Yeah, he caught a bit of flack for that. For a while. But he clarified his comments, and soon afterwards other players, most notably Torii Hunter, started to validate or echo Sheffield's comments. Even some Latino players, to a degree, publicly agreed with Sheffield's comments.
There was one group who I was surprised not to hear from: Puerto Rican players. And it appears that, quietly, the same trend of fewer players of Puerto Rican origin is likely on the horizon, perhaps for the same reason as with African-Americans. In fact, the number of Ricans has seemingly plateaued: 4 Puerto Ricans made their debut last season in MLB. That's the same number as in the 2006 season. Only one debuted during the 2005 season.
In fact, since 2002, only 21 players have made it to the big leagues in those six seasons. That's the lowest rate for a six-year period in over two decades. For perspective: for the 2000 and 2001 season combined, a total of 17 Puerto Ricans debuted in the majors. In 1998 and 1999 combined, another 17 debuted, including the following who are still active: Javy Vasquez, Alex Cora, Ricky Ledee, Mike Lowell, Carlos Beltran, and Bengie Molina. In the 1990 and 1991 seasons there were 16 new Puerto Rican players in the majors.
''During the last decade, the number of Puerto Ricans that made it to the major leagues has remained stable, whereas the number of players of other Hispanic and international countries has been doubled and even tripled,'' said Eduardo Pérez, who retired last year. "We must invest in our athletes." [1]
Catching On:
Speaking of Bengie Molina, I had a discussion with a coworker on Friday about the Molina brothers. He commented to me: "Their father must have known to make them catchers; it's the easiest way to the majors!".
Well, not easiest, but the quickest path, as teams can always use good hitting catchers. Of the 41 Puerto Ricans in the majors last year, 13 were used as catchers. Interest thing to note that the LA Times had an article yesterday about Hector Valle, the first Puerto Rican catcher and the "godfather" of them all. According to this article, it was Valle who mentored Ivan "Pudge" Rodriguez when they played together in the Puerto Rican winter league. Pudge was originally signed to be a pitcher, but they decided to use his strong arm to throw runners out instead (that strong arm Pudge would become famous for).
Pudge, along with the Molinas and Jorge Posada, are part of the reason for this trend: 10 of the last 12 World Series have featured at least one team with starting catcher of PR origin. 17 of the last 18 AL starting catchers has been Ricans.
It's interesting to note that Posada was drafted as a 2B initially. Bengie Molina played every position. Pudge mentored the Molina brothers. These catchers were also inspired by the late 80's tandem of Sandy Alomar Jr. and Benito Santiago, who both won rookie of the year as offensive catchers.
Future Centers, Not Catchers:
Another LA Times article from yesterday points out that baseball is quickly dying in Puerto Rico, though. This was the first time there was no winter league in PR. The six owners voted against it this year, due to lackluster attendance (under 2,000 per game) and financial woes.
The Caribbean Series is without a PR team for the first time in the 59-year history. PR major league vets don't play in their winter league (compared to DR, Venezuela and Mexico), and that hurts attendance and interest. Also hurting attendance is that young Puerto Ricans now prefer basketball, volleyball, and video games to playing or watching baseball.
Major League Baseball has hindered PR baseball by treating them as Americans (and Canadians), subjecting them to the draft. That means they have to wait until they are 18 years old, on an island where high school baseball isn't as good as the rest of America. In fact, Puerto Rico has no high school leagues. There is only the Puerto Rican Baseball Academy and weekend leagues.
The results are pretty staggering: 55 Puerto Ricans were taken in the draft in 1989, the first year this rule went into effect. 37 were drafted the next year (1990). 23 were drafted in 2002. In 2006, I can only verify that 7 PR players were drafted. [2]
In the meantime other Latin American countries have passed Puerto Rico in terms of major leaguers. The Dominican Republic, Venezuela, and Mexico all have a large number of players in the majors. It has become cheaper for baseball to invest in those countries, where baseball factories and labor cost less, and bonuses to 16-year old players rarely run past four figures.
The government of PR as lobbied for an exemption from draft. The initial reason for including PR in the draft was also likely monetary: Ivan Rodriguez, Carlos Baerga, Juan Gonzales, and Carlos Delgado all received large bonuses in the period prior to the rule change. [3] It should be noted that all four were All-Stars, and two still are to this day.
Something else happened in 1989: The Houston Astros became the first franchise to build a baseball academy in Venezuela. Pretty soon other teams followed, and now over 2/3rd of MLB franchises have an academy in Venezuela. These academies have produced players from Andres Galarraga to Ozzie Guillen, Omar Vizquel, Miguel Cabrera, Carlos Guillen, Melvin Mora, Victor Martinez and, of course, those great pitchers: Johan Santana, Carlos Zambrano, Kelvin Escobar, and K-Rod.
In a lot of ways, the struggle African-Americans baseball players are having to get to the majors mirrors the struggle of Puerto Rican. Looking at the first round of the last few baseball drafts, it appears MLB has become a prep school sport of sorts, like lacrosse. Either the players are taken out of college, or they come from prep "baseball" schools. It has become to costly an investment for MLB.
Of course, these Caribbean countries are not the end of the topic. On the contrary, globalization in general dictates that wherever there is cheaper labor, that's where baseball will go. The Yankees have signed a contract with China to build an academy there....
