MLB changes record books..adds in Negro League stats

[Frobby]

32 minutes ago, Aglets said:

Am I missing something?

I don’t think the Clowns were playing in a recognized league in 1951.  The last year of the Negro National League II was 1948.   The breaking of the color line in MLB kind of killed it off, though there were still some teams floating around.  

[Aglets]

35 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I don’t think the Clowns were playing in a recognized league in 1951.  The last year of the Negro National League II was 1948.   The breaking of the color line in MLB kind of killed it off, though there were still some teams floating around.  

OK I think I solved the puzzle.  But this raises more questions.  According to the ESPN article in the OP they didn't use any Negro league data after 1948.

I find this a bit curious, and would again be interested to hear @DrungoHazewood 's take.

Just focusing in on this Negro American League for example.  According to wiki the league was founded in 1937 and was disbanded after the 1962 season.

Hank Aaron played in it in 1951.

MLB only accepted records from the Negro American League from 1937-48 (acc to ESPN).

Why ignore the data from 1949 to 1962?   Maybe it could be added at a later date?

As a Hank Aaron fan I am definitely curious about this.

Edited May 31 by Aglets

[Aglets]

Guess it could partially be because Jackie Robinson broke the barrier in '47 ?

So they figured after that the Negro Leagues weren't as significant since players could (in theory at least) make it to the Majors?

I'm not sure how I feel about that inconsistency in using the Negro League data.

[Frobby]

Just now, Aglets said:

Guess it could partially be because Jackie Robinson broke the barrier in '47 ?

So they figured after that the Negro Leagues weren't as significant since players could (in theory at least) make it to the Majors?

I'm not sure how I feel about that inconsistency in using the Negro League data.

I think this is right.  The Negro League talent was very quickly diluted once Robinson broke the color line.

[DrungoHazewood]

1 hour ago, Aglets said:

OK I think I solved the puzzle.  But this raises more questions.  According to the ESPN article in the OP they didn't use any Negro league data after 1948.

I find this a bit curious, and would again be interested to hear @DrungoHazewood 's take.

Just focusing in on this Negro American League for example.  According to wiki the league was founded in 1937 and was disbanded after the 1962 season.

Hank Aaron played in it in 1951.

MLB only accepted records from the Negro American League from 1937-48 (acc to ESPN).

Why ignore the data from 1949 to 1962?   Maybe it could be added at a later date?

As a Hank Aaron fan I am definitely curious about this.

Yea, the committees that did the research decided that 1920 and 1948 were the cutoff points for what they were willing to call Major League.

I really need to read the SABR book called The Negro Leagues Were Major Leagues, I'm sure that gives some insight. But I'm a bit skeptical that 1919 and 1949 were dramatically different from 1920 and 1948.

I always go back to the other decisions like this somebody made, like calling all the years of the American Association (1882-1892, not the later minor league) Major, none of the National Association, yes on the very clearly not MLB Union Association, yes on the Player's League, no on the 1910-1930 PCL or IL, etc. And currently no on the NPB or KBO. I could make some strong arguments that there are many years where leagues we call minor were much stronger than leagues/years that are designated major. The most egregious being the 1884 Union Association, which would be like calling the Atlantic League a Major League today.

[DrungoHazewood]

If it were up to me I'd put all professional baseball on the front page of every player's Baseball Reference page. Essentially default to the Minor/Black/Mexican/Japan/Indy view that's already there. So you'd see all of Ichiro's career in one spot. Or all of Satchel Paige's (or at least all that wasn't random barnstoming against town teams where they didn't even keep stats), instead of having to click a couple extra clicks to find all the holes in stuff we're currently not designating MLB.

Add a column for estimated league quality with 1.00 being today's MLB. Show us everything, right up front and put it in context.

[Aglets]

Man if they could just find Aaron 8 more homers in 1951.......  hoo boy.

[DrungoHazewood]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

I think this is right.  The Negro League talent was very quickly diluted once Robinson broke the color line.

I assume that's true to some degree. But why draw a hard line? Why make that choice to (essentially) say that 1948 Negro Leagues are the same as the majors today, but 1949 Negro Leagues really don't count and we're going to make you work a little bit to even find that information? Were the 1949 Negro Leagues really lower quality than the 1876 National League? If I were a betting man I'd put good money that they weren't.

We really need to move towards a place where everyone understands the world is a continuum of baseball at all kinds of levels, and just because you're not playing in the very top league doesn't mean your numbers don't count.

[DrungoHazewood]

14 minutes ago, Aglets said:

Man if they could just find Aaron 8 more homers in 1951.......  hoo boy.

