I’ve searched and can’t find a figure. My WAG would be low, somewhere around 5 percent, or fewer.
Any information out there?
My WAG would depend on WHICH minors. Single-A, probably less than 1 percent. Double-A, probably less than 20 percent. Triple-A, probably better than a 50-50 chance you will play for someone in the “bigs”, at least a couple games. Seems like Triple-A is just an extended bench for the bigs.
Maybe something here?
1 out of every 10 players DRAFTED makes the majors. But there are around 4500 minor leaguers.
And there are about 800 major leaguers each year (30 teams X 25 players + 50 players being called up during the course of the year).
About ten percent of all players who play in the minor leagues will also play in the major leagues. The majors draft about 1400-1500 players per year, about 1000 of whom then play in the minors (some don’t make that cut, some are players who re-enter the draft later, some are kids being drafted as favours, etc.) Minor leaguers also include amateur free agent signings.
Every year about 1,000 players will play in the major leagues (BobT, you’re way underestimating the number of September callups and injury callups.) The number of players making their major league debut every year is in the order of 100 players, which is about 10% of all players who make the minors to start with. The number of players who skip the minors (basically, John Olerud and a few Japanese stars) isn’t significant.
With a 40-man roster in September and 30 teams, doesn’t that give a minimum of 1,200 players in the course of a season?
40 is a maximum. Most teams only go up to about 30 in September.
Most teams would never go up to 40 players after September 1 because it would cost too much. You have to start giving those players the major league minimum (prorated from $300K/year) and you have to pay to fly them around to road games, feed them, put them up in hotels, stuff like that.
Last year, the Expos, owned by the other 29 teams, weren’t allowed to call up anybody because they were over budget.
Let’s take out all the guys who get nothing but a few September innings. How many minor league players end up playing in the majors for a year or any significant amount of time?