Recently I was reading Baseball Prospectus and as I was reading Rickie Weeks’ 2006 comment I noticed that in his comment it read, “A subtle form of racism in baseball is black players rarely can be labeled as scrappy. Rickie Weeks, to me was a good leadoff hitter and a very scrappy player. I’d say he is a mix of Ryan Freel and Brian Dozier. He has Freels utility ability, speed, on base skills, and hustle. He has Doziers power, shaky defense, inability to hit for average and strikeouts.

Ryan Freel may have been one of the scrapiest players ever his hustle and grind cost him his career, as he sustained too many concussions and eventually his life as those concussions led to brain injuries and his later suicide. Another player who if he would have been white would have been a scrappy player is Brandon Phillips.

Phillips one of the great defensive second basemen of his time. He also hit over 200 home runs and stole over 200 bases in his career. He hit for average at .275 for his career and 6 time at over .280. He didn’t get on base well but did a few times. He posted 3 years of .330 or better OBPs. Ian Kinsler a second basemen from the same generation as Phillip has always been labeled as scrappy.

He very similar career averages to Phillips, posting a .269/.337/.440 line as opposed to Phillips’ .275/.320/.420. A clear difference in their playing abilities was on base skills. Kinsler posted an OBP of over .342 8 times in his career. He also had 273 more walks in his career than Phillips. In their primes the both were excellent defenders. Kinsler averaged 1.3 dWAR a season while Phillips averaged 1.1. Just some thoughts on some clear racial bias in my favorite sport. Thanks for reading.