It’s Supposed to Be Hard: Why It’s Harder to Get an Orchestra Job than to Play Professional Baseball

“It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone could do it. The hard is what makes it great.” — Tom Hanks as Jimmy Dugan in A League of Their Own (1992)

 

One might not think summer evenings at the ballpark and the staid atmosphere of America’s concert halls have much in common, yet the professions of both baseball and classical music have many parallels. Beyond the superficial similarities that both are passions for their practitioners, and that pros in both fields “play” for a living, a closer examination of the workforces of professional baseball and America’s largest orchestras reveals a similar scale and developmental path.1 In this paper, I will outline the scale of the pool of prospects seeking professional success as orchestral musicians or baseball players and investigate the question: Is it more difficult to gain employment as a full-time orchestral musician or as a professional baseball player? This comparison may provide valuable perspective to young people considering whether to pursue their dreams of reaching the top in either field.

HISTORY

Professional orchestras and professional baseball both trace their origins to the second half of the nineteenth century. The first openly fully professional baseball team was the Cincinnati Base Ball Club in 1869. The National League was formed in 1876, and the American League in 1894, becoming a major league in 1901. As summarized by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito in his 2008 article “The Origin of the Baseball Antitrust Exemption”: “In 1903, the leagues agreed to honor each other’s contracts and observe the reserve clause, which tied a player to his team. The agreement put in place the essential structure of professional baseball that lasted for decades.”2 In 1922, the Supreme Court handed down a ruling functionally granting professional baseball an exemption from antitrust laws, which protected the leagues from competition and completed the structure of the modern professional baseball business model.

Although the New York Philharmonic was formed as a cooperative venture of its musicians in 1842, by the end of the century, its business model had shifted to support from a group of wealthy sponsors who funded the gap between revenue and expenses, as was typical of its peer orchestras. Orchestras formed in this period included the Boston Symphony (1881), Chicago Symphony (1891), Cincinnati Symphony (1895), Phila-delphia Orchestra (1900), Minneapolis Symphony (1903), St. Louis Symphony (1907), San Francisco Symphony (1911), Cleveland Orchestra (1918), and the Los Angeles Philharmonic (1919).3 The model of reliance on a mix of contributed and earned revenue was reinforced by the 1917 introduction of the individual charitable income tax deduction.

In the 1960s, unionism resulted in a strengthening of the rights of both baseball players and orchestra musicians. In baseball, this occurred with the advent of the Major League Baseball Players Association in 1953, followed by its first collective bargaining agreement in 1968. Orchestra musicians had long been represented by the American Federation of Musicians (AFM). The early 1960s saw the formation of the International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians (ICSOM) within the AFM, and musicians won the right to represent themselves in contract negotiations via an elected orchestra committee. Over the next decades, many orchestra musicians won contractual rights to full-time employment and job protection.

THE JOB MARKET

Major League Baseball increased its regular-season active roster limit from 25 to 26 for the pandemic season of 2020 and made that change permanent in 2021, for a total of 780 players in the majors. Minor League Baseball provides a series of leagues around the US that provide high-quality professional baseball to many communities while providing an opportunity for players to develop their skills and prepare to compete at the major league level. Prior to 2020, the minor leagues were divided into six levels: Triple A, Double A, High A, Single A, Short-A, and rookie leagues. The 2021 restructuring of Minor League Baseball eliminated the Short-A leagues and consolidated the rookie leagues. There are now five levels: Triple A, Double A, Advanced A, Single A and rookie leagues. Each of the 30 major league franchises has a team at each level and is limited to a 165-man minor league roster, in addition to their 26-man active major league roster.

Rookie leagues now comprise the Arizona Complex League (ACL), the Florida Complex League (FCL), and the Dominican Summer League. The ACL and FCL play shorter seasons, beginning after the end of the college season and the amateur draft. The Dominican Summer League serves as a baseball academy for international players aged 16 and up who have been signed to contracts.

In 2023, minor league players were able to bargain collectively for the first time and reached agreement on minimum salaries beginning at $19,800 for a 16-week rookie/complex league season. Players commonly receive substantial signing bonuses in addition to the minimum salaries. The Single A minimum salary is $26,200 for a 24-week season. The major league minimum in 2023 was $720,000—it rises by $20,000 in each year of the CBA—though salaries can range well into eight figures.

The world of orchestra positions has a similar structure, although minimum salaries are negotiated locally with each orchestra. Music critics speak of the “Big 7” as the top level of symphony orchestras: Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. This group has combined rosters of 727 musicians—similar to MLB’s total roster of 780. The Big 7 are at the top of a group of larger, high-budget orchestras that pay their musicians a weekly salary for all or part of the year, instead of a fee for each rehearsal or concert (“per-service”).

