MLB Players By Country

What percent of MLB players are from other countries?

Baseball is often called “America’s Pastime,” but it’s a sport with a global reach. Major League Baseball (MLB) is home to players worldwide; from the Dominican Republic to Japan, Brazil to Canada, and everywhere in between, the nationalities and birthplaces of MLB players are as diverse as the countries they represent. In this article, we’ll take a closer look at the nationalities of MLB players and explore the impact of this international diversity on America’s favorite pastime. [If you like this, you’ll like our MLB Bats by Player too]

Key MLB Players by Country Findings (2023)

• A kid born in the Dominican Republic is 5 times as likely to start on an MLB lineup on opening day as a kid from the USA.
• A kid born in the Dominican Republic is 8 times more likely to pitch on opening day than a kid born from the USA.
• 66.9% of starting-hitting lineup players were born in the USA.
• 72.5% of those who pitched on opening day were born in the USA.
• About one player from every team is from either the DR or Venezuela.
• 5 countries have a single starting player born in their country (Brazil, Honduras, Aruba, Panama, and Bahamas).
• 14 different countries have a starting player born in their country.

What We Cover

1. 1. MLB Hitting Lineups by Birth Country
   2. Players per 1 Million Population
   3. Starting Hitters by Country
   4. Why Birth Country and Not Citizenship
   5. Methodology

2023 MLB Hitting Starters by Birth Country

There are 6 times as many starters (188) from the United States as from Venezuela (29), the second most represented country. The Dominican Republic is 3rd (27) followed by Cuba (14), Puerto Rico (8), Mexico (5), Colombia and Canada (3), Curacao, Japan, South Korea and Germany (2), Brazil, Honduras, Aruba, Panama and Bahamas (1).

2023 MLB Pitchers by Birth Country

The above chart is the raw number of pitchers who took the mound on opening day. Note, these are not just the starters but everyone who threw at least one pitch on opening day. The USA has almost 3 out of every 4 pitchers and the DR has 15.5% of all pitchers.

MLB Players Per Capita 2023

Four countries with more than 10 starters are in the lineup for Opening Day 2023. The Dominican Republic is way more likely to put a kid in the majors than any other country. To give it perspective, the DR is five times more likely to start one of its own in the Big Leagues when compared to one born in the USA. Cuba and Venezuela also outpace the US by at least a factor of two.

Hitters per Population

  If you consider every country, Curacao has 12 players for every 1 million of their population. Granted, Curacao only has a population of 150,000, so its 2 MLB starters on opening day in 2023 (Ozzie Albies and Jonathan Schoop), create a bend in the numbers. But at a population that would only serve about three US high schools, Caracao’s presence in the Big Leagues is noteworthy. This table displays the country, the number of MLB starters in the lineup on opening day, the population of the country, and the MLB players per one million of the population. We took the starting batting lineup of each team on March 30th, 2023 (opening day) for these calculations.

MLB Players by Population Table (Batters)

Pitchers per Population

The Dominican Republic once again dominates the per capita representation in the MLB. On the mound, it’s 8 times more likely to be born in the DR than in the States. Puerto Rico (population 3.1 million) also represents well, but they only have two pitchers (Fernando Cruz and Jorge Lopez).

MLB Players at the Population Level (Pitchers)

2023 MLB Lineup Starters by Country (batters)

Here are the MLB opening day players for 2023 by birth country. These are any players that got at least one at-bat on opening day.

Aruba

Bahamas

Brazil

Canada

Colombia

Cuba

Curacao

Dominican Republic

Germany

Honduras

Japan

Mexico

Panama

Puerto Rico

South Korea

USA

Venezuela

Why Birth Country?

Simply because we don’t now how to confirm someone’s nationality. We can gather data from baseballreference.com that shows someone’s birthplace. But checking their visa and voting status is not something we know how to access (or care to). So, we use the next best thing (and maybe even better): the birth country.

How We Compiled Data

The majority of our data is compiled through the use of python, pybaseball and Baseball-Reference. We do our analysis through the use of modules like Pandas and matplotlib.