[1]: That quote is from this Miami Herald article.
[2]: This is the best I could do via the always great Baseball Reference website. If someone can verify or update that, please drop me a note.
[3] From this 2003 NY Times article.
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Maybe. Hopefully. But the real story is that MLB has stopped investing in PR, like it has stopped investing in African-Americans.
Another market it has stopped investing in: Panama. One article I stumbled upon some time back talked about how Panamians are upset because MLB pulled all of its money out of there, into other Latino countries.
Venezuela might be really successful right now, but it is also getting expensive. Hugo Chavez wants a cut of the money each of these kids is getting, especially since everyone of those kids that don't make it is a hindrance to the economy (they drop out of schools at 15, 16 years old to go to these baseball academies). That'll drive up the price for talent, and eventually MLB will move on to other sources of cheap talent, especially if that market comes with a big audience, too. Hence, China will be the new Caribbean in about 10-20 years.
Damn SML! I cannot remember the last time i read a post and learned so much new shit. Where did you get all of these facts besides the Times article? That catcher stats is amazing.
The age rule obviously seems to be a huge deal. That rule seems really messed up with no high school ball. I gotta believe that this was the biggest factor...
Really great post.
Cobra: Thanks.
Modi: Thanks, too. The info came from the two LA Times articles (the catcher stats came from the one on Hector Valle), the Miami Sentinal blurb (literally three paragraphs), Baseball Almanac, and my Venezuelan coworker of ten years... literally a great asset in fantasy baseball. He was the one that put me on to Carlos Zambrano, after I ignored his strong recommendation of a young Johan Santana.
But seriously, that's huge props coming from you, man.
One quick note: I mistaken wrote that "17 of the last 18 AL catchers..."; that should read 17 of the last 18 AL starting all-star catchers have been... Puerto Rican.
SML:
Thanks for this post. This was excellent. You make some compelling points. Isn't that why folks like Mike Poopica need to be stopped?? Sportswriters who decontextualize or ignore the business side of the enterprise while moralizing about exploited athletes and their extended families-communities-nations only feed the machine.
Like Modi, I was impressed with the stat on the catchers. Do you have a sense of any activities on the ground by current/former players to reinvigorate the game and rebuild that pipeline? Perhaps it could be done in a way that includes education while also providing the critical atmosphere of competition.
Thanks Temple3.
Sadly, I think some of the blame falls on the shoulder's of today's Puerto Rican star players. Carlos Beltran and Bernie Williams, for example, don't have foundations that I could find. Bernie has one listed, but he hasn't done anything with it. Beltran gives big money to Harlem RBI, but I'm not sure he's sent any money to help baseball in PR.
Carlos Delgado is a bit more socially conscience, so it's not too surprising that he has a foundation (Extra Bases); his foundation helps homeless people in PR, Down's Syndrome kids, and gives supporting grants to The Baseball Academy in PR.
That Academy got $200,000 from MLB. That's it. It's a real nickel & dime kinda place, but it has an operating budget of $1,000,000 a year; it's revenue comes from public donations ($300,000, probably including MLB's and Delgado's contributions), from tuition (about $800,000) and other fundraising activities ($300,000 - that's one hell of a bake sale!). It did get donations from Juan Gonzales, Luis Lopez (who?), Alex & Joey Cora, in addition to Carlos Delgado, to get the school rolling.
Jorge Posada's foundation concentrates on craniosynostosis, a rare disease that Jorge's son suffers from.
So those guys (and Ivan Rodriguez, and the Molinas) aren't helping baseball in PR too much. They also don't participate in the winter leagues, which hurts because they would attract more attendance if there were more MLB superstar participating. Dominicans and Venezuelan superstars often participate in their country's winter leagues. Tellingly, the most famous guys to recently participate in PR's winter leagues were a couple of white North Americans - Brian Roberts and Justin Morneau.
The Baseball Academy in PR was started in 2002, by a former Ranger pitcher named Edwin Correa. He was "motivated by the decline of Puerto Rican players in the major leagues... in part because of differing rules", according to Wikipedia.
It's had some positive results so far - about 15 players have been drafted and signed between 2004-2007 from there (almost every PR drafted in that period); Jeff Dominguez of the Seattle Mariners (drafted in 2004) is the closest to the majors; he's in AAA. Only one other player has thus far made it to AA (Jodam Rivera, San Diego). The rest are either in rookie ball, A-ball. Here's the list:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/draft/index.cgi?came_from=Puerto%20Rico%20Baseball%20Academy%20HS%20(PR)&exact=1
As for the catcher thing: One of the things emphasized at the Baseball Academy is the art of catching (along with mechanics, such as bunting and stuff). It makes sense, given the Puerto Rican network of catchers - Hector Valle begot Pudge, who begot the Molina brothers, who can now continue the chain by mentoring some of the up and coming young PR catchers. I mean, Javy Lopez has loads of free time on his hands right now, right?
Some more stats to ponder: there are an estimated 700 Dominicans in the minor leagues, versus 150 Puerto Ricans.
Wow, that was an excellent post. So, are these athletes who back in the day would play baseball in PR, playing other sports instead?