We know that Aaron had 786 homers as a non-Negro League professional, and Wikipedia references a Howe Sports Bureau line that says he hit another five homers for the Indianapolis Clowns in what we might call the Negro minor leagues. So a total of 791.

Bonds had a professional total of 782. But then he also had 45 more with Arizona State, which I could argue was higher quality of play than the 1884 Union Association...

But all of that pales in comparison to Sadaharu Oh's 868.

Edited May 31 by DrungoHazewood

[Aglets]

10 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

We know that Aaron had 786 homers as a non-Negro League professional, and Wikipedia references a Howe Sports Bureau line that says he hit another five homers for the Indianapolis Clowns in what we might call the Negro minor leagues. So a total of 791.

Bonds had a professional total of 782. But then he also had 45 more with Arizona State, which I could argue was higher quality of play than the 1884 Union Association...

But all of that pales in comparison to Sadaharu Oh's 868.

If this exercise ends with all of my rec league homers making it in bb-ref from when I was a kid then I'm for it.  

Just add a footnote that rates that approximate difference in quality from my 11-12 kid rec to the current major leagues.

[DrungoHazewood]

6 minutes ago, Aglets said:

If this exercise ends with all of my rec league homers making it in bb-ref from when I was a kid then I'm for it.  

Just add a footnote that rates that approximate difference in quality from my 11-12 kid rec to the current major leagues.

In backyard baseball in 1982 I kept stats for the whole neighborhood on graph paper that I attached to my family fridge. The graph paper is long gone, but I will forever remember that I hit .951 with 120 homers.

[Malike]

Sounds like they may include the stats at some point but not in "release 1.0"

Several outlets have reported that the Howe Sports Bureau credited Aaron with a strong three-month run in Indianapolis, including five homers. If those home runs were added to the database, he'd jump up to 760, not enough to bypass Barry Bonds (762) as the all-time home run king but close enough to be interesting.

But the era of Negro Leagues getting added to the database runs from 1920 to 1948, "at which point the Negro National League collapsed and the World Series was a dead letter," said Major League Baseball historian John Thorn, a Beloit College alumnus.

"The Negro American League continued to play, with an added emphasis on barnstorming games," Thorn said. "So, our decision not to include the Indianapolis Clowns post-1948 or Henry Aaron at all had nothing to do with either (team or player), but instead our evaluation of the major-league caliber of the surviving NAL."

In other words, the league wasn't at the same level as Major League, and "barnstorming" games included a variety of competition levels.

"Ernie Banks, Toni Stone and other noteworthy players came into the NAL after 1948," Thorn said. "Their Negro League record will not, in this Release 1.0 of the newly integrated MLB database, be included."

[Just Regular]

5 hours ago, Aglets said:

What are the implications of this with respect to Hank Aaron and his HR total?

That's a Clown question, bro   

[Jagwar]

On 5/31/2024 at 3:08 PM, Aglets said:

If this exercise ends with all of my rec league homers making it in bb-ref from when I was a kid then I'm for it.  

Just add a footnote that rates that approximate difference in quality from my 11-12 kid rec to the current major leagues.

I believe we should include my HRs playing Nintendo R.B.I. Baseball, which were conservatively in the tens of thousands. 

[DrungoHazewood]

On 5/30/2024 at 6:28 PM, Jagwar said:

TL/DR

I understand the motivation and catalyst for this move, and I truly align with those who think the Negro League players endured an injustice. But I struggle with the idea of equating the quality of play and stats achieved in one league with another. How can you possibly equate Josh Gibson's stats to someone like a Ruth/Dimaggio/Williams? Completely different quality of pitching and hitting. The contrarian in me would ask... what kind of stats would Ruth/Dimaggio/Williams have achieved playing in the Negro League?

And why stop at the Negro League? Why not aggregate all of the stats of all international leagues? Wouldn't that suggest that Ichiro should be the actual all time hits leader? 

 

Again, I'm just being a contrarian here. I have no clue what the right path is.  

Do you know that it was a completely different quality of pitching and hitting? Again, I need to read the darned book, but there is a very well researched SABR publication entitled "The Negro Leagues are Major Leagues".

Until I read that, my position remains that if we're going to count the Federal League, and the AL/NL during wars, and the Union Association, and the early days of the American Association and all that as "Major" and all their records count, then it's hard to argue against the Negro Leagues getting the same treatment.

And yes, that same argument can be applied to at least the NPB, and probably other foreign leagues, too. And many years of high level independent minor leagues like the 1920s IL, and several different periods of the PCL.