Do Latino Pitchers Face Position Discrimination?

Last year, 172 relief pitchers* appeared in 40-plus games at the major league level. Thirty-two percent of those players were born outside of the U.S., further proof of baseball's rapid globalization. A vast majority of those born abroad—78.6 percent, to be exact—hailed from Spanish-speaking countries in the Western Hemisphere.**

None of this would surprise even the most casual fan. A simple survey of jerseys and rosters reveals the heavy Latin influence on the modern game.

That influence, however, is notably less pronounced among starting pitchers.

Of the 92 starting pitchers that qualified for the ERA title, only 18 (or 19 percent) were foreign-born. It seems that foreign players—primarily from poorer, Spanish-speaking countries—have a harder time establishing themselves as big-league starters.

This is no one-year phenomenon. Over the past three years the rate of foreign-born relief pitchers has fluctuated between 26 percent and 32 percent, while the rate of foreign-born starters has held steady at almost exactly 20 percent. The gap between the figures seems real and relatively stagnant.

And it is a gap that demands some explanation.

I've often wondered what separates a starting pitcher from a reliever—not so much in terms of finished product, which typically have evident differences, but developmentally. Who designates the starters and relegates the relievers? And why? And when?

Presumably much of that decision relates to the pitcher's "stuff"—whether or not he projects to have three or four useful pitches or merely a couple good ones. But I would also imagine these judgments also rely, at least in some part, on a highly subjective form of psychological evaluation, whether or not a young pitcher is savvy enough to manage the game as a starter.

These sorts of evaluations, by their nature, privilege English speakers. American players are generally better educated (more attend college), easier to communicate with, and, thus, seem more teachable than their foreign counterparts.

Translation: Latino pitchers aren't smart enough to start.

Though I doubt any baseball man would use those words, I could envision a scout asserting Latino players are "better suited for relief" or more likely to "rely on stuff."

These types of surface assumptions handcuffed Latino players in the '60s and '70s. Before Manny Sanguillen proved his mettle as a catcher with the Pirates, prevailing attitudes held that Latino players weren't capable of fulfilling the position's intellectual rigors.

In the most recent issue of Sports Illustrated, baseball historian Luis Mayoral told SI's Austin Murphy: "Back then, the mentality was: Latinos are equipped to play defense—predominantly the infield. Latinos cannot be catchers or pitchers because they're not smart enough. Teams didn't come out in the open with it, but they had their quotas."

The country and the game have matured since then, but the gap between Latino starters and relievers suggests some lingering discrimination. No, it is not an outrage of the highest order; but in a game predicated on fairness these imbalances matter.

The baseball-as-America metaphor works best when the game aspires to our highest ideals, in those moments where the sport's meritocratic virtues unseat rooted prejudice. As Americans we've come to celebrate such triumphs—Jackie Robinson's debut, Babe Ruth's climb from orphanage to superstardom—because we want to believe that this game, like our country, presents opportunity to the deserving.

And so we press on, hammering away at the game's rougher edges in pursuit of perfect competitive balance. Here's hoping this small inequity becomes part of the conversation.

* Here we define relief pitchers as those for whom 80 percent of their appearances came in relief.

** For the purposes of the exercise I'm qualifying Puerto Rico as a separate country.