The Effect of Performance on a Worker's Career: Evidence from Minor League Baseball

Abstract

The authors analyze the promotion, demotion, and turnover of pitchers in baseball's minor leagues-a labor market for which exceptionally good data on performance are available-in the years 1975-88. They find that the time between a player's assignment to one league and promotion or demotion to another (or exit from professional baseball) declined as his performance deviated from the mean, in either a positive or negative direction. Also negatively associated with the time required to make a determination about a pitcher's ability was his age, which the authors use as a proxy for experience. Pitchers' ages did not, however, affect the highest league level in which they ultimately played.There is a substantial theoretical literature in labor economics on issues of promotion and turnover-optimal incentive arrangements, tournaments, screening, hierarchies, and the matching of workers and firms. This research has yielded implications that would have been difficult to foresee. For example, work on the span of managerial control and tournaments (Rosen 1982(Rosen , 1986) has offered ajustification for what might otherwise seem excessive compensation for top managers.At a certain stage in the evolution of a literature, one expects the emergence of empirical work that will influence the direction of the theory by enabling researchers to choose among competing hypoth-Legal Organization workshop of the University of Chicago for extremely helpful comments and suggestions. eses. To date, however, there has been very little empirical analysis of the relation between measures of performance and the progress of workers through a hierarchy. One exception is research examining the effect of publications on the tenure and promotion of professors (for example, Weiss and Lillard 1982). This exception indeed proves the rule, since the research output of professors is more easily measured and evaluated than the output of lawyers, physicians, executives, and workers in most other occupations. If, as appears to be the case, the difficulty of measuring workers' performance has been a serious hindrance to empirical work on this subject, there is much to be said for choosing a setting in which good data on performance are available.

Career Duration in a Competitive Environment: The Labor Market for Soccer Players in Germany

“…To the best of our knowledge, our study is the fi rst one tackling the questions mentioned above for any of the professional team sports leagues in Europe. It takes up several of the questions that have been raised by, inter alia, Hoang and Rascher [1999] and Groothuis and Hill [2004], who studied exit discrimination of black players in the NBA, Ohkusa [2001], who studied the quit behavior of Japanese baseball players, Spurr and Barber [1994], who analyzed the careers and the success probabilities of minor league baseball players, and Atkinson and Tschirhart [1986], who looked at the determinants of career length in the NFL [see also Jiobu, 1988].…”

Getting to First Base: Developmental Trajectories of Major League Baseball Players

“…Perhaps young talented pitchers must flourish at A with more GP before progressing to higher levels. Spurr and Barber (1994) explored the relationship between total time spent at A and the outcome for a pitcher (promotion or demotion). Results suggested the amount of time spent at this level was related to performance metrics (i.e., Earned Run Average and strikeouts), and the more a pitcher diverged from the league mean in either direction, the quicker a decision was made about their outcome.…”

Who Should Sign a Professional Baseball Contract? Quantifying the Financial Opportunity Costs of Major League Draftees

“…Because few athletes make it, the decision to sign a minor league baseball contract is a human capital investment characterized by high potential income gains but also high risk. Moreover, the chances of making it vary drastically by performance, overall draft pick, position, and whether or not the athlete went to college (Chandler & Stevens, 2012;Spurr & Barber, 1994;Winfree & Molitor, 2007;Witnauer et al, 2007), which means the level of risk will vary by player.…”

“…Prior researchers have examined the variables that influence players' advancement from MiLB to MLB as well as variables that predict performance in the majors. One of the earliest analyses was conducted by Spurr and Barber (1994) as they examined the promotion, demotion, and turnover of minor league pitchers. They found that the time between a pitcher's assignment to one league and promotion or demotion to another (or exit from professional baseball) declined as performance-in terms of earned runs average (ERA), strikeouts per inning, and walks per inning-deviated from the mean, in either a positive or negative direction.…”

“…For pitchers: walks and hits per inning pitched (WHIP), earned runs average (ERA), strikeouts per nine innings (SO9), innings pitched (IP), and the percentage of appearances in which the pitcher started the game (Start%) or closed the game (Close%). These statistics were chosen for their relevance in accurately quantifying the batting and pitching performances of the players, as highlighted in prior literature (Beneventano et al, 2012;Chandler & Stephens, 2012;Longley & Wong, 2011;Spurr & Barber, 1994). If a player appeared on multiple teams during the same season, the weighted averages of these stats were calculated using at bats or innings pitched.…”