At the lower end of the group of salaried orchestras are orchestras with a core group of salaried players playing a partial-year season, while the rest of the orchestra is filled out with part-time, per-service players.4 There are approximately 55 orchestras in the US with salaried positions paying more than $25,000 annually, ranging from full-time, 52-week salaries down to core positions for partial-year seasons. The total number of positions that paid salaries of $25,000 or more in the 2018–19 season was 4,150.5 Comparison of the number of positions between baseball teams and orchestras is complicated by the divergent structures between the US rookie leagues and the one in the Dominican Republic. Incoming USA rookies are subject to the high school and college draft and are covered by the collective bargaining agreement. Teams in the Dominican Republic rookie league can sign players as young as 16 as undrafted free agents, and signing bonuses under $10,000 do not count against the international-player bonus-cap limits.6 This results in a large number of international players who are signed young but who never make it past the rookie level. Even looking only at players 18 and older, only about 25% will make it to the next level. For many international players, the Dominican League serves the same purpose that college baseball serves in US players’ development.

There are also 1,184 positions in the independent partner leagues (American Association, Atlantic League, Frontier League, and Pioneer League).7 Almost half of these players have already been drafted and played within the MLB system and are thus already included in the analysis below. The remaining players have not been drafted and will not be. The few who sign as free agents would also already be included. Salary levels are not publicly available, but team salary caps indicate that, except for a few Frontier League players, individual salaries cannot approach the Single A minimum. For our analysis, we will leave out the rookie and independent partner leagues entirely and begin where the diverse paths to professional baseball come together—focusing on Single A baseball up to the major leagues. The minimum Single A salary of $26,200 is comparable to the $25,000 salary cutoff we use for orchestra jobs. We will look at both pre- and post-minor league restructuring to compare prospects for success in baseball, as compared to orchestras. The 2019 baseball season was the last pre-restructure season, and the 2018–19 orchestra season was the last pre-COVID-19, “normal” season, so they provide an apt comparison.

The restructuring of minor league baseball in 2021 reduced the number of positions available by 770.8 This was mitigated by an increase in the roster limit for the remaining teams. The accompanying reduction of the draft from 40 rounds to 20 rounds resulted in fewer signings from the draft, and an increase in international undrafted free agent signings. While being drafted in earlier rounds is associated with greater likelihood of playing major league baseball, it is too early to know the effect of the reduction of positions on baseball players’ career prospects.9 (Table 1.)

 

Table 1. Comparison of Salaried Orchestra Positions with Professional Baseball Positions

 

TRAINING

Both vocations require disciplined training from childhood and a progressive winnowing of the pool through competition starting around junior high school age. Continuous parental involvement is a must, whether it’s throwing in the yard, driving to private lessons, finding a competitive league or youth orchestra, making vital connections with top coaches or teachers, participating in competitions or showcases, or finding the appropriate college venue for continued progress. Children with the potential to succeed in baseball or music will have shown themselves to be at a strikingly higher level than their peers by early high school age at the latest. Students whose parents lack the knowledge or resources to find and provide specialized training in their adolescent years (or earlier) are unlikely to ever catch up.

By 10th or 11th grade, it’s time to begin seeking the right college program to continue developing. For musicians, this means attending prestigious music summer camps and pursuing private lessons from desired future college teachers. For ballplayers, it means summer leagues and showcases for coaches to notice their abilities.

At the college level, aspiring orchestral musicians will seek a degree in music performance from a top school. While a small number of elite baseball players will be drafted and signed straight out of high school, the vast majority of future draftees will participate in an NCAA Division I program. There are about 300 baseball programs in Division I, each of which carries a 35-man roster, for a total of 10,500 players nationwide.10 Teams are limited to a maximum of 11.7 full scholarships, which can be spread among the team.11 This means that most baseball players are paying part of their college costs in order to play. Over the past decade, the number of undergraduate degrees awarded for music performance on orchestral instruments has ranged from 2,400 to 2,700 annually, indicating roughly the same number of such students as D-1 baseball players (four years times 2,600 = 10,400). There are no national limitations on the number of music scholarships, and a few schools are able to offer all of their students full scholarships (the Curtis Institute and the Colburn School, for example), but most students will end up paying for at least a portion of their education via their families or loans. Unlike baseball players, most music students will continue to graduate school to further develop their abilities as they prepare for orchestra auditions and careers.12

Interestingly, almost one-third (32%) of music performance degrees awarded on orchestra instruments go to international students. Data on how many of them arrange to stay in the US after graduating are not readily available, but the number who can apply for work visas as a result of winning orchestra jobs would be quite small, as we shall see.13 If the demographics of candidates auditioning for orchestras matches that of degree recipients, we could assume that the blind audition process would result in 32% of positions being won by international students. In baseball, 32% of players who make it past the rookie leagues to Single A baseball or higher are international players. (Table 2.)

