MLB changes record books..adds in Negro League stats

[Sports Guy]

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/40236327/mlb-incorporates-negro-league-statistics-shakes-record-books
 

 

[Can_of_corn]

I thought this was done years ago.

[Chavez Ravine]

34 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

I thought this was done years ago.

Apparently it took a couple years for all the stat heads involved to reconcile the ledgers. But now Josh Gibson officially has the career batting average title.

[Frobby]

49 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

I thought this was done years ago.

BB-ref did it briefly, then switched back.  I have mixed feelings about it TBH, because I think the overall quality of the Negro Leagues varied a lot from one time period to another, more so than in the majors.   But I’m not a keen student of the Negro Leagues so I’ll leave it to baseball history scholars to debate. 

[Chavez Ravine]

I think it’s white people problems to worry about the inconsistent quality of the Negro Leagues. The black ball players lived with a far more consistent worse. Seems a minor reconciliation to combine the stats.

[Moose Milligan]

First thing is first, the Negro Leagues had a lot of great talent and it’s a crime they never got to play in the MLB. That’s a given. 
 

Second, the math doesn’t math here in regard to Gibson, unless I am missing something:

Baseball reference has his career lasting for 14 total seasons spanning from 1930-1946.  There’s no ‘31 or ‘32 seasons for him and no ‘41 season. 

His listed career stats are the .373 batting average, .718 SLG, 166 homers, 135 doubles  

How do they come up with a .718 SLG on 166 homers and 135 doubles across 14 seasons?

[elextrano8]

5 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

First thing is first, the Negro Leagues had a lot of great talent and it’s a crime they never got to play in the MLB. That’s a given. 
 

Second, the math doesn’t math here in regard to Gibson, unless I am missing something:

Baseball reference has his career lasting for 14 total seasons spanning from 1930-1946.  There’s no ‘31 or ‘32 seasons for him and no ‘41 season. 

His listed career stats are the .373 batting average, .718 SLG, 166 homers, 135 doubles  

How do they come up with a .718 SLG on 166 homers and 135 doubles across 14 seasons?

Good catch. MLB & BBref list the same slugging percentage, but the backing numbers vary, as does Seamheads.

MLB:

BBref:

Seamheads:

[Frobby]

5 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

First thing is first, the Negro Leagues had a lot of great talent and it’s a crime they never got to play in the MLB. That’s a given. 
 

Second, the math doesn’t math here in regard to Gibson, unless I am missing something:

Baseball reference has his career lasting for 14 total seasons spanning from 1930-1946.  There’s no ‘31 or ‘32 seasons for him and no ‘41 season. 

His listed career stats are the .373 batting average, .718 SLG, 166 homers, 135 doubles  

How do they come up with a .718 SLG on 166 homers and 135 doubles across 14 seasons?

Short seasons.  Like 50-60 games a year.  He played 602 games total, about the equivalent of 4 AL/NL seasons.  His 162-game average was 45 homers, 197 RBI.

The Negro National League II that Gibson played in was very hitter-friendly, averaging about 5.5 runs per game over its existence (1933-48).  During that same period, the AL averaged about a run per game less, and the NL averaged about 1.5 runs per game less.

 

Edited May 29 by Frobby

[Frobby]

I thought this might be a good place to briefly synopsis the various Negro Lesgues.  I’m by no means an expert on the topic.  

Generally speaking, these leagues did not play uniform schedules.  That is, all teams did not play the same number of games, and in some cases, discrepancies were large.

The Negro National League played from 1920 to 1931.   It normally played 82-102 games a year, but only played 60 in its final year of existence.  23 different teams played in this league at different times, but never more than 8-9 at a time.  

The Negro National League II ran from 1933-48.  It played 55-91 games a year, usually somewhere in the high 60’s/low 70’s. 12 different teams played in that league, anywhere from 6-9 teams a year.

The Negro American League existed from 1937-48.  It played from 47-114 games per year, over 100 in its final five years.  14 different teams played in this league, never more than 8 at a time, and 6 for most of its existence.  

The Eastern Colored League played from  1923-28, playing 34-90 games per year.  Ten teams played in this league, 5-8 at a time.  

The American Negro League played one season, 1929, and had six teams playing 66-80 games.

The East-West League played one season, 1932, and its 8 teams played between 4 and 55 games.  

