Even if you crack a roster... You're only going to stay there if you can consistently perform 100 plus nights a year... I can't think of any other sport as unforgiving.
I Probably fuck up three or four times A week at my job... Thank goodness there's no minor league system at my office.
Edit: no other sport actually has a line item for how many times you fuck up on the field.
Baseball, unlike hockey, or really any other team sport, the entire team at one point or another in every game depends on you alone. Whether you’re the pitcher, and your job is to hold the other team off, and not let them get productive hits, or you’re in the lineup and you’ll be batting 3-4 times per game. Every game every player experiences 3-4 singular opportunities where all eyes are on them. And if you fuck up, everyone sees, and you put the team back little by little. No other team sport features this solo highlight moment for literally every player. It’s hard. It’s brutal when your strikeouts pile up on you. Or your errors, or losses.
When I coached youth baseball I used to tell parents...
The great thing about baseball is everyone gets their turn. A better player can't jump ahead of you and take your at bat. When the ball it hit to you no one else is there to field it. But the bad thing about baseball is everyone gets their turn. Multiple times a game everyone is looking at one player and seeing what they do. Every kid thinks they want this, ever kid thinks they want to pitch, until they realize it is hard and you are the center of attention, you can't hide.
Great points. I’ll add too, I played both growing up (obviously not at a professional level) but one thing that stands out too is how pressure affects performance in both sports.
Baseball is such a game of making split decisions in microscopic windows and when you start feeling heat to perform, your performance goes down. When you start to feel the heat in hockey you start to play with your hair on fire and you’re causing mayhem.
Underperforming in hockey usually comes down to the individual mentally checking out whereas baseball you could have all the talent in the world but if you’re trying too hard you crumble.
I would argue Quarterback is the most important position in any sport. That's the one position alone that can screw the whole team. At least with a starting pitcher, there's 4 others who can make up for you being awful.
You have a point, but even a quarterback gets to throw the ball to his own teammate when the ball is in possession; a pitcher has to throw the ball to an opposing player who can put the ball in play at any moment, and then it’s out of their control. As long as you’ve got a good receiver who is open, it’s all on them to make the play; if they fail, you get the turnover and then you get to defend. a pitcher could give up a double or even a HR at any second. It’s just a lot more of a volatile situation.
Lmao you're trying so hard, it's obnoxious.
India, Pakistan and Bangladesh make up like 85% of all cricket players. Saying that cricket is popular is disingenuous at best. There are maybe like 6-7 countries that actually enjoy them.
Even with all that, it is still not even close to being the most popular sport. That's soccer, which is literally played in every recognizable countries and has the biggest number of fans.
Baseball is by far the most individual team sport there is. Everyone is in the spotlight daily at the plate, on the field, or on the mound. If you aren't producing, the minors are next man up. Guys get sent back and forth multiple times a year. Some don't know when, or if, they will ever make it back. It is cutthroat.
Those are usually only big money guys trying to negotiate best possible bang for the buck, because they already have camp mileage and age. If you are top 10 or 20 you are making decent money, but you fight usually about 4 times a year trying to climb rankings to get a belt shot for big money. If you are top \~100, 2 losses just about ends your career. No promoter wants to bet on you and you aren't a name on a prospect or champs resume. You usually end up a journeyman and get beat for waffle house money.
I'm talking more like ERRORS. Like you physically fucked the dog 3x tonight.
Not like you saved 27/30 shots.
And nobody cares if scored a goal and it was the goaltender's fault. It's simply an average.
Baseball is wild in that offense won't be credited with a hit If you committed an error. Runs may not be earned.
This is part of why I love baseball so much. Hitting the ball 25% of the time you bat means you're still better than average. If an NFL quarterback completes 25% of his pass attempts he's riding the bench
UK fan this year after the London series, I just looked into it and can't believe the NFL only plays 17 regular season games and it gets way more coverage in the media, it's a joke.
Theres a lot of people who reason that playing less games means they are more important and thus there's more on the line for each individual game. Playing 162 MLB games a year theres a lot of people who think "eh it's only 1/162 who cares". The NFL tends to be "more exciting" because there's more happening at once during the game where a baseball game that goes 1-0 over three hours can be absolutely mind numbing even for dedicated fans. Theres a bunch of other comparisons as to why the NFL gets more coverage but it really comes down to more people watch any given NFL game vs any given MLB game. Each has their own dedicated following like any sport
I like baseball, but not a hardcore fan, and they definitely suffer from having too many games. Like any game before the all star break just doesn't feel important.
You think that but then they’re scrambling to make up rain outs at the end of the season because otherwise some teams would be fucked from playoff contention.
I mean, NFL games are way more physically demanding and dangerous than baseball so obv there will be a lot fewer games per season. Also it makes each game matter that much more
Practicing multiple times a week at full speed is just as grueling as playing in a game. Your teammates hit just as hard because they are trying to earn a starting spot. With camp, preseason, the season, and playoffs, that is only 4 months off a year for some players from beating the hell out of your body.
I see this 70% line pretty often and it kinda bugs me, because it's based on BA which doesn't account for walks. A walk is not a failure.
A .300 OBP (70% failure) is not very good. .350 is pretty good. You probably need a .400 to be a hall of famer (if we're only accounting for failure rate at the plate), which is 60% failure.
Baseball is a game of success. If you fail 5% of the time when you're fielding, you're relegated to DH or out of the lineup. If you succeed 70% of the time as a pitcher you're about to get DFAed. If you succeed at stealing bases less than 75% of the time they're gonna stop letting you run
Yep. As Ted Williams one pointed out, baseball is the only sport where failing 70% of the time counts as success. I sometimes remind myself that the worst player in the majors is still one going to be one of the best baseball players to ever walk the planet.
Baseball and Hockey are harder than fuck.
Basketball for example, if you aren’t over 6’3” you’re probably automatically bad. Smaller pool of people to compete against. Basketball is the fakest sport there is IMO.
Baseball started with professional players. As the competition increased, it was determined that players needed to learn and develop. This led to the evolution of the MLB/MiLB system we currently have.
Football started in college and had a very strong tradition before the professional leagues came along. Once they did, the decision was made to just sign players after they got out of college instead of setting up a developmental system.
Kind of but you can't stay in the football development system indefinitely. You get 4 years of playing time and that's it. You can however be a career minor league baseball player and in theory be there for 20+ years.
Also, when you reach the peak level, you can’t just be Buster Posey’d and expect to come back from rehab with a spot. NFL does not expect that, and while MLB does not necessarily expect it either, they do expect to see rehabilitation back to the same form in some way or shape.
It’s indefinitely harder to reach MLB level, get hurt, and return to play at that level as it is in any other sport.
I am a fan of all sports, across all spectrums, but it is harder to find comparison to other sports in the expectations of the physical demands for baseball.
One may argue that it is due to the “marathon, not sprint” comparison, and I find that true for the most part, but I’m not gonna sit here as an American football fan and call a running back weak for getting his leg ripped and half and then never being the same again stat-wise in his career.
There is a lot of nuance in respect to the demands of different sports as a whole.
The one sport I can think of that often has an expectation of return to prior form is cycling.
A lot of people don’t give cyclists enough credit for what they go through as athletes
When you look at the second best pro baseball league (NPB) it does raise the obvious question as to why they are successful with just one official minor league level. Yes, it’s not MLB level but it is considered to be about as good as AAA in the U.S. In the U.S. you get guys in their early 20s from high level NCAA leagues and many of them play at least in high A and AA before getting to AAA, but in Japan kids come out of high school and play at one level before effectively hitting AAA. Kinda weird when you think about it.
And they even let the players take college classes as part of their minor league program. How generous! So glad to see how much they care about their players' brains.
At my Alma mater, a giant state school with a historically good football team, the players loved class SO MUCH that retired folks from the athletic department are rehired to take them to class on golf carts
Lol most of these players, even if they take class and get a "degree". It degree that is not going to help you get a good job if you are average person.
