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Jan 17, 2012 - Today's Baseball Fun Quiz ...
What do these players have in common?
Roberto Clemente
Carlos Beltrán
Roberto Alomar
Iván Rodríguez
Orlando Cepeda
If you knew all five were born in Puerto Rico, you win the kewpie doll.
Of course, all five have been great major leaguers. But as Jorge Castillo points out The New York Times, the talent well in Puerto Rico seems to have all but dried up, along with general interest in baseball ...
Four years after being forced to cancel an entire season, the league has only four teams. And for the first time in its history, which dates to 1938, the Puerto Rican Baseball League does not have a team based in San Juan, the capital.
The league’s struggles are merely the most vivid manifestation of a more profound, and surprising, phenomenon playing out here: the decline of baseball in a place where it was long considered the primary pastime, if not a religion. After decades of populating major league rosters with All-Stars at every position, Puerto Rico had only 20 players on Major League Baseball rosters on opening day last season. Only two made the All-Star team. (By contrast, the 1997 All-Star Game included eight Puerto Ricans.)
--snip--
No one here disputes the diminished stature of baseball in Puerto Rico, and most agree on the culprit: Major League Baseball’s decision, in 1990, to include Puerto Rico, a commonwealth of the United States, in its first-year player draft. This means Puerto Rican players must wait until they have completed high school to sign a professional contract, and then they are going up against players from the United States and Canada in the draft.
Perhaps more important, major league teams have less incentive to cultivate talent in Puerto Rico because those players may end up with another team through the draft.
Well, yes. You're not going to spend much money if you don't think you're buying a competitive advantage. If every team has the same shot at drafting the same players, it would be foolish for a particular team to outspend another to develop players, as they do in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. Or even to spend anything at all.
Essentially, the clubs are spending nothing at all right now. They've got a few scouts, but according the Times article they're not even bothering to scout much of the rural areas of Puerto Rico. Major League Baseball does financially support a Puerto Rican baseball academy, to the tune of $400,000 last year ... or $75,000 per team, which is essentially the same as $0 per team.
Still, I'm missing something. Supposedly there aren't as many great young Puerto Rican players because of the draft, which presumably has limited teams' investments in pre-draft talent ... But are there fewer great young players because teams aren't training them before they're draft-eligible? Or are there fewer great young players because there aren't as many young players, generally? And if the latter, why? Weren't there great young players in Puerto Rico before there were academies? Were there academies in Puerto Rico before 1990? Weren't there plenty of great young players in the Dominican Republic before teams opened academies?
The main argument, I think, is that because players in Puerto Rico are subject to the draft, they don't make as much money when they sign. Which lessens the incentive to work hard enough to get a professional contract.
I don't know. Maybe that makes sense. Something seems to have changed, and none of the other explanations I've seen make any more sense than that one.
And one might reasonably ask, "Who cares?"
It's unlikely that Major League Baseball's fans could ever notice the overall drop in quality resulting from a paucity of great Puerto Rican players. Especially if the money that was going to Puerto Rico is simply going somewhere else, to develop other great players. MLB has presumably lost some fans in Puerto Rico ... but Puerto Rico's population is roughly the same as Oklahoma's, with a per capita income well below the lowest of the 50 United States.
All of which is why Major League Baseball's not pouring money into Puerto Rico.
Of course, one could make all the same arguments for not pouring money into the Dominican Republic, if Dominicans are added to the amateur draft as MLB reportedly would prefer. Would just as many kids play baseball if they couldn't get six-figure bonuses upon turning 16? Would teenagers develop their skills exactly as much if all 30 of MLB's franchises weren't running academies in the Republic?
I don't know. What's happened in Puerto Rico doesn't lead one to optimism. But again, perhaps MLB simply doesn't care; as long as there are enough players to populate professional baseball -- and there will always be more than enough players for that -- maybe MLB simply doesn't care how good those players are.
As a fan, I would like to see as much talent in the major leagues as possible. But I'm sure that the great majority of baseball fans wouldn't notice if the overall talent level dropped off by 10 percent. And I'm not sure I would notice, either.