The Negro Southern League played one season, 1932, and its 11 teams played between 8 and 50 games.  

A useful Wikipedia entry on the history of the Negro Leagues can be found here.

 

[Sports Guy]

They shouldn’t be part of the ML record books.

I think  the Negro Leagues are a fascinating part of baseball history and I would really like to visit the museum in KC but this is MLB placating to social media and all the narratives.  It’s nothing more than that.

[Just Regular]

Something I'd noticed when looking at the 2023 Braves slugging .500 as one of baseball's greatest offenses relative to the Big Red Machine, etc. is that since Fangraphs added Negro Leagues to the database a bunch of St. Louis Stars teams of the late 1920's show up at the top.

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&month=0&ind=1&team=0%2Cts&startdate=&enddate=&sortcol=18&sortdir=default&season1=1920&season=2024

They took about half the PA of the 1927 Yankees their contemporaries for sample size reference, and Branch Rickey was GM'ing the Cardinals during that era.

I hadn't looked at their roster until just now, but the peak 1928 team had young Cool Papa Bell as the name I recognized most.    He and Lou Gehrig were both born in 1903 about 15 years before Jackie, and 30ish before Frank and Brooks.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/SLS/1928.shtml

The KC Museum is great and just a few minutes drive from Arthur Bryant's as a bonus.

[elextrano8]

48 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

They shouldn’t be part of the ML record books.

I think  the Negro Leagues are a fascinating part of baseball history and I would really like to visit the museum in KC but this is MLB placating to social media and all the narratives.  It’s nothing more than that.

I mean, this is just nonsensical. I should've guessed this was why you (of all people) was starting this thread.

[Just Regular]

Extrapolating forward, we can get Ichiro Suzuki to unseat Pete Rose if ever Japan Pacific League results gain canon status.    He might be more favorable for driving revenue as a brand ambassador.

[Sports Guy]

27 minutes ago, elextrano8 said:

I mean, this is just nonsensical. I should've guessed this was why you (of all people) was starting this thread.

It’s nonsensical to not want to lump records into a league they never played in?

And of course that’s why MLB is doing this. Thinking it’s not is naive.

[Moose Milligan]

1 hour ago, elextrano8 said:

I mean, this is just nonsensical. I should've guessed this was why you (of all people) was starting this thread.

I've got to side with SG on this one, for the most part.  And it's not because I'm some red-ass conservative who doesn't like "woke."

It's obvious, but it needs to be said anyway...a great injustice was done to these players.  And I do believe that they had every bit of athletic ability that their MLB counterparts had.  I do believe the MLB before 1947 (and really, well into the 50's and early 60s) would have been light years better with these players.  

But stripping away emotions and looking at things strictly from a logical perspective, it's hard to reconcile.

@Frobbyclued me in, their seasons were shorter, that's why Josh Gibson's slugging percentage is so high. They didn't play as many games that were official but played a lot that weren't...from what I understand, the barnstorming stats aren't being added here.  The statistical records, admittedly, are incomplete.  

Again, looking at it from a logical perspective...it just doesn't make sense.  What we have here is an incomplete story (again, not the fault of those players) being added to one that is complete.  

Ty Cobb had 11,440 at bats.  Josh Gibson had 2168 that we know of.  I have a hard time reconciling that and saying that he's the all-time batting average leader.  I have a hard time reconciling that all of a sudden, his slugging percentage is higher than Babe Ruth's in about 6,000 less at bats.  

And what happens if they do more and more research and find out that he's actually not the all time batting average leader, are they going to take that away from him?  

To @Frobby's point about the quality of the leagues...the quality of the leagues took a nose-dive as MLB became integrated.  Where do you start and stop with that?

Willie Mays just got 10 more hits added to his career total.  10 hits is all he got in the Negro leagues?  His home run total is still at 660 because there's no box scores of hitting a homer despite accounts that he did on August 11th 1948 because it was written about in two newspapers.

But they can't give him 661 because there's no box score?  How come they can't make Hank Aaron the home run king again, didn't he hit a few homers in the Negro Leagues?  Where are those stats and how come they're not added?

At the end of the day, I don't really care too much, this isn't going to be something that keeps me up at night.  And it's a good thing that Josh Gibson and others are getting their due.  I can't argue with that.

But like I said...strip away emotions.  From a strict logical perspective, this doesn't make a whole lot of sense.