Abstract
The sport of baseball has used statistics to enhance understanding for fans for over a century, yet there is limited data on player careers. This study fills that void by examining the careers of baseball players over the last century. Between 1902 and 1993, 5,989 position players started their careers and played 33,272 person years of major league baseball. A rookie position player can expect to play 5.6 years; one in five position players will have only a single-year career, and at every point of a player’s career, the chance of exiting is at least 11%. Position players who start younger and begin their careers in more recent decades all have longer and more stable careers; nevertheless, baseball careers are not compressed versions of normal careers, but are substantially skewed toward early exit.
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Notes
Although Total Baseball begins the early era in 1901, we chose to use 1902 to add an extra year of stability to our data.
The Korean War created a similar but smaller effect. Hall of fame member Ted Williams exemplifies this: he lost all or part of five seasons when he enlisted in both World War II and the Korean War.
Excluding players who came up to the major league solely for a “cup of coffee” produces 5,989 players beginning their first year of play, a total career expectancy of 5.3 years for those in their first year of play, and an exit rate in the first year of play of .20. The more liberal inclusion of those players who came up for a cup of coffee produces more players during the first year of play (6,607), a lower comparable career expectancy (5.2 years), and a substantially higher first year exit rate (0.26).
We examine players’ years of play based on a unistate life table model and do not distinguish between consecutive and nonconsecutive years of play. Out of the 5,989 players we analyze, 66.1% played in consecutive years. Nonconsecutive year play may be due to players moving between the majors and minors, disability, poor health, alcohol or drug problems, or other personal problems. For players who played multiple years, our data allow us to determine multiple entries and exits, but we do not have information about activities during these gaps. If data were available, researchers could also present multistate analyses to estimate transitions from one state to others (e.g., from the major leagues to the minor leagues, disability, retirement, or death).
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Acknowledgments
We thank the Department of Sociology, University of Colorado, Boulder, for supporting this research, Sport Media Enterprises for providing the data, and Justin Denney and the anonymous reviewers for insightful comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this paper.
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Witnauer, W.D., Rogers, R.G. & Saint Onge, J.M. Major league baseball career length in the 20th century. Popul Res Policy Rev 26, 371–386 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-007-9038-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-007-9038-5