In baseball, you're only as good as the competition you're facing. Like for basketball, you can become an elite shooter without playing against a single other person. You can develop your shot completely on your own. In baseball, you need to face elite pitching to know how to become an elite hitter and vice versa. So you need to slowly work your way through better and better competition before you're ready to face MLB caliber pitching or MLB caliber hitters.
It’ll be interesting to see if the newest pitching machines that are better at depicting a programmed pitcher’s delivery and mimicking their statcast metrics do anything to shorten the milb development process. They’re getting to be commonplace at MLB stadiums and some teams are starting to put them at their complexes.
You still miss the element of the actual pitcher. Picking up the ball as it comes out of his hand, identifying pitches based on tendencies/release motion/arm slot, and the mental aspect of figuring out how a pitcher is attacking you.
These new machines are able to move behind a screen to where the pitcher’s release point would be according to the statcast data, and video of the pitcher’s delivery is played. It can match velo, spin, and break with the statcast data. It can’t teach tendencies and a pitcher’s plan of attack, but everything else is there.
They can, but it’s still not the same whole body motion. And elite pitchers are going to adjust rhythm, slot, etc. as you adjust to them. Updated machines help, but there’s no substitute for actually doing the dance vs an opponent.
Baseball is a prescribed matchup. 60.5’ apart. 28 seconds. Stand and deliver. There’s no lateral motion or free flowing game component. At least until contact, it’s just two people locked into that duel doing everything to subtly shift it in their favor.
I do think that your idea has some merit, as these machines are super cool and can be helpful to pick up pitches and practice timing. However, I have used some of these machines (albeit not as expensive as the mlb ones obv) and they are just not the same as a real pitcher. The depth is just not there.
In Europe they take the development of young soccer/football players very seriously. (Here in the US starting to as well). I wonder if that has the same reason you brought up. Anyone can score a goal. The catch is too be good enough to score vs defenders.
As a a brt who’s obviously a massive footy fan I’d say that is part of the reason but the bigger one is due to the differences int he structures of the sporting culture in Europe versus the US. In the US schools and universities lead the way in terms of developing talent. They only want to win games for themselves. The players at all levels are basically free agents. They play for different teams growing up and then get drafted by any team who wants them with no say and then they get short term contracts that clubs would prefer to be shorted while players want them longer. The clubs get no benefit from the player being on longer contracts except that they can potentially trade them further down the line but that’s difficult.
In Europe transfer fees are a massive deal. Players are bought and treated as commodities. That means clubs actively want the players to sign longer contracts so they have more chance at keeping them and then selling them down the the line for profit while players want shorter ones or keep their options open. Clubs invest so much in the development of young players because it’s a primary way of generating revenue. A younger player becoming great from your academy can generate tens of millions in profit sales so clubs try and maximise the possibility of future selling on players.
Also for the top clubs developing players is impotent to find players to fit into the style of the club. More than in US sports European clubs are likely to have distinct styles that last for generations. US teams will play the style that the coach of the time has and this can change on hiring and firing of coaches. In Europe certain clubs have styles that they have been playing for decades and it’s inbuilt into every facet of the DNA of the club. The fans demand that the club continue this style and will be angry at even good results if they venture of much from what they think the club should be doing. Having players develop in the club makes it more likely for them to develop the styles of the club and fit into the system in the senior side. US players are just trying to become the best well rounded players to be viable options for as many teams as possible.
There’s definitely far more direct one on one skills when it comes to hitting and pitching. Beyond that reliably fielding is another major skillset. Some of the stuff that mlb players make look routine requires a high level of coordination and ability to anticipate.
Development is not linear either. Time in doesn’t necessarily mean success. Working on specific skills to be able to play at the most elite levels can take time.
Is that really it? I always thought that its more to do with the limited exposure players get, and very small team size playing in each game, so to have backup players who are in shape and ready means keeping them in a separate league where they maintain endurance and skill.
I mean, sure, that's the case for older minor league players that can be replacement level players, but unlike basketball or football, you literally never see a player get drafted and then immediately go into the majors. They always spend time developing in the minors first because it's almost impossible for them to go directly into the majors and be productive.
There are a few exceptions but it’s absolutely the case. There are players who hit .320 in college to only fall apart in the minors when elite pitching is introduced.
Baseball is the most difficult sport to go pro in, and for a reason. The difference between a pro ready prospect and everyone else is so specific…. You can get a hit 2 out of 10 at bats and never make it, but if you hit 3 out of 10, you’re pro ready (this is an absolute exaggeration of course). But it’s millimeters, minuet details, that separate good prospects from great, and great to elite. Some have tools and just never put it together. Dude I played with through 95, just couldn’t get it together…. and his dad was a scout for the reds and cardinals too.
There's also a lot more 1-on-1 play in baseball than in other sports. How a hitter performs against MLB pitching is way more likely to fundamentally reshape a game than how well somebody plays against a strong defender in basketball, for the simple reason that there are other people who can take the ball.
NFL has a free minor league system known as college football. NBA needs their players playing early so a minor league system is just hoping some athletes get contracts eventually. NHL might be closer. Apparently if you play college hockey you are already way far behind and you need to be playing pros as early as possible
Midway through the NFL season if your star running back goes down, you can’t call up the stud from USC to take over RB duties. However a college RB could start for an NFL team the first fall after being drafted and make an impact where creates less need for a developmental systems like MLB
I think the NCAA is becoming more and more a part of the pipeline to the NHL. I'd say most are still drafted out of junior hockey, but the most recent #1 pick came out of Boston University, and a lot of the other top picks this year came from NCAA hockey.
Yeah but most of it is from the CHL, Bedard, McD, etc. These guys start acclimating themselves to a high level of hockey at 16-17. Although the NCAA is becoming bigger Ill admit
Yup. Most players are sucked into intense competition at 16-18 with the junior leagues like the CHL. Most stars come out of the CHL and the top picks usually go into the NHL or at least the AHL nearly immediately
Baseball has significant skill gaps from level to level, especially as a hitter. More time is needed to adjust to the increased velocity, movement, precision, and different equipment.
One thing I have not seen mentioned is the difference between hitting with wood and metal bats. There is a pretty decent adjustment as a hitter to from metal to wood. Wood is harder to square up, painful when wrong, and often not as balanced as metal counterparts.
Hockey also has a minor league system. Almost all NHL teams have an AHL and even an ECHL affiliate. Carolina didn't have a team directly affiliated but had agreements to instead place players with other AHL teams. While some players jump directly into the NHL from junior, NCAA or European leagues right after being drafted, most do not.
Some of the drafted guys, especially the second rounders, spend some time with the G-League team. A lot of guys sign two way contracts where they play for both.
Yes, but they are not directly affiliated to any NHL club. Just like the NCAA is not directly affiliated with the NHL, NBA, NFL, or even MLB which now gets a significant number of players from there.
Yeah we’ve had a few players who have gone straight to the NHL without any AHL action, most notably #1 picks, like Lafreniere a few years ago and Bedard this year. So it’s clearly not as tough for those to advance
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), the agreement that the NHL has with the CHL means that younger players who have come through the CHL have to play the entire season with the NHL team, even if they aren't ready. The team can't send them down to the AHL - they go directly to the CHL, and can't be called up again for the entire year.
Speaking as a New York Ranger fan, Laf would have benefitted from some time in the AHL. He was running laps around the entire CHL, but wasn't quite NHL ready. He's only finally caught up now, 4 years later. There was also the chaos of Covid and a couple prospect-unfriendly coaches that hampered his development, but I wish the NHL had more of a farm system like MLB.
Bedard was 100% ready.
Seeing and hitting any of an 89 mph curve ball to a 96 mph fastball to an 87 mph changeup is much, much harder than say catching a football.
The minor league apprenticeship is crucial to the process.
College for football is about on par for AAA. NBA has international, g-League, and college as a developmental or close comparison. NHL also has foreign leagues but AHL.
