Baseball is a Global Game

Players born in the United States, the Dominican Republic or Venezuela accounted for 90 percent of all players who suited up for major league clubs or domestic minor league affiliates in 2016. More than two-thirds of those players hail from the U.S.

According to records kept by Baseball America, nearly 7,500 players from 38 different birth countries participated in affiliated U.S. baseball last year. Our head count does not include those professionals who played only in the Dominican Summer League last year.

The following 23 countries had five or more representatives play U.S. affiliated ball in 2016, from the Rookie-level Arizona and Gulf Coast leagues to the American and National leagues.

No	Country Of Birth	Players	Percent Of Pool
1	United States	5,043	67.34%
2	Dominican Republic	1,117	14.92%
3	Venezuela	628	8.39%
4	Puerto Rico	163	2.18%
5	Canada	92	1.23%
6	Mexico	91	1.22%
7	Cuba	82	1.09%
8	Panama	52	0.69%
9	Colombia	38	0.51%
10	Australia	29	0.39%
11	Curacao	24	0.32%
12	Nicaragua	17	0.23%
	Taiwan	17	0.23%
14	South Korea	14	0.19%
15	Japan	11	0.15%
16	Brazil	10	0.13%
17	Aruba	7	0.09%
	Bahamas	7	0.09%
	Germany	7	0.09%
	Netherlands	7	0.09%
21	South Africa	6	0.08%
22	Italy	5	0.07%
	U.S. Virgin Islands	5	0.07%

The following 15 countries had either one (0.01 percent) or two (0.03 percent) representatives in U.S. affiliated baseball last year.

No	Country Of Birth	Players	Players
24	Guam	2	RHP Sean Reid-Foley, 1B Trae Santos
	Saudi Arabia	2	RHP Alex Robinett, RHP Alex Wilson
26	China	1	OF Gui-Yuan Xu
	Czech Republic	1	C Martin Cervenka
	England	1	RHP Michael Petersen
	Guatemala	1	C Fabian Vizcaino
	Haiti	1	OF Estevan Florial
	Honduras	1	RHP Denis Diaz
	India	1	LHP Rinku Singh
	Ireland	1	LHP P.J. Conlon
	Jamaica	1	RHP Justin Masterson
	Lithuania	1	RHP Dovydas Neverauskas
	Moldova	1	RHP Vadim Balan
	Poland	1	LHP Artur Strzalka
	St. Maarten	1	OF Isranel Wilson