15 comments
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Comments
Sure Rob, you may not notice. America may not notice
But I’m sure the current state of the league isn’t fun for the Puerto Rican baseball fan and that simply sucks, more when this past decade there has been lots of talks of internationalizing baseball but those seem to be just pretty, meaningless words.
Perhaps what happened in Puerto Rico was necessary to see the inviability of an International Draft. As a Venezuelan I will always express my disagreement with that, and the International Cap is a huge step in the wrong direction.
by Clemenx00 on Jan 17, 2012 8:08 AM EST reply actions
First Year Draft
This makes Puerto Rico sound like everwhere else that is covered by the First Year Player Draft: less kids are interested in playing baseball. You might have heard about more kids playing Soccer or the Super Bowl being relatively highly rated every year. My (un?)educated guess: from Alaska to Puerto Rico, less kids are playing competitive baseball.
by bdjeff42 on Jan 17, 2012 9:44 AM EST reply actions
This news is worrisome
To anyone who is a fan of the game in general. Just another example in a long line of instances where the owners valued short term gains over the long term health of the game. MLB should be encouraging people to play baseball not the other way around. The new CBA has only taken another step in the direction of pushing international players to other sports.
by jbriaz on Jan 17, 2012 10:01 AM EST reply actions
My 2 cents from Puerto Rico:
Rob, my son plays competitive baseball. He’s 14. Youth baseball is in decline for much of the same reasons that it is in the US inner cities. Competition from other sports (soccer, volleyball and basketball); crime (parents don’t want to go out at night in the San Juan metro area because of high incidence of crime and a lot of youngsters are involved in drug related activities). With the decline there are fewer players developing and kids here don’t have the economic urgency their poorer neighbors from the Dominican Republic have. In fact, many kids who play baseball in Puerto Rico now are sons of Dominican parents.
The draft no doubt make teams invest somewhere else. And cash-strapped local governments don’t want to invest their money on maintenance of baseball fields. They are a disaster. A basketball-volleyball court is easier to keep. And soccer is abandoned by kids as they grow up.
The San Juan area is not a good baseball area. There are other things to go to. The league is having success with less teams playing.
The answer to me is an international draft, because you cannot exclude Puerto Rico from the current one. Remember, the island is a US territory and its inhabitants are American citizens. Without the draft, an ingenious agent would move his players to Puerto Rico to make them free agents.
But no doubt the emphasis on other places by MLB has impacted on the lack of Puerto Ricans in the majors. The academy cannot produce many players and the organized youth leagues are on their own. I would venture to say that having PR compete in the regional US Little League tournaments would give the sport more prominence and a better chance for teams to succeed; instead, it competes as an international team against the unified teams of other islands where all the talent plays togetrher year round, as opposed to PR where the multiplicity of youth leagues dilute the talent.
by Fraggin Judge on Jan 17, 2012 11:01 AM EST reply actions
An international draft
would just mean that all the other baseball academies would be shuttered too. So, less talent coming from everywhere, not just Puerto Rico.
by tomemos on Jan 17, 2012 12:12 PM EST up reply actions
Probably.
In reality academies put Canadian and American players (including Puerto Ricans) at a disadvantage. Americans are paid in dollars. International players are cheaper; thus, the academies proliferate.
by Fraggin Judge on Jan 18, 2012 10:25 AM EST up reply actions
Somehow I missed that PR was considered an International Team by LL
I didn’t realize PR was considered an internaional team by Little League. So, you sort of see it as the worst of both worlds…?
I can’t help but feel the lots of people are discounting how much the bar has been raised for youth and teen training in the United States in recent times. It is very hard to get the polish to stand out as a teen baseball player without experienced coaching even for the very athletically gifted. Three or four years at an academy can do that for a player who has previously been playing “rec ball”.
by Mirror on Jan 17, 2012 3:48 PM EST up reply actions
11 01 10
Veni Vidi Vixi
by WhereThere'sAWillieThere'sAMays on Jan 17, 2012 11:20 AM EST reply actions
10% is a huge percentage
I feel confident you would notice. Beyond that, there’s a cumulative effect: if baseball is losing out in Puerto Rico and among young black American athletes too, then the sport will increasingly be dominated by white Southern Californians, and get more boring as a result. I have no desire to watch MLB become the NHL.