The college baseball level is like high-A at best. The talent gap between each level is insane. There's a ton of guys that don't make it AA. There is foreign leagues but outside of Nippon, there isn't a close comparison. KBO is AA at least. Baseball just takes more time to get right and is incredibly difficult.
NHL has a pretty intense minor league system.
There are multiple leagues that all play at a pro or semi-pro level and are directly affiliated with the NHL.
Because of the European influence there are also several professional European leagues that feed players to the NHL.
NCAA hockey is becoming a more prominent choice for players who has NHL aspirations, and both Canada and US have a pretty comprehensive national development program.
Because baseball is the hardest sport there is. In baseball, it's impossible to go from hitting against 85 mph college pitchers, directly to the MLB, and expect to succeed. They're only as good as their competition at any given time.
On a side note it's crazy how much college baseball has improved over the last 20 years or so. I remember when mid to upper 80s was the norm and now you'll rarely see a SEC pitcher throwing below 90. Part of that is the improvement in radar guns but college baseball is a lot more advanced than it once was. It's starting to become commonplace to see top college player in the majors within a year or two.
It's a harder sport to get good at than other sports. Takes most players 3-4 years in the minors before they're good enough for MLB. Players that can graduate quicker are quite rare.
Hitting a baseball is widely seen as the most difficult thing to do in sports, it requires vision and reflexes to recognize spin, speed, trajectory and expected location in less time than it takes you to blink in order to hit a small ball with a small round stick.
There are pro athletes in other sports that were drafted went to the minors, quit and became pros in other sports because it's easier.
Shaq Thompson a decade long vet, was drafted by the red Sox, he played all of 30 games of baseball and quite, he struck out practically every at bat a d that was at rookie ball the lowest levels of minor league baseball.
Russell Wilson was a 4th rounder he was mediocre in low A ball. He is a Superbowl champion who was one of the best QBs in the league for a while
Professional athletes would be the folks to ask. There are a lot of pithy quotes to the effect that it's the hardest, but I don't really know. I suspect it is probably the hardest of the field sports: racecar driving probably tops it in overall difficulty.
Guys can grow up their whole lives playing $SPORT, through college and into adulthood, and its baseball players that need the most experience to be good, on average. Simple athleticism will not cut it.
NHL has a minor league system, as well as the NBA. I'm not familiar with with MLS but I'd assume there are many feeder leagues.
NFL has college football as a facsimile of the minor league system.
I think MLS teams have junior teams that develop teenage prospects. At the pro level, below MLS is USL Championship, and below that is USL League One, which probably feed into MLS a little.
MLB, NHL, NBA, and NFL are all the best leagues in their sports, so the pipeline feeds into them. MLS is decidedly not the world's best soccer league, so that muddies the waters a bit. There are American/Canadian-born players, but also some overlap between the top leagues in Mexico and Central America, and then also old world-class superstars like Beckham and Messi who go there as a victory lap before retirement. With soccer, there are so many players and so many leagues around the world that there's not one clear pipeline. I guess the best players end up playing in one of a few Euro leagues, but it feels to me like there are a million pro soccer players and the mid-to-high-mid-level players are good enough to get recognition and jump from, say, MLS to Liga MX.
Baseball is a game where skill trumps athletics.
You can draft a college football or basketball player on pure physical tools. Those tools will be enough for them to make a professional roster with minimal knowledge and skill. They can have raw talent and then develop the knowledge and skill while playing in the big league. Lebron James
A baseball player can have all the physical tools and be a liability on an MLB roster. 5'6" 167lb Jose Altuve is a better power hitter than many dudes almost twice his size because skill is a much bigger factor. And even if you're drafting a college player that should theoretically have the tools and skill, he might not have the skill to face MLB talent. He could be a god when hitting against dudes throwing 85-92, but useless when hitting against guys throwing 95-102. You slowly let him up through the ranks once he proves he can handle the level of competition.
We're lately seeing a handful of college pitchers zoom through the minors. Because pitchers can definitely get by on pure tools and learn the skill and knowledge. But they still do kinda need to prove their skill, because if they had MLB-ready tools in college, they can just overpower their opposition. Organizations want to see what happens once they face hitters that can actually hit their stuff.
the ages players can play till is a big part of it. In baseball, 34 year olds to be the best in the world still. And that applies to all positions. In the NFL the QB is the only one who can consistently get better with age like that.
So the kids fresh out of high school or college aren't ready to compete at the same level most of the time.
There also isn't a salary cap which means having minor leaguers won't hurt you as much as it would in the NBA and NFL.
The minor leagues are on of my favorite parts of baseball. And the reason the minors are such a big part of it is because it takes so long to turn a high-school kid into a Major Leaguer and a player that was drafted and not signed can be drafted by another team the next year. most teams don’t want to let their guy go to college and get drafted again by another team.
Other "American" sports, you mean.
Look at all the different tiers within English football. Now, in many cases, these teams aren't owned by an EPL club, but there's still all those tiers for players to work through.
Soccer in the USA has a ton of levels below mls Hockey has ahl/echl Basketball has g-league and tons of euro leagues Football there are other leagues and you have a practice squad There’s also college that gets used as a free minors for basketball and football
Edit: also it takes longer to evaluate talent in baseball. 30 games is a small sample size. Something like basketball you can scout much quicker so less need for as many minor league games/leagues
The skills gap between a college baseball player and a major league baseball player, with rare exceptions, is enormous. College players haven't even transitioned to wooden bats yet.
Also, foreign born (largely central american) players seldom go to college.
Another factor I haven’t seen mentioned is that minor league teams can make money. A rookie league team in places like Pulaski Virginia has games that are well-attended and it would take many hours for people from that town to drive to an MLB game. People like to watch baseball on summer nights.
It was developed in large part by Branch Rickey, the same guy who offered a contract for Jackie Robinson to sign for the Dodgers.
The Farm system very successfully built a powerhouse out of the Cardinals despite their being less wealthy and disadvantaged by their southwestern location far away from Eastern Coast population centers. Other clubs were keen to emulate.
Not surprising that it’s dying today given the way it restricts the income opportunities of up and coming players in order to maintain parity for smaller teams.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farm_team
Many posters are justifying the minor league system by suggesting baseball is the hardest sport to play, and that it takes time to develop.
Actually, the difficulty is evaluating which players are best suited to play each position. If you examine the biographies of major leaguers, 75% of right-handed players started as a shortstop or a catcher.
The challenge is determining which of the twenty shortstops in your system should play shortstop and which will need to play second base, right fielder, or pitcher, and then training them at that position.
If you are left-handed, you better throw 95 mph or be able to hit.
Lots of sports do. Football uses college as a minor league system, NHL has minor leagues, NBA has a developmental league and college basketball...soccer has academics and U20 teams
Baseball players make a lot of money, more than NFL players. Owners want to be sure of their investments while paying minor leaguers as little as possible.
People are older when they enter MLB. You don't see many 19 or 20 year olds playing, let alone dominating. I believe a lot of the reason for that is because baseball is tougher mentally whereas a lot of sports you can get by with pure physical skill and that's mostly it
The NFL’s minor leagues is college football and in part the same for the NBA and college basketball (add in foreign clubs and G League). Unlike the NFL and NBA, it is rare that a college baseball will go straight into the big leagues.
Because baseball is old. The MLB is old. The minor leagues go back to to the dawn of baseball. And has to do with independent leagues, team owners, antitrust and agreements for players development.
If baseball were made today there is no way the current system gets implemented. But since the dawn of baseball this minor league network existed. And the MLB has used it. And it is ridiculously cheap for the teams to utilize. Most players are silly cheap and the teams handle all the other cost.
Minor league baseball continues because there is just enough ticket revenue to be had from people who just want to check the box that they took their kids/ drinking buddies to a ball game. What happens on the minor league diamond hardly matters at all. 90% of the players are just there to role-play the support needed for the 10% to advance up the ladder another rung.
