McCutchen on Getting into Baseball

[JB_Iowa]

Andrew McCutchen has a fabulous piece on the difficulties of getting noticed if you are from a lower income bracket. The story is a bit about Jackie Robinson West being stripped of the little league title but it is more of a personal account of moving up the travel ranks and getting noticed. It touches on so many things we've talked about -- minor league pay, minority participation and more.

 

Interesting perspective. Give it a read.

 

http://www.theplayerstribune.com/left-out/

[Shane Wahl]

Whoa! Great find! Thank you.

[ashbury]

Good read, thanks for sharing.

 

"That’s the challenge for families today. It’s not about the $100 bat. It’s about the $100-a-night motel room and the $30 gas money and the $300 tournament fee. There’s a huge financing gap to get a child to that next level where they might be seen.  ....  There’s a lot of talk about kids thinking that baseball is slow and boring, or that they’d rather sit at home and play video games. Maybe there’s some truth to that, but to me, there is a deeper problem going on that is affecting low-income kids of all races."

[amjgt]

I know some people believe these are highly polished by editors and there's probably some truth to that, depending on the player. Whether this is 100% McCutchen or 1% McCutchen, I don't really care. Really good article.

 

http://www.theplayerstribune.com/left-out/

[Physics Guy]

Thanks for sharing.

[lightfoot789]

This is one of the most REAL articles I have read in some time.

 

McCutchen said he would rather be afforded the opportunities of foriegn latin players than the opportunities afforded to african americans (as it pertained to the opportunity to play professional baseball).  That was deep.  Life is about opportunities and unfortunately, sometimes money is the only way to be afforded those opportunities.

 

The Twins had 0 african americans when Hicks was sent back down.  It will be uplifting to see the Hunters, Hicks, and Buxtons in the near future.  Only in the case that it will give hope to the MN african american youth out there.  The only african american pitching prospect with any possible chance is Tyler Jones.

 

Great article with a very real perspective.

[TheLeviathan]

That was an outstanding read, thank you.

 

To me baseball has to fix three things if it wants to get baseball back in the minds of young kids from poor or sparsely populated areas:

 

1) Most importantly they need to make minor league life worth living and enticing.  Paying them peanuts so they eat cereal for dinner is part of the problem.  McCutcheon says it exactly right - if you want the big dollars from being a baseball player you basically need to grind it out for 4-10 years before you get there.  In other sports it's a fraction of that time.

 

So double every minor league player's pay and provide them housing.

 

2)  Invest in those communities in more than just creating nice ballparks.  Make sure every little league and tournament is free for any kid that wants it.  Basically - scholarship that stuff so guys like Jimmy Rutland don't have to sponser the next McCutcheon.

 

3)  Speed up the game and make it fun again.  Let players have personality and punish the hell out of "old school" guys that try to retaliate that element out of the game.  Pick up the pace of games.  Make baseball something kids want to watch and want to play.

[ashbury]

Moderator's note: I have moved and merged two similar threads into this one here.  As you were, carry on, etc.

[Paul Pleiss]

That was an outstanding read, thank you.

 

To me baseball has to fix three things if it wants to get baseball back in the minds of young kids from poor or sparsely populated areas:

 

1) Most importantly they need to make minor league life worth living and enticing.  Paying them peanuts so they eat cereal for dinner is part of the problem.  McCutcheon says it exactly right - if you want the big dollars from being a baseball player you basically need to grind it out for 4-10 years before you get there.  In other sports it's a fraction of that time.

 

So double every minor league player's pay and provide them housing.

 

2)  Invest in those communities in more than just creating nice ballparks.  Make sure every little league and tournament is free for any kid that wants it.  Basically - scholarship that stuff so guys like Jimmy Rutland don't have to sponser the next McCutcheon.

 

3)  Speed up the game and make it fun again.  Let players have personality and punish the hell out of "old school" guys that try to retaliate that element out of the game.  Pick up the pace of games.  Make baseball something kids want to watch and want to play.

 

I am 100% on board with your first two ideas. I think minor league pay is a hinderance for guys to play pro-ball. Make it worth their while. There's plenty of money in the game to increase minor league payroll. Branch Rickey started the farm league idea as a way to get guys in his organization without having to pay them big league money. Baseball needs to start treating its prospects, the future of it's brand, as more than second rate citizens. A guy who has been griding it out at AA/AAA for the past decade and been a major part of his local community, team building and player development shouldn't be struggling. Make it worth their effort.

 

And investing in the minor league communities is a great idea. I think that as more teams take ownership of their minor league clubs we will see more of that. But I think that with minor league clubs being independently owned, and player development contracts only lasting a few years at a time, teams are cautions of investing too heavily in one team/area. But I like to think there is definitely money available for that. And nothing stopping teams from inking long-term PDCs.

 

I don't know that the game needs to be sped up at the amateur levels. I think it plays pretty quick. No TV timeouts, batters aren't stepping out every pitch to adjust every piece of gear. People just play baseball. We need more of that at the big league level. Play. Not more rules to speed up the game at the lower levels.

[TheLeviathan]

I don't know that the game needs to be sped up at the amateur levels. I think it plays pretty quick. No TV timeouts, batters aren't stepping out every pitch to adjust every piece of gear. People just play baseball. We need more of that at the big league level. Play. Not more rules to speed up the game at the lower levels.

 

I was referring to the big league product.  In order to get more young fans the product that they see on TV needs to be more entertaining.  That includes better pace of play and allowing more character and excitement in the game.