 

HIRING

Orchestras. Unlike baseball, where prospects are funneled into a league-wide annual draft, individual orchestras hold auditions for specific positions as vacancies arise. Openings are advertised online and may result in the orchestra receiving as many as 200 résumés for one position. The pool of applicants is winnowed by a blind audition (recorded or in-person) where each candidate plays about 10 minutes of orchestral excerpts chosen by the audition committee. Subsequent rounds of live auditions reduce the number to four or five, at which point the music director and audition committee decide whom to hire.

For most musicians, seeking an orchestra job is a years-long experience. Receiving a bachelor’s degree in music performance is a nearly universal first step—but only a first step. Most musicians go on to graduate school, orchestral fellowships such as the New World Symphony, and/or freelancing and working one’s way up through smaller part-time orchestras before winning a full-time, salaried position. Over a period up to 10 years, musicians continue to study and take auditions as they seek an orchestra job. Most find other career paths as other opportunities appear, and as the daunting competition for very few positions becomes clearer.

If we use the 2,600 students receiving bachelor’s degrees in music performance on orchestra instruments each year as a proxy for the number entering the orchestra job search and assume a 10-year period before settling on a career, the number of orchestral job seekers at any given time would be 26,000 minus the number who receive jobs each year.

To determine how many new entrants into the pool of 4,150 salaried orchestra musicians there are each year, we can use the actual orchestra rosters for these positions and count new names over a period of time. Others have counted advertised openings in orchestras, but this does not control for musicians already within the pool of 4,150 moving up into better jobs.14 A comparison of the complete rosters of full members of ICSOM orchestras for the 2006–07 and 2018–19 seasons shows us that there were an average of 130 new musicians joining this pool each year of the 12-year period.15

Baseball Pre-2020. While musicians may take multiple opportunities to audition for salaried orchestra jobs in the years following college, entrance to professional baseball is limited to specific times during players’ amateur careers. Players who live in the USA, including its territories, and Canada are eligible for the annual amateur draft if they have graduated high school but not attended college, or after they’ve completed at least one year of junior college. Players who do attend four-year colleges are eligible when they’ve completed their junior year or turned 21.16 International players may be signed as amateurs at age 16 or if they are at least 25 and have played at least six seasons “as a professional in a foreign league recognized by Major League Baseball.”17 The career path statistics are significantly different for international players, compared with USA/Canada draftees—and the draft process changed significantly with the minor league restructure in 2020. Let’s break down the numbers to gain a more thorough understanding.

Looking at the USA/Canada amateur draft and the undrafted international free agent (UFA) signings from 2013–19 gives sufficient time for players to work their way through the rookie leagues and avoids the COVID-19 disruption and the minor league restructuring of 2020. The table below shows the number of USA amateurs drafted and signed, and the number who advanced beyond rookie league to single A ball or higher (Drafted/Signed, >Rk), as well as the number of undrafted international free agents who signed (UFA/Int Signed) and advanced beyond rookie league baseball (UFA Signed, >Rk). (Table 3.)

 

Table 3. Baseball Draftees 2013–19

 

The USA/Canada amateur draft shown in the table above is straightforward: 40 rounds times 30 teams, plus a small number of compensatory picks. Of these average 1,215 players, 77% will sign contracts to play professional baseball. College students represent about 75% of drafted players, and 84% of those signed. Those who do not sign may be choosing to wait for a chance to be drafted in a higher round in a later year (high school players choosing to play college baseball first, college juniors choosing to play their senior year), or they may be making other career plans. Of those who do sign in the USA/Canada amateur draft, 88% will make it past the rookie leagues to play in Single A leagues or higher.18

Only residents of the USA, USA territories, or Canada are eligible for the amateur draft. International players are signed as undrafted free agents. A small number of signed international players come from other professional leagues, but the vast majority are young Latin American players, principally from the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. Teams have a cap on total signing bonuses for international players, but bonuses under $10,000 do not count against the cap. The minimum age for signing is 16. While signings surged in the years leading up to 2019, the number of international players who signed and made it past the Dominican rookie academies and rookie leagues remained constant at about 380 annually. The percentage of international players who signed and advanced past the rookie leagues is much smaller than that for USA players. ranging from 32–64% during this period.

