Organizational Stability

There is no other sport with as many pro minor league levels as Baseball. There's AAA, AA, High A, Low A, Short-Season A, Rookie ball and the latin-american leagues, each with own distinct characteristics. Each organization has the hefty task of managing its players among its 6-8 teams as if it were a jigsaw puzzle of talent. A team must stock its team with about 150 minor leaguers, each with their own career aspirations that must be balanced with the team's goals. With all this movement from year to year, I wondered how much turnover each company (team) goes through each year.

The short answer: Organizational stability is 60.42%

60.42% of players remain in an organization from year to year. That means that 2 out of every 5 players will either move to a different team, retire or be injured. Its a very high turnover rate by the standards of the company that you or I work for but in baseabll, its business as usual. My analysis started in 1978, the first year that I had access to full organizational data which does not include the latin-american leagues.

Stability can be judged as good or bad, depending on the depth of talent within the organization. There are a myriad of factors that go into this data, most of which cannot be quantified and so there's likely no functional use of this data. Still, it can be deemed as interesting.

Here are some facts about Organizational Stability/Turnover, all using data since 1978:

Most stable team: Boston Red Sox 64.15%
Least Stable team: Texas Rangers 57.23%
Most Stable team/season: 1986-1987 Boston Red Sox 78.57%
Least Stable team/season: 1988-1989 Cleveland Indians 42.11%

Stability by Franchise 1978-2007:

ARI 59.96%
ATL 61.32%
BAL 59.62%
BOS 64.15%
CHC 58.74%
CHW 60.89%
CIN 59.37%
CLE 59.00%
COL 58.53%
DET 58.34%
FLA 58.66%
HOU 62.88%
KC 59.98%
LAD 62.41%
MIL 60.05%
MIN 64.06%
NYM 59.67%
NYY 60.58%
OAK 62.77%
PHI 59.88%
PIT 58.95%
SD 58.78%
SEA 60.66%
SF 61.73%
STL 60.92%
TB 57.75%
TEX 57.23%
TOR 63.69%
WAS 57.56%

Stability by Season 1978-2007:

1978 62.86%
1979 65.73%
1980 62.36%
1981 64.63%
1982 63.11%
1983 64.26%
1984 61.44%
1985 62.04%
1986 63.54%
1987 63.47%
1988 60.85%
1989 57.03%
1990 59.57%
1991 61.90%
1992 61.34%
1993 60.77%
1994 64.33%
1995 56.53%
1996 60.33%
1997 59.90%
1998 59.92%
1999 58.92%
2000 58.32%
2001 57.10%
2002 59.32%
2003 55.98%
2004 58.12%
2005 56.18%
2006 60.19%
2007 60.72%