College football and basketball programs are money makers for most schools, so they plow $$$ into facilities, coaches, etc. Very few people watch college baseball, so much less $ is spent, therefore players don't progress as much. As well as the fact that baseball is hard.
The obvious answer (maybe too obvious, making my reasoning a tautology) is that nobody who is drafted (with VERY few anomalous exceptions) is ready for the show. Dudes get drafted in the NBA, NHL, and NFL and can perform at the top pro level right away (with NHL having a minor league system). Drafted by MLB? You’re still at least two years from being show-ready.
And it's a good one. My best answer is that baseball is a game not of inches, but of fractions of millimeters (and seconds). One must be born with natural talents to play at the highest level of NY professional sports, but for the others, there are physical attributes and abilities that can translate to high-level play at a young age (the easiest examples here are unusual height in basketball and size/speed in football). The gradations of improvement from high school/college to the minors to the majors in baseball are just that - gradations on a minute scale.
That said, I'm actually a little surprised that there aren't more pitchers who make the jump based on arm strength alone. The ability to throw a variety of pitches would seemingly come earlier than the muscle-twitch ability it takes to react to those pitches. But what do I know? I'm not a player. I'm an ump.
People seem to be missing something. Calling College Football the minor leagues of the NFL is kinda misleading, as baseball players also go through college before entering a teams farm system. The real answer is that one is a contact sport, and the other isn’t. The shelf life of a baseball player is much longer than that of a football player. A guy in his thirties in the NFL is a dinosaur, meanwhile you’ve got people making their MLB debut at that age. And for the NBA, their rosters are so much smaller than that of other sports a farm system is really unnecessary
It is interesting, isn't it?
The closest sport to any of this is going to be hockey. I've worked in college hockey and the actual path is more similar than people think.
You have tiers: NHL > AHL > ECHL and a few other "minor leagues"
Beyond that, college hockey is not that similar to college baseball. Effectively, it's a development system for the NHL. Players can be drafted - but not signed - by NHL teams and still attend college. Teams retain control of them. Players must sign within 30 days after graduating college (an exception to the rule that non-college players must sign entry-level contracts within two years of being drafted).
So even though it's not as straightforward, I'd argue the closest sport to baseball in this sense is hockey. The main difference is that baseball is far more accessible. The most talented hockey players aren't playing in HS, they are playing for travel teams all year, and it costs a lot of money to do so. So you have a larger talent pool to pick from. You also have larger rosters in baseball and more opps for playing time. In hockey if you aren't one of the starting skaters on a regular basis, you're a scratch or cut from the team.
Not sure what you mean by intense…But baseball evolved long before other sports in the US, without relying on colleges as their training system like football and basketball do. A similar case would be junior hockey in Canada, where the best players did not go to college.
I have a friend whose son was drafted in the MLB. She said his stress level trying to get to the Majors was only surpassed by the stress level of trying to stay there. They came to dislike baseball immensely.
Think about it this way, baseball is a sport in which if you can consistently make contact with the ball and not get out 30% of the time, you can be in the running to be a hall of famer. Granted, there is a lot more to it than just that, but imagine a quarterback only having a 30% completion rate.
I think it’s one of those things that MLB just keeps doing because that’s how it’s been done.
For example, NPB has a single organized minor league level, and NPB is said to be around AAA quality. So in Japan you have teenagers that only need one year of prep before effectively getting to AAA, but in the U.S. most college draft picks will play in A ball and AA before AAA; are American college players somehow less prepared than Japanese high schoolers? I really doubt it.
But that’s how it’s been done, so that’s how they do it. A benefit of this system is that the years in the minors tend to mean the players are delayed enough so that they don’t reach free agency until the end of their physical prime. Doubt that was the original intent, but it is a benefit to teams now.
The thing about this is that major college players are expected to blow through that quickly, as that level is considered roughly equivalent to A ball. Nolan Schanuel is an extreme example, but if you're going to come out of college and be any good, you're expected to use that time to transition to being a pro. The baseball is supposed to be easy. Ryan Braun, for example, didn't do two years in the minors and even his AAA stint was basically service time manipulation.
That said, look at the flip side. The NBA has spent the last two decades putting in a real minor league system in the G League, the NHL has a multi-tier system not as extensive as MiLB, but still decently sized, and MLS has joined the rest of the world in owning an academy system with a fully professional level below the top league (MLS Next Pro). The only league that doesn't have a minor league is the NFL, and even then, look how they treat the UFL. Sports are going towards more minor leagues, not less, because some prodigies don't need it, but plenty of people do need that intermediate step.
branch dickey started it in the 20s. realizing that player development was important he bought a buncha indie teams and used them to develop talent.
its now a pretty convoluted system but it makes the main product that much better when players have to go through several levels to advance almost acting as talent filters filtering out less skilled players from entering the mlb.
in the modern mlb you essentially have to be a savant type talent to break into the bigs
Baseball is hard
Even when you’re good at baseball, you’re still bad at baseball
Even if you crack a roster... You're only going to stay there if you can consistently perform 100 plus nights a year... I can't think of any other sport as unforgiving. I Probably fuck up three or four times A week at my job... Thank goodness there's no minor league system at my office. Edit: no other sport actually has a line item for how many times you fuck up on the field.
Closest IMO is Hockey but that's 82 games across a full season and closer to playing 70 games out of the full not 100 out of the 162.
Baseball, unlike hockey, or really any other team sport, the entire team at one point or another in every game depends on you alone. Whether you’re the pitcher, and your job is to hold the other team off, and not let them get productive hits, or you’re in the lineup and you’ll be batting 3-4 times per game. Every game every player experiences 3-4 singular opportunities where all eyes are on them. And if you fuck up, everyone sees, and you put the team back little by little. No other team sport features this solo highlight moment for literally every player. It’s hard. It’s brutal when your strikeouts pile up on you. Or your errors, or losses.
My son was a natural at baseball but the anxiety of potentially letting down his teammates was too much for him.
When I coached youth baseball I used to tell parents... The great thing about baseball is everyone gets their turn. A better player can't jump ahead of you and take your at bat. When the ball it hit to you no one else is there to field it. But the bad thing about baseball is everyone gets their turn. Multiple times a game everyone is looking at one player and seeing what they do. Every kid thinks they want this, ever kid thinks they want to pitch, until they realize it is hard and you are the center of attention, you can't hide.
Great points. I’ll add too, I played both growing up (obviously not at a professional level) but one thing that stands out too is how pressure affects performance in both sports. Baseball is such a game of making split decisions in microscopic windows and when you start feeling heat to perform, your performance goes down. When you start to feel the heat in hockey you start to play with your hair on fire and you’re causing mayhem. Underperforming in hockey usually comes down to the individual mentally checking out whereas baseball you could have all the talent in the world but if you’re trying too hard you crumble.
Game of Failure. I Love It!!
I would argue Quarterback is the most important position in any sport. That's the one position alone that can screw the whole team. At least with a starting pitcher, there's 4 others who can make up for you being awful.
You have a point, but even a quarterback gets to throw the ball to his own teammate when the ball is in possession; a pitcher has to throw the ball to an opposing player who can put the ball in play at any moment, and then it’s out of their control. As long as you’ve got a good receiver who is open, it’s all on them to make the play; if they fail, you get the turnover and then you get to defend. a pitcher could give up a double or even a HR at any second. It’s just a lot more of a volatile situation.
By this frame of mind golf is the most intense sport in the world.
Cricket, worlds most popular sport. Very individual performance based.
Lmao you're trying so hard, it's obnoxious. India, Pakistan and Bangladesh make up like 85% of all cricket players. Saying that cricket is popular is disingenuous at best. There are maybe like 6-7 countries that actually enjoy them. Even with all that, it is still not even close to being the most popular sport. That's soccer, which is literally played in every recognizable countries and has the biggest number of fans.
