The 2016 Major League Baseball Racial and Gender Report Card released today shows a slight increase in racial-hiring practices and a small decrease in gender hiring. The report, prepared by The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport based at UCF, gave the league an overall grade of B, the same as 2015.
MLB earned an A for racial hiring, and C/C+ for gender-hiring practices, said Richard Lapchick, primary author of the report and director of the institute.
Commissioner Rob Manfred’s league office maintained the good grade it achieved in 2015 for hiring people of color, A+. It also kept its B- for gender hiring.
Team offices lag behind. The only A grades were for coaches and professional staff, with a C+ for the key position of manager. In gender hiring, Cs were given to senior team administrations and professional administrations, while an F was given for team vice presidents.
“The 2016 Major League Baseball season began with only three managers of color, seven below the high of 10 managers of color reached in both 2002 and 2009,” Lapchick said. “The position of general manager is another area of concern; this category remained the same in 2016 with only four people of color serving as general managers. MLB had the largest number of GMs of color in 2009 and 2010 when there were five people of color.”