Andrew McCutcheon wrote a thoughtful article for the players’ journal a couple years ago, about how hard it is for poor kids (of whatever race) to take up baseball as a sport. Poor kids can’t afford travel ball and the big name trainers, so they have to excel in high school ball to be noticed. College baseball may not be an option either - baseball scholarships are not nearly as lucrative as football and basketball. Even a top high school player that gets drafted in the first round with a 7 figure signing bonus is looking at 3-5 years of busing through the minors, with any number of factors that can derail their development. There’s no instant stardom, like football and basketball.
As far as analytics being racist, there is a balance between statistical analysis and old-fashioned scouting. A kid who is not putting up the numbers, but the scouts insist he has the “tools”, will get wide leeway and multiple chances. So this guy is obviously a rat projecting his racism on a sport that he apparently doesn’t like.
Thanks. You know what you’re talking about.
This scout pointed out to me that up until the mid-1960s, the top athletes in a typical U.S. high school played baseball as their primary sport. The growth of the NFL on television marked the beginning of a change where more and more of these top athletes played football instead. Then basketball began to draw top talent away, with this trend picking up dramatically in the 1980s.
That's why it's no coincidence that the Hispanic presence in MLB began to grow dramatically in the early 1990s.
Interestingly, baseball has a great opportunity to start making a comeback as a top sport for young athletes now, as more and more parents keep their kids out of football for safety reasons.