The 2026 Major League Baseball season is the 151st season since the National League began play in 1876. It offers a useful way to think about disparities. One disparity stands out at once: baseball talent is not spread across the states in proportion to population.
Using all players who made their MLB debut between 2020 and 2025, I compare each state’s actual number of debuting players with the number expected from that state’s share of births in the relevant cohorts. I then calculate an actual-to-expected ratio. A value above one means a state produced more players than expected. A value below one means it produced fewer.
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