Friday, July 06, 2007

The Myth of "Dilution" in MLB Pitching

I was reading an article bu Jim Caple on statistics in baseball and thought it was great analysys until I got to this:

"3. Expansion has diluted pitching, further increasing offense." Link

I am getting real tired of this being repeated over and over, especially in articles that claim to be analyzing statistics. Here are some facts that are easy to find, but overlooked by the "dilution" proponents:

1) The number of MLB teams has doubled (14 to 28) since 1930.

2) In 1930, there were 108million White Americans. Since 1930, the US population eligible to play baseball has tripled.

3) The population of Latin America is 548million.

4) Baseball has become global with MLB players from Japan, Korea, Australia, and other non-traditional locations.

Let's say that a given population has x% of its population that has the talent to become a Major League pitcher. So, if 108million is enough for 14 teams, than how in the heck is >1Billion too few for 28 teams??

Flies in the face of illogic; time we need to stop saying this is the problem.

Let me also say sorry to Jim; I respect most of what he writes. I just decided to use this post for the rant that has been a long time coming. . .

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