[BirdWatcher]

Originally Posted by joefromchicago

That last point is probably true, although I think it has much, much more to do with the widespread use of modern analytics than with racial discrimination. And it's certainly true that some white players owed their jobs to the fact that they couldn't be replaced by superior Black players. But when integration finally came, only a relative handful of NeL players made the transition to the major leagues.

By my count, 70 players who played in the NeL appeared in the AL/NL in the years 1947-59. I think 1959 is a fair cut-off, as the last team to integrate its organization (the Tigers) did so in 1953. So that would give former NeL players at least six years to make it up through the organization and into the big-league club, which, I think, is generous. 1959 is also eleven years after the NeL stopped being a major league, according to MLB, although a tiny remnant persisted into the 1960s. Certainly, by 1959, there was little reason for players to make a stop in the NeL when the minor leagues were open to them.

So 70 former NeL players appeared in the AL/NL over the span of thirteen seasons. That's less than ten per team. I don't know how many white minor leaguers debuted in the AL/NL over that same span, but my guess is that it is quite a bit more than 70. And not all of those former NeL players were stars like Roy Campanella and Willie Mays. That suggests that the caliber of players in the NeL was somewhat comparable to that of the top level of the minor leagues.

Now, of course, there are a ton of caveats that have to be applied even to that tentative statement. Racial discrimination didn't magically disappear in 1947, and a few teams - most famously, the Red Sox - refused to integrate even though they probably would have benefitted from adding Black players on their rosters. And some MLB-caliber players never made it to the big leagues because of age or physical condition, like Josh Gibson. Still, I think it can be safely assumed that, after 1947, the best NeL players were signed by AL/NL teams, and of those, 70 made it to the bigs by 1959.

As a thought experiment, imagine if the AL went out of business today. How many AL players would be signed by NL teams? A quarter? A half? All of them? Well, that's pretty much what happened with the Negro Leagues. Once Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, the NeL's days were numbered. Even MLB has decided that the Negro Leagues weren't a major league after 1948. The NeL didn't go out of business overnight, but it was pretty close. Yet only 70 former NeL players made it to the big leagues by 1959. Again, that indicates that the level of play in the NeL was somewhat lower than that of the established major leagues.

Now, imagine that the Japanese baseball leagues went out of business today. How many Japanese players would MLB teams sign? My guess is that it would be a significantly smaller percentage than if the AL went out of business. I think that's comparable to the situation with the NeL, which again suggests that the NeL played at about a "AAAA" level.

All a very logical argument and I certainly can't say for certain that any of this is wrong.
But I would suggest, as you somewhat allude to, that the color barrier being broken didn't mean that all at once there was full inclusion and a purity of meritocracy. As you noted, many teams were loathe to integrate while I think there is plenty of evidence that other teams were happy to have one or two black players but certainly weren't comfortable with much more than that, at least to begin with. And I don't think it is unreasonable, given any understanding of societal systems and cultural history, that where there was anything like equality of talent between an already established white MLB player and a black player, the white player wasn't likely losing his job.

The most talented players from the Negro Leagues, if they were young enough and healthy enough, migrated to the MLB. (And yes, there were a few lesser players who made the transition in those early days as well, the exceptions to the rule.) That is the nature of the glacial progress of integration; the exceptional must succeed first and then eventually the average, the non-noteworthy, the merely competent finally get their chance. The numbers you give are powerful, but without a discerning contextual framework I suggest they aren't really that meaningful. The fact that more players did not make the transition is not proof that more weren't capable of doing so, had they been given the chance.