The total number drafted, number signed, number who played past rookie leagues, and number of international players who played past rookie leagues was consistent. An average of 1,200 players who signed each year from 2013–19 made it past rookie leagues by 2023. The breakdown between US residents and international players was 68% USA/Canada and 32% international.19

Baseball Post-2020. Following the COVID-19 disaster and minor league restructuring, the prospects for playing professional baseball have changed somewhat. The minor league restructuring eliminated the Short A season, resulting in a loss of 22 teams, each with a 35-man roster—770 positions. Taking into account the increased roster limits, the net result was a 6% reduction in the number of jobs available.20 The USA/Canada amateur draft was cut from 40 rounds to 20 (after a truncated five-round draft in 2020).

The percentage of drafted players signing contracts has risen significantly, from 77% to 92%. The number of international undrafted free agent signings has decreased, after a pre-restructuring surge, to lower levels (ranging from 507 to 541) for 2021, 2022, and 2023. It is too soon to know the career progress of players who were drafted and/or signed in 2021–23. Nevertheless, the fact that 96% of the 2021 class of drafted and signed USA/Canada players had made it past rookie leagues as of 2023 may be an indicator that this more select group will have a higher rate of success than the larger pools from earlier years. The proportion of college and high school players drafted and signed has remained the same: 84% college, 16% high school.

 

Table 4. Progress Report of Baseball Players Drafted, Signed and Advanced 2021–23

 

COMPARING ORCHESTRAS AND BASEBALL TEAMS

Understanding the probability of a particular individual winning a salaried orchestra job or playing professional baseball beyond the rookie level requires some assumptions about the pool of candidates for either profession. For example, we know that orchestral musicians are hired and settle into their careers over a period of roughly 10 years from college graduation. We could assume a pool of candidates of (2,600 x 10 years) minus 130 hires, or 25,870. In any given year, a candidate would have a 99.5% chance of not getting a job, which over 10 years would work out to a nearly 5% chance of entering the field of salaried orchestra musicians. But we also know that’s an extreme assumption because many graduates choose other career paths during that 10-year period, so the denominator would likely be reduced and the rate of success increased as this reality was incorporated into the calculation.

We face similar denominator challenges in baseball. Baseball’s scouting system and the restrictions of the draft limit the number of players able to seek professional employment in a way that differs from audition-by-audition opportunities in the orchestral world. Nearly all drafted college baseball players come from Division I programs whose rosters total 10,500. All of the seniors and juniors would be eligible, plus sophomores who have turned 21. Assuming a pool of all seniors, half of the juniors, high school draft picks (signed and unsigned), plus signed and unsigned undrafted international free agents, the number adds up to 4,920. Using the pre-2019 rate of signing 1,200 players per year who will over the next few years play Single A or higher baseball, the percentage succeeding would be 24%.

The restructuring of minor league baseball resulted in a 6% decrease in the number of roster positions from single-A up to the major leagues. If we apply that decrease to the average number of players who signed and played past the rookie league prior to the restructuring, we find that there will be 1,128 players signed each year who will ultimately advance to these levels. (This assumes that the restructuring does not change the length of the average playing career.)

For our comparison, we also note that the number of baseball jobs has gone from 109% of the number of salaried orchestra jobs to 103%.

We can also infer the average career length by dividing the number of positions by annual turnover. For salaried orchestra jobs, this would mean an average career length of 31.9 years, while for baseball players (single A through MLB) the average is only 3.7 years.

The most straightforward comparison that illustrates the comparative difficulty of entry into either field is as follows:

 

Despite the similar size of their employed performers, and similarly sized pools of prospective employees, openings for employees are nine times more scarce for orchestra musicians as compared to baseball players, making the chances of getting a job significantly lower.

The obvious explanation is that turnover is much higher in baseball as players are weeded out while competing to make the big leagues, and careers at the top are much shorter than orchestra careers.

WHY?

Why would so many talented musicians and athletes seek so few jobs amid such great competition? An obvious, but superficial explanation, would be the fantastic sums of money that are available to the very best ballplayers. Perhaps so. But the opportunities to make similar compensation are greater in more traditional fields. If money were the prime motivation, many more musicians and athletes would drop out much sooner in the process and seek larger and more likely fortunes, when one considers the brevity of baseball careers and the small percentage of players who make astronomical salaries. I think the answer is a combination of three qualities, all of which are held by those who succeed in either field:

1. Love of the game/love of music
2. Desire to prove oneself to be as good as the best in the field
3. Desire to be part of something greater than any individual accomplishment

Add to these qualities exceptional talent, incredible self-discipline and hard work, and a certain amount of good luck and you’ll have the chance to try to prove yourself. And even with all that, there’s no guarantee. It’s hard—and the hard is what makes it great. 