 

A guy like Gomez might act like a tool sometimes, but so does David Ortiz.  Stop letting players try to squash characters out of the game - those guys appeal to a lot of fans.  

[Seth Stohs]

I thought this was a wonderfully thoughtful and well written article by McCutchen. Definitely made me think. It has become such a socioeconomic issue, I can't help but wonder how that can be overcome. 

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

Great story. A quick read.

 

 

Moderator's note: I have moved and merged two similar threads into this one here.  As you were, carry on, etc.

 

What were the two threads?

[The Wise One]

Some thoughts

Yes it is hard for a young athlete in poor areas to get noticed. Yet they do other sports.
Sure it would be nice to fund them so they do get noticed young. Being good when you are young might not mean much later. As long as there is the chance to play somewhere it will sort itself out. You don't get a college scholarship for being good in the little leagues.

The baseball tomorrow funds is less than 2 million per year of projects Using those funds for individual players would mean you would have to set up and sort an aplications system for grants and the like.  At between 5-10000 a year for the traveling team cost per player I doubt these funds would really change the situation for poor kids playing baseball.

Paying minor leaguers more will not encourage players to play baseball. It will make the player's life better, but no one is looking at milb as a career option as a player. Not even Drew Butera Jr, whom I do not believe is even conceived. Minor leagues are the path to the show. Read Fienstiens book..

[TheLeviathan]

Paying minor leaguers more will not encourage players to play baseball. It will make the player's life better, but no one is looking at milb as a career option as a player. Not even Drew Butera Jr, whom I do not believe is even conceived. Minor leagues are the path to the show. Read Fienstiens book..

 

Right, but McCutcheon lays out why minor league baseball vs. college football is no contest for most athletes.  

 

The question is how do you keep more kids like McCutcheon involved in the sport and part of that solution, IMO, is to level the disparity between choices.  If a full ride scholarship for basketball or football is what you are competing with, you need to balance that with a higher minor league salary and other incentives.  The relative pittance it would cost for MLB to double MiLB salaries would likely help significantly at attracting better athletes to baseball.

[ashbury]

What were the two threads?

One started by JB_Iowa and another started by amjgt, a couple days apart, on the same topic.

[amjgt]

I swear I looked in the General Baseball forum before posting it. Must have missed it. Sorry for the double post.

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

I swear I looked in the General Baseball forum before posting it. Must have missed it. Sorry for the double post.

 

Dang you!

 

I was just wondering if one of them was a thread on the Little League situation in general. No surprise to me that the commissioner another major sport has screwed it up, yet again. (Yes I am counting Little League Baseball as a major sport, what with it's new $60 million contract and highly compensated executives).

 

/rant

[JB_Iowa]

No,it was my fault for putting it in the minor league forum. I just never know where to put these stories about minor leaguers or little league. It's not MLB but it isn't Twins milb.

 

 

All the replies are here and the threads were really similar.

[ashbury]

No,it was my fault for putting it in the minor league forum. I just never know where to put these stories about minor leaguers or little league. It's not MLB but it isn't Twins milb.

Coincidentally or not, the admins revamped a few things recently and this forum is now called Other Baseball.  "Talk about all non-Minnesota Twins baseball here."   With Twins baseball divided between major and minor league forums, hopefully it becomes a little clearer where a given topic can go.

 

And if not, no worries.  Or... if worries arise, we just move and merge as needed.

[diehardtwinsfan]

Excellent article. I see a few problems. The obvious one everyone touches on is minor league pay. That could solved very easily by simply providing them housing and food. I'd think it's in MLB's best interest if for no other reason than to ensure that they know where these kids are and what they are eating.

 

But this story touches on a bigger problem, namely that low income kids aren't getting noticed. That's a potential talent drain issue. Had McCutchin not tore his ACL, he'd be playing football right now. That, to me at least is a big problem. MLBhas to figure out how to get these kids more notice, whether that be via scholarships to get talented kids on some of these traveling teams, or some sort of academy like what they do in Latin America. In terms of the product on the field, it definitely will help. I'd think it would generate more interest in the sport as a whole too.

[amjgt]

It will be interesting, as concussions in the NFL (and the NHL frankly) get more and more attention and as people my age (mid 30s) see professional athletes we grew up watching, die at way too young an age, if there is a migration of today's youth to the "less violent" sports like Basketball and Baseball. This will probably take a decade to flesh itself out, but it's possible there could a renaissance of some of the best athletes playing baseball.

 

This doesn't solve the minor league / scholarship issue that McCutchen talks about, but if MLB can see this renaissance coming they'd be well served to do as much as possible to prop up Minor League Baseball and well as youth baseball

 

It would be interesting to see an analysis of life expectancy as well as permanent disabilities for the 4 major sports. My instinct tells me that MLB would come out of that smelling like a rose. If they did that study today, it would barely account for the "physical explosion" of athletes in the 90s and 2000s, which made the violent sports even more violent.

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

Do the MLB and Little League have any partnerships? It seems like one of the answers could be found in McCutcheon's own experience: a neighboring team discovered his talent and then took him in and sort of sponsored him. Maybe he didn't live or attend school in the teams official district but I don't understand why that's a big deal in the big scheme.

 

As of now Little League seems to have some pretty arbitrary decision making on residency rules which in the present case of JRW, I hope doesn't cause black kids to turn away from the sport even more.