By the way, the thing about PR having the same population as Oklahoma and less money misses the point: it’s important because it’s poor. A disproportionate number of players will always come from poor areas, because there’s more incentive to make it in athletics—but only if the sport is encouraged and developed (because poor areas don’t have the resources to fund as many Little League and school teams). Saying, “Well, they’re small and poor, who needs them” is incredibly short-sighted—that’s exactly where the players are going to come from, if you let them!
by tomemos on Jan 17, 2012 12:10 PM EST reply actions
What we'll probably see is more Dominicans and Venezuelans; less Americans (including Puerto Ricans).
by Fraggin Judge on Jan 18, 2012 10:26 AM EST up reply actions
Yes MLB has turned its back on PR… For sure the inclusion of PR players as part of the draft was a way for some teams not interested in cultivating the talent on the island to cut off that advantage. Same as the new draft rules are geared towards dissuading teams that pay over-slot for players that slipped due to signeablity issues. And for sure the idea of a world draft follows that same line. There are clearly a majority of owners that want to cut all competitive advantages gained by a few teams through imagination, hard work and investiture of resources. If a team does not wish to cultivate talent outside of the US it has 2 choices: 1- live with it and find other ways to make up for the talent gap; or 2- eliminate or make it harder for other teams to cultivate that talent.
Specifically as to PR, you have to realize that other than American football, baseball is a costly sport. Unlike the mainland US baseball public schools in PR practice 0 sports. So if you want to practice baseball it has to be through a private club and hence a hefty investment. Therein your comment as to the per capita income in PR becomes very relevant to your article. Therefore, unless you are well off (and have no need to play baseball) there is very little in ways of stimulating the development. Add to that that you now have to wait until you are 18 (versus 16) to get drafted by a team that will devote resources to develop players and it’s easy to understand why the talent is being wasted (also how can you get drafted if nobody is looking).
Finally, in a business sense it illogical for MLB to abandon PR when you consider that there are no visa issues for PR players and most understand and speak basic English. Also, it is evident that teams that do draft PR players pay bonuses which are under the slotted amount (verify the drafts, specifically Jays and Red Sox). So in essence, even though they are equals in the draft PR players get paid less than their mainland counterparts.
Rob, at the end of the day we can’t be as naive to think things happen for no reason at all and nobody notices. If that were true why are we talking about an international draft?
by Jarbo on Jan 17, 2012 2:59 PM EST reply actions
Bingo
Baseball equipment is very costly and there are no programs in Puerto Rican public schools. The poor are steered to play volleyball and basketball because they can be played with a ten dollar ball on a low-maintenace court that fits everywhere.
I agree whith what you said, with this caveat, though: The really talented Puerto Rican player goes to a college in the states and signs for the same amount of money as comparable Americans. Only those who sign straight out of HS in PR will sign for less than a mainlander, but how many of those are real ML prospects? A minority. Advantage: international players. Their ML prospects sign for less as cheap free agents.
by Fraggin Judge on Jan 18, 2012 10:33 AM EST up reply actions
"six-figure bonuses upon turning 16"
Are Dominican and Venezuelan academy players really getting “six-figure bonuses upon turning 16”? As in $100,000 or more?
by Mirror on Jan 17, 2012 3:49 PM EST reply actions
Some of them are getting a hell of a lot more.
11 01 10
Veni Vidi Vixi
by WhereThere'sAWillieThere'sAMays on Jan 17, 2012 8:18 PM EST up reply actions
Of course a world wide draft is an advantage to MLB owners.
That’s why it will come. But at least it will leverage the field among players from everywhere. It will be a leveraging down for international players, though. Until then, Canadians and Americans (including Puerto Ricans) are at a disadvantage.
by Fraggin Judge on Jan 18, 2012 10:37 AM EST reply actions
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