The Stigma of Size

I am a huge proponent of scouts picking one player over another based purely on size and weight. As such it got me thinking about the stigma of size. We've seen players like David Eckstein and Dustin Pedroia succeed, but how many other smaller players have been passed over based purely on size?

As such, size is a topic that has bothered me for awhile. You frequently see scouts (both real and armchair alike) discussing a players size, and how so and so is undersized or too skinny. You see things like it's ok that so and so is overweight, he has good size. So I got to wondering, how much of an impact does size truly have.

In order to analyze this I found the average height and weight of every player on an MLB opening day roster in 2011. For the MLB last season this was 73.27 inches (roughly 6 foot 1 and 1/4 inches) and 206.8 pounds. There was a difference for the National League and the American League as well. In the NL the average was exactly 73.25 inches (6'1 1/4") and 206.75 pounds. In the AL the average height and weight was only slightly different, 73.29 inches, and the weight 206.86. That said, for this this analysis, I will view players in regards to the league they played in.

The first step to assessing this question is I went and found the Top five players according to Wins Above Replacement (WAR) in the AL and NL.

In the AL the top five players were:

• Jose Bautista
• Justin Verlander
• Jacoby Ellsbury
• Miguel Cabrera
• Adrian Gonzalez

In the NL:

• Matt Kemp
• Ryan Braun
• Clayton Kershaw
• Cliff Lee
• Roy Halladay

I then decided to eliminate the first-basemen and the pitchers from this abbreviated study because of the fact that most of them are typically bigger bodies and you don't commonly think of first basemen as "normal" sized players. Because of this I added the following players to the study in the American League.

• Dustin Pedroia
• Evan Longoria
• Alex Gordon
• Mike Napoli
• Alex Avila
• Ian Kinsler

In the National League this added:

• Pablo Sandoval
• Jose Reyes
• Troy Tulowitzki
• Mike Stanton
• Andrew McCutchen
• Lance Berkman
• Hunter Pence

For the sake of the study I also took the four players with 0.0 WAR with the most plate appearances in both the AL and NL and added them to the study. In the AL this added,

• Juan Pierre
• Delmon Young
• Carl Crawford
• Hideki Matsui

In the NL:

• Seth Smith
• Greg Dobbs
• Paul Janish
• Ryan Theriot

For there I simply took a look at those players heights and weights in comparison to the league averages.

What I found was as follows:

OF THE STUDIED 31 Players:

• HEIGHT AVERAGE (72-74) 14 Fall in This Range/6 Below/11 Above
• WEIGHT AVERAGE (200-210) 10 Fall In This Range/7 Below/14 Above
• The AVERAGE 0.0 REPLACEMENT PLAYER in THE AL WAS: 73.5"/200 LBS
• IN THE NL The AVERAGE 0.0 REPLACEMENT PLAYER WAS: 73.25"/198.75 LBS

• FOR THE TOP PLAYERS IN THE AL (NON-1B/P): 72.125"/201.875 LBS
• FOR THE TOP PLAYERS IN THE NL (NON-1B/P): 73.666"/216.111 LBS

In conclusion, my extremely short-hand study found the following conclusions.

For the top eight players in the AL (Non-1B and P): the average height is only 6 Feet and a quarter inch. A full inch shorter than the league average (though keep in mind that the overall league average includes EVERY player) and the average weight, 201.9 pounds is nearly five pounds less than the league average.

In the National League the average height is only around a quarter of an inch less than average, but the average weight is nearly ten pounds greater than league average. In other words, the stars of the National League are heavier than the overall average of the league.

For replacement players (0.0 WAR) the American League players average a slightly taller height (quarter of an inch), but weigh only 200 pounds 6.86 less than average.

For replacement players in the National League (More likely to be defensive replacements, pinch hitters and role-players than those in the AL) the average height is precisely the same as the league average, but the average weight is 8 full pounds less than average.

As such I am concluding size overall is relative at the normal range (6'0"), the overall average of stars is not dramatically different from league averages. That said, weight seems to play a much bigger role than I previously would have thought. For stars in the American League this is seen in the fact that the stars are well below average weight, but the replacement players are of average weight. In the National League the stars have nearly 17 pounds on average over the average replacement player despite only a quarter of an inch size difference between the two groups.

Yes this study was random, yes it is flawed, but I do find the finding interesting.