MLB Ranks the States for Baseball - See Where RI Stands
Tuesday, June 16, 2020
Major League Baseball has ranked all 50 states for which produces the best baseball players. Baseball is still not playing which gives the stats geeks even more time to come up with baseball lists.
“So here, with the help of Baseball Reference’s bio page, is a look at the 50 states and the other areas covered by the Draft, ranked by Wins Above Replacement. Unfortunately this isn’t an exact science, because, we are basing this on where the player was born, and, as you’ll see below (and probably knew), people do sometimes move out of the state in which they are born. Also, there are a lot of states from the northeast that rank highly even though they aren’t exactly modern-day hotbeds, and that’s due to baseball’s early days, when talent was concentrated in that region," writes MLB.
Here are some of the highlights:
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#34 Rhode Island: 78 players, 426.9 WAR
The three Rhode Island-born Hall of Famers -- Nap Lajoie, Gabby Hartnett, and Hugh Duffy -- all hung ‘em up many, many decades ago. The best 21st-century player born in Rhode Island was Paul Konerko, but he didn’t grow up there.
#1 California: 2,311 players, 11,519.2 WAR
The most populous state laps the field on this list, with 24 Hall of Famers and four players who achieved north of 100 WAR (Barry Bonds, Ted Williams, Tom Seaver, and Randy Johnson). Spencer Torkelson, who was taken by the Tigers with this year’s No. 1 overall pick, is from Petaluma.
#50 Montana: 24 players, 34.7 WAR
The Billings-born Dave McNally was a key member of one of the great pitching staffs of all time (the 1971 Orioles had four 20-game winners) and a key figure in the abolishment of the reserve clause.
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