Player Movement

  
Do players change teams more now than in the good old days?  You hear
grumpy old (and young) fans and sportswriters say this quite a bit these
days, but are they right?  In order to determine this, I looked at two
forms of player movement: roster stability (how many players are with
the same teams from year to year) and player movement (how many players
are with a different team the next time they appear in the majors).
These might seem opposite views of the same thing, but a low roster
stability between 1941 and 1942 (for example) did not necessarily
indicate a high level of player movement.
 
In addition to keeping track of the number of players moving and
staying put, I also looked at a more important measurement of stability:
the percentage of a team's at-bats and innings-pitched moving around.
When fans complain about the player movement these days, they aren't
usually concerned with bench players and September call-ups; they are
concerned with their regulars leaving town.
 
For example, here's the raw data for 1890:
 
      -----  Players -----   Move  Stay
Year  Total  Moving Staying   Pct   Pct
1890    574     251    106   43.7  18.5
 
----- At Bats ------   ----- Innings -----   Move  Stay
 Total Moving Staying  Total Moving Staying   Pct   Pct
113015  58170  34162   28114  13513   8636   49.8  30.5
 
Of the 574 players appearing for teams in 1890, 251 (or 43.7%) played
next for another team and only 106 (or 18.5%) played in 1891 for the
same team.  The players going to other teams had accounted for 49.8%
of the at-bats and innings pitched in 1890 and the players left behind,
only 30.5%.  1890, of course, was a chaotic year in baseball and is
hardly representative.  The missing players ( 100% - (43.7% + 18.5%) =
37.8% ) simply couldn't find major league jobs in 1891 as the number of
teams shrunk from 25 to 17.
 
Here are the summaries of player movement by decade:
 
           Total Players, Changing Teams
     Years   Mean       Low         High
     1870s   48.7   37.1 (1876)  56.7 (1877)
     1880s   41.7   29.9 (1888)  56.1 (1889)
     1890s   32.7   22.4 (1896)  43.7 (1890 and 1899)
     1900s   25.8   16.6 (1908)  42.1 (1900)
     1910s   22.0   18.2 (1911)  28.7 (1913)
     1920s   17.4   14.7 (1929)  20.5 (1927)
     1930s   21.4   17.7 (1931)  24.9 (1932)
     1940s   17.6   09.5 (1944)  21.6 (1940)
     1950s   22.2   16.5 (1950)  28.2 (1959)
     1960s   24.1   19.2 (1964)  29.0 (1960)
     1970s   23.8   19.8 (1978)  33.0 (1976)
     1980s   23.4   20.1 (1982)  26.6 (1987)
     1990s   27.8   25.8 (1990)  32.0 (1992)
 
Many of the peak years make sense.  The movement after 1889 was caused
by the start of the Players' League; 1890, by the collapse of the same;
1900, by the start of the AL; 1913, the same for the Federal League;
1960, 1976 and 1992 all preceded expansion drafts.  Note that the first
25 years of free-agency didn't see a large increase in the movement of
players, although movement has been up about 18% so far this decade.
 
But what happens when we take into account how much these players
actually played for their teams?
 
    At-Bats and Innings Pitched, Changing Teams
     Years   Mean       Low         High
     1870s   47.8   41.3 (1879)  56.2 (1877)
     1880s   32.2   19.5 (1881)  59.4 (1889)
     1890s   27.9   13.5 (1893)  49.8 (1890)
     1900s   19.1    8.9 (1906)  40.2 (1900)
     1910s   15.5    7.6 (1911)  29.5 (1915)
     1920s   11.8    8.7 (1929)  16.1 (1927)
     1930s   14.2   10.8 (1931)  17.9 (1932)
     1940s   11.6    5.0 (1944)  15.7 (1947)
     1950s   13.7    7.7 (1950)  18.4 (1959)
     1960s   15.5   11.9 (1963)  18.3 (1968)
     1970s   17.5   14.0 (1978)  25.0 (1976)
     1980s   17.6   14.5 (1982)  20.1 (1980 and 1988)
     1990s   23.6   21.6 (1990)  27.6 (1992)
 
Notice how much lower these numbers are than the ones above.  And that
makes sense: throughout history, teams have been more likely to trade
fringe players than stars.  But notice the increase since free-agency
arrived, especially in this decade.  While the number of players
changing teams has increased only 15% since the sixties, the at-bats
and innings pitched produced by these players has jumped over 50%.
Since World War I, only one year (1976) has seen as many regulars
changing teams as the LEAST active year during the 1990s.
 
Complete year-by-year data
Tom Ruane
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