There's really no point to this since parks and conditions often change from league to league within a level (compare the Pacific Coast League and International League offensively). It's also pretty useless to compare numbers from level to level since the skill of pitchers at each level is vastly different. That said, I thought it'd be interesting to see how the various levels of minor league baseball did as a whole when it comes to offense. All data is taken from the minor league numbers available at minors.baseball-reference.com. The ages listed are average age for players at the level.
2007 Minor League Averages| Level | Age | AVG | OBP | SLG | OPS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AAA | 27.1 | .271 | .340 | .418 | .758 |
| AA | 24.9 | .262 | .335 | .399 | .734 |
| A+ | 23.3 | .265 | .337 | .401 | .738 |
| A | 22.0 | .259 | .331 | .386 | .717 |
| A- | 21.4 | .255 | .334 | .373 | .706 |
| R+ | 20.8 | .265 | .339 | .397 | .736 |
| R | 19.5 | .247 | .340 | .339 | .679 |
| Minors | 22.9 | .261 | .337 | .388 | .725 |
| Majors | 28.5 | .268 | .336 | .423 | .758 |
How I classified the levels (the links go to their 2007 standings/league statistics):
- AAA is pretty easy: it's the International League and Pacific Coast League
- Similarly, AA is easy: Eastern League, Southern League and Texas League
- A+ ball is the California League, Carolina League, and Florida State League
- The A level contains the Midwest League and the South Atlantic League
- The short-season A- leagues are the New York-Penn League and Northwest League
- Rookie level is where it might get contentious:
- I considered leagues that aren't complex-based as R+: these are the Appalachian League and Pioneer League
- The four remaining leagues are put in the R category: Arizona League, Dominican Summer League, Gulf Coast League, and Venezuelan Summer League
- I thought about putting the DSL and VSL in a separate level but I'm unconvinced they're truly that different than the AZL and GCL.
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