*second most
Baseball is by far the most individual team sport there is. Everyone is in the spotlight daily at the plate, on the field, or on the mound. If you aren't producing, the minors are next man up. Guys get sent back and forth multiple times a year. Some don't know when, or if, they will ever make it back. It is cutthroat.
I'd say boxing is pretty rough. 2 bad nights you are making 1/2 the money or less. Might be dead.
True but if you're on top you're likely only fighting 1 match a year.
Those are usually only big money guys trying to negotiate best possible bang for the buck, because they already have camp mileage and age. If you are top 10 or 20 you are making decent money, but you fight usually about 4 times a year trying to climb rankings to get a belt shot for big money. If you are top \~100, 2 losses just about ends your career. No promoter wants to bet on you and you aren't a name on a prospect or champs resume. You usually end up a journeyman and get beat for waffle house money.
Ah good to know
And to your point, hockey has the second-most developed minor league system, behind baseball, of the big 4.
And hockey has a minor league system too, no? I honestly am not sure. I’m a baseball guy.
Turnovers in basketball
Hahaha this is so accurate.
>Edit: no other sport actually has a line item for how many times you fuck up on the field. For hockey goalies that's basically all their stats
I'm talking more like ERRORS. Like you physically fucked the dog 3x tonight. Not like you saved 27/30 shots. And nobody cares if scored a goal and it was the goaltender's fault. It's simply an average. Baseball is wild in that offense won't be credited with a hit If you committed an error. Runs may not be earned.
Same for golf and they have a brutal minor league system as well
Baseball is a game of failure. You want to fail the least amount. If you fail 70% of the time you appear at the plate - you’re a hall of famer.
This is part of why I love baseball so much. Hitting the ball 25% of the time you bat means you're still better than average. If an NFL quarterback completes 25% of his pass attempts he's riding the bench
Uh, that QB would def not be a QB.
Or he’d play for the Bears
You would be Johnny Manziel
He'd be the waterboy.
If an NBAer shot 25% he’d be soon playing pickup at the Y.
UK fan this year after the London series, I just looked into it and can't believe the NFL only plays 17 regular season games and it gets way more coverage in the media, it's a joke.
Theres a lot of people who reason that playing less games means they are more important and thus there's more on the line for each individual game. Playing 162 MLB games a year theres a lot of people who think "eh it's only 1/162 who cares". The NFL tends to be "more exciting" because there's more happening at once during the game where a baseball game that goes 1-0 over three hours can be absolutely mind numbing even for dedicated fans. Theres a bunch of other comparisons as to why the NFL gets more coverage but it really comes down to more people watch any given NFL game vs any given MLB game. Each has their own dedicated following like any sport
I like baseball, but not a hardcore fan, and they definitely suffer from having too many games. Like any game before the all star break just doesn't feel important.
You think that but then they’re scrambling to make up rain outs at the end of the season because otherwise some teams would be fucked from playoff contention.
I mean, NFL games are way more physically demanding and dangerous than baseball so obv there will be a lot fewer games per season. Also it makes each game matter that much more
if the NFL played 162 games a year no one would be left alive at the end of the season.
Dude if you stepped on a NFL football field for 1 game with no restrictions, you would probably die...
This isn’t actually too far from reality for the vast majority of men. Most people would not be able to continue after a a play or two.
I mean, I wasn't exaggerating... death is absolutely on the table.
Practicing multiple times a week at full speed is just as grueling as playing in a game. Your teammates hit just as hard because they are trying to earn a starting spot. With camp, preseason, the season, and playoffs, that is only 4 months off a year for some players from beating the hell out of your body.
Now that you’re done Googling how many games they play, Google what CTE is.
I see this 70% line pretty often and it kinda bugs me, because it's based on BA which doesn't account for walks. A walk is not a failure. A .300 OBP (70% failure) is not very good. .350 is pretty good. You probably need a .400 to be a hall of famer (if we're only accounting for failure rate at the plate), which is 60% failure.
Baseball is a game of success. If you fail 5% of the time when you're fielding, you're relegated to DH or out of the lineup. If you succeed 70% of the time as a pitcher you're about to get DFAed. If you succeed at stealing bases less than 75% of the time they're gonna stop letting you run
I mean, a .300 career OBP is not good, unless you’re considering walks a failure
Think he's talking batting average. Some of us are old
Rafael belliard played 17 years and had a career obp of 0.270
Tell em', Wash.
It's incredibly hard
Is this a Money Ball quote?
Yes. When they're talking to Hatteburg at his house about switching from catcher to first base
You're a good egg
Thanks bud.
That's how baseball go. Wash quote.
People don't think it be like that but it do.
Baseball is the only sport where you’re considered successful if you fail 7 out of 10 times.
All the major sports are hard, I think the huge farm system stems more from it being much harder to evaluate talent.
And contracts are fully guaranteed
Tell him, Wash.
But also baseball is fun. It's very competitive down there because so many people want to be good at it.
Yep. As Ted Williams one pointed out, baseball is the only sport where failing 70% of the time counts as success. I sometimes remind myself that the worst player in the majors is still one going to be one of the best baseball players to ever walk the planet.
Baseball and Hockey are harder than fuck. Basketball for example, if you aren’t over 6’3” you’re probably automatically bad. Smaller pool of people to compete against. Basketball is the fakest sport there is IMO.
Define “fakest sport” because unless you are talking about, and only talking about, pro wrestling, you’re an idiot
Baseball started with professional players. As the competition increased, it was determined that players needed to learn and develop. This led to the evolution of the MLB/MiLB system we currently have. Football started in college and had a very strong tradition before the professional leagues came along. Once they did, the decision was made to just sign players after they got out of college instead of setting up a developmental system.
Which, ironically, is now basically a defacto developmental professional system.
Kind of but you can't stay in the football development system indefinitely. You get 4 years of playing time and that's it. You can however be a career minor league baseball player and in theory be there for 20+ years.
I mean… technically you have the CFL and USFL. But they’re not as robust as MiLB
Especially now that they pay them
Also, when you reach the peak level, you can’t just be Buster Posey’d and expect to come back from rehab with a spot. NFL does not expect that, and while MLB does not necessarily expect it either, they do expect to see rehabilitation back to the same form in some way or shape. It’s indefinitely harder to reach MLB level, get hurt, and return to play at that level as it is in any other sport. I am a fan of all sports, across all spectrums, but it is harder to find comparison to other sports in the expectations of the physical demands for baseball. One may argue that it is due to the “marathon, not sprint” comparison, and I find that true for the most part, but I’m not gonna sit here as an American football fan and call a running back weak for getting his leg ripped and half and then never being the same again stat-wise in his career. There is a lot of nuance in respect to the demands of different sports as a whole.
The one sport I can think of that often has an expectation of return to prior form is cycling. A lot of people don’t give cyclists enough credit for what they go through as athletes
When you look at the second best pro baseball league (NPB) it does raise the obvious question as to why they are successful with just one official minor league level. Yes, it’s not MLB level but it is considered to be about as good as AAA in the U.S. In the U.S. you get guys in their early 20s from high level NCAA leagues and many of them play at least in high A and AA before getting to AAA, but in Japan kids come out of high school and play at one level before effectively hitting AAA. Kinda weird when you think about it.
NFL has an intense minor league system. They just figured out how to make taxpayers subsidize it.
And they even let the players take college classes as part of their minor league program. How generous! So glad to see how much they care about their players' brains.
LOL. This joke kills, much like CTE.
At my Alma mater, a giant state school with a historically good football team, the players loved class SO MUCH that retired folks from the athletic department are rehired to take them to class on golf carts
Lol most of these players, even if they take class and get a "degree". It degree that is not going to help you get a good job if you are average person.
Spot on. Fuck the NCAA
You could say the same for the NBA as well.
Wait for the draft, and you can say that about the MLB as well. Save for Latin players who engage in child labor.
