Abstract
Athlete development is complex and the pathway to elite levels of performance is rarely straightforward or linear (Gulbin et al., 2013). While performance of Major League Baseball (MLB) players have largely fixated on advanced metrics in recent years, MLB player pathways and their influence on career success remains relatively unexplored. This study examined the influence of developmental pathways on MLB success using two performance indicators: career games played and wins above replacement (WAR; a player's total contributions to their team in wins). Using baseball-reference.com, data on 586 American-born MLB players who began their careers from 1990-1993 were collected. Out of 17 qualitatively different pathways to MLB, five pathways represented approximately 86% of MLB players in this sample: (i) drafted out of high school (turned down) and then attended four-year university (12.3%), (ii) drafted out of high school (20.3%), (iii) drafted out of two-year junior college (9.6%), (iv) drafted out of four-year university (34.8%), and (v) drafted after transferring from two-year junior college to four-year university (8.7%). There were statistically significant differences in career games played between the five pathways (F (4, 497) = 3.48, p < .01), with athletes drafted from high school averaging 140 to 280 more MLB games played compared to other pathways. However, there were no statistically significant differences between the career WAR metrics respective to developmental pathway. Continued research and an expanded sample size is needed to better understand the variation within and between pathways, which may have important implications for talent identification and development programs.
