown, Gookie Dawkins

Heyward looks like a sure thing, but then again, so did Patterson up until about 2005. Jennings looks like a safe bet to be at least a league ave CFer just based off his defense, speed and plate discipline, even if his power never develops. Brown and Hicks are not sure things by any stretch. Carter and Taylor have already proven themselves at higher levels, but then again so did Dee Brown (who just smashed in AA).