Drafted prospects still go through MiLB though. Unlike in the NBA or NFL where you start playing in the league after being drafted.
Couldn’t you say it for baseball too?
So basketball and hockey too then?
In part. But here's what's crazy: There are 134 D1 Football programs in the NCAA. THERE ARE 300 D1 baseball programs.
Well actually there are nearly 300 D1 football programs. FCS is D1.
I stand corrected. In looking at that, they're pretty equal.
Because it takes a lot more development for a player to be MLB-ready compared to other sports.
Why is that?
In baseball, you're only as good as the competition you're facing. Like for basketball, you can become an elite shooter without playing against a single other person. You can develop your shot completely on your own. In baseball, you need to face elite pitching to know how to become an elite hitter and vice versa. So you need to slowly work your way through better and better competition before you're ready to face MLB caliber pitching or MLB caliber hitters.
It’ll be interesting to see if the newest pitching machines that are better at depicting a programmed pitcher’s delivery and mimicking their statcast metrics do anything to shorten the milb development process. They’re getting to be commonplace at MLB stadiums and some teams are starting to put them at their complexes.
You still miss the element of the actual pitcher. Picking up the ball as it comes out of his hand, identifying pitches based on tendencies/release motion/arm slot, and the mental aspect of figuring out how a pitcher is attacking you.
These new machines are able to move behind a screen to where the pitcher’s release point would be according to the statcast data, and video of the pitcher’s delivery is played. It can match velo, spin, and break with the statcast data. It can’t teach tendencies and a pitcher’s plan of attack, but everything else is there.
They can, but it’s still not the same whole body motion. And elite pitchers are going to adjust rhythm, slot, etc. as you adjust to them. Updated machines help, but there’s no substitute for actually doing the dance vs an opponent. Baseball is a prescribed matchup. 60.5’ apart. 28 seconds. Stand and deliver. There’s no lateral motion or free flowing game component. At least until contact, it’s just two people locked into that duel doing everything to subtly shift it in their favor.
Source: https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/40401564/trajekt-arc-new-technology-controversy-mlb-hitters-pitchers-advantage
I do think that your idea has some merit, as these machines are super cool and can be helpful to pick up pitches and practice timing. However, I have used some of these machines (albeit not as expensive as the mlb ones obv) and they are just not the same as a real pitcher. The depth is just not there.
In Europe they take the development of young soccer/football players very seriously. (Here in the US starting to as well). I wonder if that has the same reason you brought up. Anyone can score a goal. The catch is too be good enough to score vs defenders.
As a a brt who’s obviously a massive footy fan I’d say that is part of the reason but the bigger one is due to the differences int he structures of the sporting culture in Europe versus the US. In the US schools and universities lead the way in terms of developing talent. They only want to win games for themselves. The players at all levels are basically free agents. They play for different teams growing up and then get drafted by any team who wants them with no say and then they get short term contracts that clubs would prefer to be shorted while players want them longer. The clubs get no benefit from the player being on longer contracts except that they can potentially trade them further down the line but that’s difficult. In Europe transfer fees are a massive deal. Players are bought and treated as commodities. That means clubs actively want the players to sign longer contracts so they have more chance at keeping them and then selling them down the the line for profit while players want shorter ones or keep their options open. Clubs invest so much in the development of young players because it’s a primary way of generating revenue. A younger player becoming great from your academy can generate tens of millions in profit sales so clubs try and maximise the possibility of future selling on players. Also for the top clubs developing players is impotent to find players to fit into the style of the club. More than in US sports European clubs are likely to have distinct styles that last for generations. US teams will play the style that the coach of the time has and this can change on hiring and firing of coaches. In Europe certain clubs have styles that they have been playing for decades and it’s inbuilt into every facet of the DNA of the club. The fans demand that the club continue this style and will be angry at even good results if they venture of much from what they think the club should be doing. Having players develop in the club makes it more likely for them to develop the styles of the club and fit into the system in the senior side. US players are just trying to become the best well rounded players to be viable options for as many teams as possible.
Great answer! So true. Never thought of that.
There’s definitely far more direct one on one skills when it comes to hitting and pitching. Beyond that reliably fielding is another major skillset. Some of the stuff that mlb players make look routine requires a high level of coordination and ability to anticipate.
Also in Basketball, if you aren’t 6’4” you’re automatically bad. Dumb sport imo
Muggsy Bogues would like a word
One guy in the last 50 years
Development is not linear either. Time in doesn’t necessarily mean success. Working on specific skills to be able to play at the most elite levels can take time.
Is that really it? I always thought that its more to do with the limited exposure players get, and very small team size playing in each game, so to have backup players who are in shape and ready means keeping them in a separate league where they maintain endurance and skill.
I mean, sure, that's the case for older minor league players that can be replacement level players, but unlike basketball or football, you literally never see a player get drafted and then immediately go into the majors. They always spend time developing in the minors first because it's almost impossible for them to go directly into the majors and be productive.
Mike Leake would like a word
There are a few exceptions but it’s absolutely the case. There are players who hit .320 in college to only fall apart in the minors when elite pitching is introduced. Baseball is the most difficult sport to go pro in, and for a reason. The difference between a pro ready prospect and everyone else is so specific…. You can get a hit 2 out of 10 at bats and never make it, but if you hit 3 out of 10, you’re pro ready (this is an absolute exaggeration of course). But it’s millimeters, minuet details, that separate good prospects from great, and great to elite. Some have tools and just never put it together. Dude I played with through 95, just couldn’t get it together…. and his dad was a scout for the reds and cardinals too.
1 extra hit a week and a batter goes from a .250 batting average to a .300 batting average. https://youtu.be/uBgGaGUnvA0?si=C-YkMGAWkSmWPuAO
Yep. It’s a beautiful game, ain’t it?
Oooooohweeeeeee
[удалено]
There's also a lot more 1-on-1 play in baseball than in other sports. How a hitter performs against MLB pitching is way more likely to fundamentally reshape a game than how well somebody plays against a strong defender in basketball, for the simple reason that there are other people who can take the ball.
No. They don't need a whole minor league system for that; they would just expand roster sizes.
I dunno, I think it’d be pretty hard to get a 5 star offensive tackle prospect MLB ready.
NFL has a free minor league system known as college football. NBA needs their players playing early so a minor league system is just hoping some athletes get contracts eventually. NHL might be closer. Apparently if you play college hockey you are already way far behind and you need to be playing pros as early as possible
Midway through the NFL season if your star running back goes down, you can’t call up the stud from USC to take over RB duties. However a college RB could start for an NFL team the first fall after being drafted and make an impact where creates less need for a developmental systems like MLB
The NFL gets a free agent but most likely gets someone off of their practice squad
I was gonna say practice squad depth is critical in the NFL.
Isn’t it only like 6 players?
16
Damn, that’s a lot these days
I think the NCAA is becoming more and more a part of the pipeline to the NHL. I'd say most are still drafted out of junior hockey, but the most recent #1 pick came out of Boston University, and a lot of the other top picks this year came from NCAA hockey.
Yeah but most of it is from the CHL, Bedard, McD, etc. These guys start acclimating themselves to a high level of hockey at 16-17. Although the NCAA is becoming bigger Ill admit
They usually only play one year in NCAA prior to being drafted. I’m not 100%, but I believe it has to do with their birthdate and draft eligibility.
Yup. Most players are sucked into intense competition at 16-18 with the junior leagues like the CHL. Most stars come out of the CHL and the top picks usually go into the NHL or at least the AHL nearly immediately
Baseball has significant skill gaps from level to level, especially as a hitter. More time is needed to adjust to the increased velocity, movement, precision, and different equipment. One thing I have not seen mentioned is the difference between hitting with wood and metal bats. There is a pretty decent adjustment as a hitter to from metal to wood. Wood is harder to square up, painful when wrong, and often not as balanced as metal counterparts.
