Category talk:Minor league baseball players

About Rodney McCray

It says if they made the majors, they should be removed from this category. But his most famous act, running through the fence, happened in the minors. Should he still be here? DandyDan2007 22:33, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Players with long and notable minor league careers

The header currently defines this category as follows:

This category is for baseball players who are at the minor league level, or played at that level without making it on to a Major League Baseball team (or only very temporarily making it). If a player makes the majors, he should be removed from this category.

The reason that the category was restricted to players who have not made it to the majors is that almost all major league players have played in the minor leagues; without this restriction, the category runs the risk of becoming unmanageably large.

The categorization scheme, however, does not make it easy to locate players who had long and notable minor league careers and are better known for their minor league careers than for what they did in the majors. Examples include Buzz Arlett, Steve Bilko, Ike Boone, Buster Clarkson, Ox Eckhardt, and Frank Shellenback. These players (unlike, for example, Steve Dalkowski) all made it to the majors at least briefly, but they are primarily remembered for their minor league careers. (Most of these players played for the pre-farm-system independent minor league teams that existed until the 1950s.) I think it would be useful for the categorization system to help readers to find articles on these types of players who are largely notable for their minor league accomplishments.

My suggestion is to modify the definition of the category to the following:

This category is for (a) baseball players who are at the minor league level, (b) former minor league players who never played for a Major League Baseball team, and (c) retired baseball players who had long and especially notable careers in the minor leagues and are better known for their minor league accomplishments than for their major league careers.

If a player makes the majors, he should be removed from this category. After a player is retired, however, if his article documents a long and especially notable minor league career that was arguably more notable than his major league career, he can be added back to this category, while retaining his major league team categorizations.

Comments? BRMo 06:48, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I think you are definitely on to something (yes i know i was the one that removed Buzz). It is very hard to set hard rules to something like this, but I certainly agree with the intent. My removal of those players was simply based on the header for the article. Should there be some sort of bar established for what defines one as notable? Should we perhaps establish a new category? Perhaps something that displays a collection of players who made a minor league hall of fame? This is exciting!! Good ideas creating good discussion! JOY!!! //Tecmobowl 23:14, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I thought about setting statistical criteria, but decided it would be tough to come up with any that ensure the category includes the articles we'd like to have and excludes the ones that are fluff. I figured by limiting the exception to retired players, however, we'd at least limit it to players who are still of interest after retirement. I don't know about making a minor league hall of fame a requirement; I'm not sure how widespread minor league HoFs are (the only one I'm familiar with is the PCL's). Establish a new category? One objective way to split the category would be to create separate categories for current and former minor league players, with the "former" category limited to players who never made the majors or who had long and especially notable minor league careers. BRMo 23:29, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

• I think you are right with regards to how stats are incorporated in to the "inclusion consideration" process. Should we maybe think about rewording the article to say: "This category is for baseball players who are currently at the minor league level or who made a significant contribution to the game of minor league baseball". That would seem to establish the same sort of criteria without worrying about what level of ball they did or did not play. Let's assume, for a moment, there is a player John Smith. If John Smith had a significant career at the minor league level here in the United States and a career in the Nippon Professional Baseball league, he should be considered in the same regards as Buzz Arlett. I did not mean to suggest that the minor league HOF should be a requirement, only that we should consider creating a list or category that is dedicated to that topic. How does this suite you? //Tecmobowl 00:25, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

• No problem with including the guy who played in Japan. I'm not sure about "significant contribution," though. Players like Joe DiMaggio and Paul Waner arguably may have made a significant contribution to minor league baseball, but my draft wording (by restricting it to players who are more notable for their minor league career than for their major league), is intended to exclude them. There would, of course, be a gray area (some people might argue that Gavy Cravath's minor league career was more notable than his major league one), but I'm looking to focus on the players who are best known for their their minor league career. BRMo 00:42, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
• Ahh, good point. Then i guess the question is .... should DiMaggio and Waner have some type of mention? As for Gavvy, I never realized his minor league career was noteworthy. Do you know of any good books that discuss that? If the consensus (which appears to be you and me right now) is to leave DiMaggio and Waner out, how about this: "This category is for baseball players who are currently at the minor league level or who made a significant contribution to the game of minor league baseball with out doing so in a Major League." As for the wiki link on the last part, i tried to dig up a page that displays all the various major leagues from the various countries, but couldn't find one. Personally, I see the value in excluding people like DiMaggio, because then you can include any major leaguer who had a noteworthy minor league career. A logical extension of that argument would be that any person who made the majors and participated in the minor leagues had a noteworthy career. See this list for players that didn't play in the minors. I think I will agree with whatever changes you make, so go right ahead. In the meantime, I'm thinking that we should create an article that lists all the top level professional baseball leagues around the world. If you think that's a good idea, do you have a suggested name for the article? I forgot to mention that there is an article entitled Professional baseball. I'm not sure that does the same thing, if you think so, lmk and i'll skip the article creation. Meanwhile, I'm going to start collecting the information. //Tecmobowl 01:22, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

• Your suggestion is good. I'll wait until tomorrow to see if anyone else shows up here to discuss it, and then--assuming no objections are raised--I'll go ahead and edit the header of the category. I'll let you put together the list of premier baseball leagues around the world; I don't have a preference whether it should be a new article or an expansion of an existing one. Thanks. BRMo 04:04, 7 June 2007 (UTC)