american association vs. the minors

Here’s something I posted in reply to Brett’s American Association study at the Hall of Merit:

One interesting thing about Brent’s study is that it shows that the gap between the National League and the second-best league in baseball was so great, particularly in 1882-84.  When you see the AA's quality described as “double A,” you might tend to assume that there must have been some triple A quality leagues around; but the AA was almost certainly the best of the rest. 

The two best minor leagues in 1883 were the Northwestern League and the Interstate Association.  As it happens, the 1883 champions of each league, respectively Toledo and Brooklyn, moved into the 1884 American Association.  Toledo declined from 56-28, .667, in the IA to 46-58, .442, in the AA; Brooklyn declined from 44-28, .611, to 40-64, .385.

That’s without taking into account player movements (which I don’t know) that might have affected the quality of the teams—in 1884, of course, overall quality of all leagues was much diluted by the advent of the Union Association and the AA’s expansion.  Still, the fact that the champions of the two best minor leagues both moved into the AA and ended up well under .500 gives us a very strong presumption that the AA was much better than the best minor leagues.

The '82 League Alliance might have been of “triple A” quality, but it had only two teams.  One of them, the Metropolitans, moved into the AA in ‘83, finishing at .563.  I don’t know whether the other club, Atlantic**, was organizationally the same as the ‘83 IA pennant winners or the ‘84 AA team.  Looking quickly at ‘82 box scores, it would appear that only John Cassidy played on both teams for both the ‘82 Atlantics and the ‘84 Brooklyn AA club.

(New York Clipper, May 27, 1882)

See also this post on the Union Association, which also deals with the relative quality of minor leagues and the “lesser” majors.

**-UPDATE 2/17/2007: the other League Alliance club was NOT Atlantic.  Rather, it was the Philadelphias, the predecessor of the NL Philadelphia club we know as the Phillies (see comment by Richard Hershberger).  That’s what I get for writing from memory, when I had plenty of Clipper box scores and other references to the Philadelphias and the League Alliance sitting right there next to the computer.

Comments

[Kevin]

That's an interesting comment about the Northwest League and Interstate Assocation being the ONLY minor leagues. I'm not sure we should use a 'modern' definition? I show the following as Minor Leagues also operating in 1883:

American Alliance
California League
Connecticut State League
Eastern Association
Massachusetts State Assoc
Western Interstate League
Cuban League
Cuban Winter League

[Richard Hershberger]

I have several corrections or clarifications. The 1882 League Alliance teams were the Metropolitans and the Philadelphias. The Philadelphias joined the NL the following year, where they remain to this day.

The Metropolitans joined the AA for the 1883 season, but the situation is more complicated. They were owned by John Day. He also got a NL franchise for 1883. Initially it was widely assumed that the Mets would join the NL, but what Day did was collectively sign the players on the old NL Troy team. Troy and Worcester had been invited to resign from the NL due to poor attendence. Troy was the better of the two, and this likely is why Day went there rather than Worcester. There is no evidence that he purchased the franchise in the modern sense, though modern writers often assume he did. So then Day essentially threw the former Troy players and the 1882 Mets players into a single pool, then divided them up between his 1883 Mets and the new New Yorks, who later became known as the Giants. The New Yorks generally got the better players.

So you can't really compare the 1882 and 1883 Mets with one another: the 1882 Mets were probably better.

And in 1883 the Northwestern League and the Interstate Association weren't merely the best minor leagues: they were the only minor leagues, at least as far as what we consider a minor league today. The minor league system was just developing at that time. There are earlier organizations that modern writers shoe-horn into the minor league category, but they ought not.