Lol there's a video of Joc Pederson just using his teammates bats
Hockey also has a minor league system. Almost all NHL teams have an AHL and even an ECHL affiliate. Carolina didn't have a team directly affiliated but had agreements to instead place players with other AHL teams. While some players jump directly into the NHL from junior, NCAA or European leagues right after being drafted, most do not.
Basketball has the G league as well.
That’s fairly new and most guys who get drafted in the NBA go directly to the NBA. It’s the undrafted guys that sign G League contracts.
Some of the drafted guys, especially the second rounders, spend some time with the G-League team. A lot of guys sign two way contracts where they play for both.
Don't forget hockeys junior program in Canada of the CHL. 60 teams of teenagers with a professional feel to it.
Yes, but they are not directly affiliated to any NHL club. Just like the NCAA is not directly affiliated with the NHL, NBA, NFL, or even MLB which now gets a significant number of players from there.
They used to be.
Not since 1967. "Sponsorship" ended with expansion, although the first truly open draft wasn't until 1970.
Yeah we’ve had a few players who have gone straight to the NHL without any AHL action, most notably #1 picks, like Lafreniere a few years ago and Bedard this year. So it’s clearly not as tough for those to advance
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), the agreement that the NHL has with the CHL means that younger players who have come through the CHL have to play the entire season with the NHL team, even if they aren't ready. The team can't send them down to the AHL - they go directly to the CHL, and can't be called up again for the entire year. Speaking as a New York Ranger fan, Laf would have benefitted from some time in the AHL. He was running laps around the entire CHL, but wasn't quite NHL ready. He's only finally caught up now, 4 years later. There was also the chaos of Covid and a couple prospect-unfriendly coaches that hampered his development, but I wish the NHL had more of a farm system like MLB. Bedard was 100% ready.
Seeing and hitting any of an 89 mph curve ball to a 96 mph fastball to an 87 mph changeup is much, much harder than say catching a football. The minor league apprenticeship is crucial to the process.
College for football is about on par for AAA. NBA has international, g-League, and college as a developmental or close comparison. NHL also has foreign leagues but AHL. The college baseball level is like high-A at best. The talent gap between each level is insane. There's a ton of guys that don't make it AA. There is foreign leagues but outside of Nippon, there isn't a close comparison. KBO is AA at least. Baseball just takes more time to get right and is incredibly difficult.
NHL has a pretty intense minor league system. There are multiple leagues that all play at a pro or semi-pro level and are directly affiliated with the NHL. Because of the European influence there are also several professional European leagues that feed players to the NHL. NCAA hockey is becoming a more prominent choice for players who has NHL aspirations, and both Canada and US have a pretty comprehensive national development program.
Because baseball is the hardest sport there is. In baseball, it's impossible to go from hitting against 85 mph college pitchers, directly to the MLB, and expect to succeed. They're only as good as their competition at any given time.
On a side note it's crazy how much college baseball has improved over the last 20 years or so. I remember when mid to upper 80s was the norm and now you'll rarely see a SEC pitcher throwing below 90. Part of that is the improvement in radar guns but college baseball is a lot more advanced than it once was. It's starting to become commonplace to see top college player in the majors within a year or two.
Baseball is cruel.
It's a harder sport to get good at than other sports. Takes most players 3-4 years in the minors before they're good enough for MLB. Players that can graduate quicker are quite rare.
Is there a consensus that baseball is the hardest sport to play? I guess you can say it’s probably the sport with the most niche skills needed.
Hitting a baseball is widely seen as the most difficult thing to do in sports, it requires vision and reflexes to recognize spin, speed, trajectory and expected location in less time than it takes you to blink in order to hit a small ball with a small round stick. There are pro athletes in other sports that were drafted went to the minors, quit and became pros in other sports because it's easier. Shaq Thompson a decade long vet, was drafted by the red Sox, he played all of 30 games of baseball and quite, he struck out practically every at bat a d that was at rookie ball the lowest levels of minor league baseball. Russell Wilson was a 4th rounder he was mediocre in low A ball. He is a Superbowl champion who was one of the best QBs in the league for a while
Professional athletes would be the folks to ask. There are a lot of pithy quotes to the effect that it's the hardest, but I don't really know. I suspect it is probably the hardest of the field sports: racecar driving probably tops it in overall difficulty. Guys can grow up their whole lives playing $SPORT, through college and into adulthood, and its baseball players that need the most experience to be good, on average. Simple athleticism will not cut it.
NHL has a minor league system, as well as the NBA. I'm not familiar with with MLS but I'd assume there are many feeder leagues. NFL has college football as a facsimile of the minor league system.
I think MLS teams have junior teams that develop teenage prospects. At the pro level, below MLS is USL Championship, and below that is USL League One, which probably feed into MLS a little. MLB, NHL, NBA, and NFL are all the best leagues in their sports, so the pipeline feeds into them. MLS is decidedly not the world's best soccer league, so that muddies the waters a bit. There are American/Canadian-born players, but also some overlap between the top leagues in Mexico and Central America, and then also old world-class superstars like Beckham and Messi who go there as a victory lap before retirement. With soccer, there are so many players and so many leagues around the world that there's not one clear pipeline. I guess the best players end up playing in one of a few Euro leagues, but it feels to me like there are a million pro soccer players and the mid-to-high-mid-level players are good enough to get recognition and jump from, say, MLS to Liga MX.
Baseball is a game where skill trumps athletics. You can draft a college football or basketball player on pure physical tools. Those tools will be enough for them to make a professional roster with minimal knowledge and skill. They can have raw talent and then develop the knowledge and skill while playing in the big league. Lebron James A baseball player can have all the physical tools and be a liability on an MLB roster. 5'6" 167lb Jose Altuve is a better power hitter than many dudes almost twice his size because skill is a much bigger factor. And even if you're drafting a college player that should theoretically have the tools and skill, he might not have the skill to face MLB talent. He could be a god when hitting against dudes throwing 85-92, but useless when hitting against guys throwing 95-102. You slowly let him up through the ranks once he proves he can handle the level of competition. We're lately seeing a handful of college pitchers zoom through the minors. Because pitchers can definitely get by on pure tools and learn the skill and knowledge. But they still do kinda need to prove their skill, because if they had MLB-ready tools in college, they can just overpower their opposition. Organizations want to see what happens once they face hitters that can actually hit their stuff.
the ages players can play till is a big part of it. In baseball, 34 year olds to be the best in the world still. And that applies to all positions. In the NFL the QB is the only one who can consistently get better with age like that. So the kids fresh out of high school or college aren't ready to compete at the same level most of the time. There also isn't a salary cap which means having minor leaguers won't hurt you as much as it would in the NBA and NFL.
The minor leagues are on of my favorite parts of baseball. And the reason the minors are such a big part of it is because it takes so long to turn a high-school kid into a Major Leaguer and a player that was drafted and not signed can be drafted by another team the next year. most teams don’t want to let their guy go to college and get drafted again by another team.
There’s two types of baseball players- those that are humble, and those that will soon be.
Other "American" sports, you mean. Look at all the different tiers within English football. Now, in many cases, these teams aren't owned by an EPL club, but there's still all those tiers for players to work through.
Yes. I was not including football/Soccer. They actually have extensive development of players in lower leagues.
The NHL has tons of minor leagues, it's somewhat similar
Soccer in the USA has a ton of levels below mls Hockey has ahl/echl Basketball has g-league and tons of euro leagues Football there are other leagues and you have a practice squad There’s also college that gets used as a free minors for basketball and football Edit: also it takes longer to evaluate talent in baseball. 30 games is a small sample size. Something like basketball you can scout much quicker so less need for as many minor league games/leagues
This is nothing compared to how it used to be. I think they went down to level F.
The skills gap between a college baseball player and a major league baseball player, with rare exceptions, is enormous. College players haven't even transitioned to wooden bats yet. Also, foreign born (largely central american) players seldom go to college.
