I was at a spring training game a few days ago and had an interesting conversation with my dad regarding average height of position players.  We guessed that middle infielders (shortstop and second basemen) are the shortest players on the field.  Being a numbers guy though I wanted to know for sure.  I looked at all MLB players since 1960 who played at least 5 games at a position.  Thus, if a player played 5 or more games at multiple positions, he was counted at each position.  Which position has the tallest players on the field?  Pitchers.  Which position has the shorts players? 2B.

The average height of MLB players is just over 6’1″.  The difference between the tallest players (pitchers) and shortest players (2B) is three inches which relatively seems like quite a bit.  With that in mind, I’ll analyze performance based on height in a post tomorrow, in addition to looking at positions by weight.  Does the graph show what you expected?  What other ways can you look at height within baseball?

Thanks to Sean Lahman’s Baseball1.com database for the information.