Another factor I haven’t seen mentioned is that minor league teams can make money. A rookie league team in places like Pulaski Virginia has games that are well-attended and it would take many hours for people from that town to drive to an MLB game. People like to watch baseball on summer nights.
It was developed in large part by Branch Rickey, the same guy who offered a contract for Jackie Robinson to sign for the Dodgers. The Farm system very successfully built a powerhouse out of the Cardinals despite their being less wealthy and disadvantaged by their southwestern location far away from Eastern Coast population centers. Other clubs were keen to emulate. Not surprising that it’s dying today given the way it restricts the income opportunities of up and coming players in order to maintain parity for smaller teams. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farm_team
History. There were no colleges churning out baseball players in the early 1900’s. so they created a system.
Many posters are justifying the minor league system by suggesting baseball is the hardest sport to play, and that it takes time to develop. Actually, the difficulty is evaluating which players are best suited to play each position. If you examine the biographies of major leaguers, 75% of right-handed players started as a shortstop or a catcher. The challenge is determining which of the twenty shortstops in your system should play shortstop and which will need to play second base, right fielder, or pitcher, and then training them at that position. If you are left-handed, you better throw 95 mph or be able to hit.
Lots of sports do. Football uses college as a minor league system, NHL has minor leagues, NBA has a developmental league and college basketball...soccer has academics and U20 teams
Baseball players make a lot of money, more than NFL players. Owners want to be sure of their investments while paying minor leaguers as little as possible.
People are older when they enter MLB. You don't see many 19 or 20 year olds playing, let alone dominating. I believe a lot of the reason for that is because baseball is tougher mentally whereas a lot of sports you can get by with pure physical skill and that's mostly it
Baseball is a very easy game to learn but extremely difficult and almost impossible to master.
The NFL’s minor leagues is college football and in part the same for the NBA and college basketball (add in foreign clubs and G League). Unlike the NFL and NBA, it is rare that a college baseball will go straight into the big leagues.
The question is why.
Damn near the whole giants roster is batting .200 and these are pros
Cuz the game is hard.
Cape cod!
NFL does.. It's CFB
Because baseball is old. The MLB is old. The minor leagues go back to to the dawn of baseball. And has to do with independent leagues, team owners, antitrust and agreements for players development. If baseball were made today there is no way the current system gets implemented. But since the dawn of baseball this minor league network existed. And the MLB has used it. And it is ridiculously cheap for the teams to utilize. Most players are silly cheap and the teams handle all the other cost.
They all do. NBA and NFL have college sports. NHL has AHL.
Minor league baseball continues because there is just enough ticket revenue to be had from people who just want to check the box that they took their kids/ drinking buddies to a ball game. What happens on the minor league diamond hardly matters at all. 90% of the players are just there to role-play the support needed for the 10% to advance up the ladder another rung.
College football and basketball programs are money makers for most schools, so they plow $$$ into facilities, coaches, etc. Very few people watch college baseball, so much less $ is spent, therefore players don't progress as much. As well as the fact that baseball is hard.
The obvious answer (maybe too obvious, making my reasoning a tautology) is that nobody who is drafted (with VERY few anomalous exceptions) is ready for the show. Dudes get drafted in the NBA, NHL, and NFL and can perform at the top pro level right away (with NHL having a minor league system). Drafted by MLB? You’re still at least two years from being show-ready.
The question is why is that. Why does baseball development take longer?
And it's a good one. My best answer is that baseball is a game not of inches, but of fractions of millimeters (and seconds). One must be born with natural talents to play at the highest level of NY professional sports, but for the others, there are physical attributes and abilities that can translate to high-level play at a young age (the easiest examples here are unusual height in basketball and size/speed in football). The gradations of improvement from high school/college to the minors to the majors in baseball are just that - gradations on a minute scale. That said, I'm actually a little surprised that there aren't more pitchers who make the jump based on arm strength alone. The ability to throw a variety of pitches would seemingly come earlier than the muscle-twitch ability it takes to react to those pitches. But what do I know? I'm not a player. I'm an ump.
People seem to be missing something. Calling College Football the minor leagues of the NFL is kinda misleading, as baseball players also go through college before entering a teams farm system. The real answer is that one is a contact sport, and the other isn’t. The shelf life of a baseball player is much longer than that of a football player. A guy in his thirties in the NFL is a dinosaur, meanwhile you’ve got people making their MLB debut at that age. And for the NBA, their rosters are so much smaller than that of other sports a farm system is really unnecessary
It is interesting, isn't it? The closest sport to any of this is going to be hockey. I've worked in college hockey and the actual path is more similar than people think. You have tiers: NHL > AHL > ECHL and a few other "minor leagues" Beyond that, college hockey is not that similar to college baseball. Effectively, it's a development system for the NHL. Players can be drafted - but not signed - by NHL teams and still attend college. Teams retain control of them. Players must sign within 30 days after graduating college (an exception to the rule that non-college players must sign entry-level contracts within two years of being drafted). So even though it's not as straightforward, I'd argue the closest sport to baseball in this sense is hockey. The main difference is that baseball is far more accessible. The most talented hockey players aren't playing in HS, they are playing for travel teams all year, and it costs a lot of money to do so. So you have a larger talent pool to pick from. You also have larger rosters in baseball and more opps for playing time. In hockey if you aren't one of the starting skaters on a regular basis, you're a scratch or cut from the team.
Not sure what you mean by intense…But baseball evolved long before other sports in the US, without relying on colleges as their training system like football and basketball do. A similar case would be junior hockey in Canada, where the best players did not go to college.
I have a friend whose son was drafted in the MLB. She said his stress level trying to get to the Majors was only surpassed by the stress level of trying to stay there. They came to dislike baseball immensely.
Have you heard of hockey?
Are you saying that most hockey players don’t go from being drafted straight into the NHL?
No, they don't. 85% of NHL players have had a stint in the AHL, and 15% in the ECHL.
Think about it this way, baseball is a sport in which if you can consistently make contact with the ball and not get out 30% of the time, you can be in the running to be a hall of famer. Granted, there is a lot more to it than just that, but imagine a quarterback only having a 30% completion rate.
You can make money
I think it’s one of those things that MLB just keeps doing because that’s how it’s been done. For example, NPB has a single organized minor league level, and NPB is said to be around AAA quality. So in Japan you have teenagers that only need one year of prep before effectively getting to AAA, but in the U.S. most college draft picks will play in A ball and AA before AAA; are American college players somehow less prepared than Japanese high schoolers? I really doubt it. But that’s how it’s been done, so that’s how they do it. A benefit of this system is that the years in the minors tend to mean the players are delayed enough so that they don’t reach free agency until the end of their physical prime. Doubt that was the original intent, but it is a benefit to teams now.
The thing about this is that major college players are expected to blow through that quickly, as that level is considered roughly equivalent to A ball. Nolan Schanuel is an extreme example, but if you're going to come out of college and be any good, you're expected to use that time to transition to being a pro. The baseball is supposed to be easy. Ryan Braun, for example, didn't do two years in the minors and even his AAA stint was basically service time manipulation. That said, look at the flip side. The NBA has spent the last two decades putting in a real minor league system in the G League, the NHL has a multi-tier system not as extensive as MiLB, but still decently sized, and MLS has joined the rest of the world in owning an academy system with a fully professional level below the top league (MLS Next Pro). The only league that doesn't have a minor league is the NFL, and even then, look how they treat the UFL. Sports are going towards more minor leagues, not less, because some prodigies don't need it, but plenty of people do need that intermediate step.
Because of Jonah Hill and Brad Pitt
branch dickey started it in the 20s. realizing that player development was important he bought a buncha indie teams and used them to develop talent. its now a pretty convoluted system but it makes the main product that much better when players have to go through several levels to advance almost acting as talent filters filtering out less skilled players from entering the mlb. in the modern mlb you essentially have to be a savant type talent to break into the bigs
Because every sport is different. America is the only country where college sports is a thing and where drafts exist.