HENRY PEYREBRUNE is a bassist in the Cleveland Orchestra, an arts administrator, and volunteer board member. He is the husband of one—Tracy Rowell—a professor at Oberlin, father of seven and grandfather of four. His greatest catch was a foul ball between his rear end and the seat back at a Batavia Muckdogs game.

 

Notes

1. Let’s stipulate that many more people care about baseball than orchestras, and that the amount of money at stake in major league baseball dwarfs that of orchestras.

2.  Samuel A. Alito, Jr., “The Origin of the Baseball Antitrust Exemption: Federal Baseball Club of Baltimore, Inc. v. National League of Professional Baseball Clubs,” Journal of Supreme Court History 34, no. 2 (July 2009), 183–95. Republished in SABR Baseball Research Journal, Fall 2009. Accessed at https://sabr.org/journal/article/alito-the-origin-of-the-baseball-antitrust-exemption/.

3.  John H. Mueller, American Symphony Orchestra: A Social History of Musical Taste (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1951), 11.

4.  More than 80% of the nearly 2,000 orchestras in the US have total annual budgets of less than $300,000. “Orchestras at a Glance 2023,” League of American Orchestras, https://americanorchestras.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Orchestras-at-a-Glance-Oct-23.pdf.

5.  American Federation of Musicians, ICSOM and ROPA Wage Charts, 2018–19.

6.  Previously, there was a Venezuelan rookie league as well.

7.  Scott Bush, “Effects of Minor League Restructuring on Independent Baseball,” 2022. Presentation shared with author.

8.  “2021 Minors League Encyclopedia,” Baseball Reference, https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/league.cgi?group=Minors&year=2021.

9.  Richard T. Karcher, “The Chances of a Drafted Baseball Player Making the Major Leagues: A Quantitative Study,” SABR Baseball Research Journal Vol. 46, no. 1 (Spring 2017), https://sabr.org/journal/article/the-chances-of-a-drafted-baseball-player-making-the-major-leagues-a-quantitative-study/.

10. Erin Irick, Student-Athlete Participation 1981–82 – 2018–19: NCAA Sports Sponsorship and Participation Rates Report (Indianapolis: NCAA, November 2019), 147.

11. “How Baseball Scholarships Really Work,” NCSA College Recruiting, https://www.ncsasports.org/baseball/scholarships, accessed February 10, 2025.

12. Henry Peyrebrune, “Racial/Ethnic and Gender [sic] Characteristics of Students Receiving US Degrees in Performance on Orchestra Instruments: 1995–2019” (unpublished manuscript, September 2023, PDF).

13. United States Citizen and Immigration Services does not release information about O-1 visa applications by employer, as it does with H1-B visa applications. Daniel Costa and Jennifer Rosenbaum, “Temporary foreign workers by the numbers,” Economic Policy Institute, March 7, 2017, https://www.epi.org/publication/temporary-foreign-workers-by-the-numbers-new-estimates-by-visa-classification/.

14. Brandon VanWaeyenberghe, “Musical Chairs: A 28-Year Study of the Supply and Demand of Orchestra Musicians in America,” SSRN, December 2, 2013, http://ssrn.com/abstract=2361771; Mari Yosihara, Musicians From A Different Shore: Asians and Asian Americans in Classical Music (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2007), 153.

15. Orchestras that folded or went bankrupt and re-formed are omitted, as are part-time players and players on one-year contracts.

16. “Rule 4 Draft,” MLB.com, https://www.mlb.com/glossary/transactions/rule-4-draft.

17. “International Amateur Free Agency & Bonus Pool Money,” MLB.com, https://www.mlb.com/glossary/transactions/international-amateur-free-agency-bonus-pool-money.

18. Karcher, “The Chances of a Drafted Baseball Player.”

19. The 32% of musicians who receive degrees in performance on orchestra instruments comes from within the pool of students. The 32% of ballplayers who are international are in addition to the high school and college students eligible for the draft. However, baseball has limited opportunities for signing, whereas musicians are eligible for employment any year. It is likely that this more than counterbalances the larger pool of baseball players.

20. It is worth noting that most of the affected teams have continued to play baseball, either outside of the MiLB structure, or by re-configuring to fit within it. T.J. Quinn, Elizabeth Merrill and William Weinbaum, “‘I was wrong’: Why MLB’s restructuring of the minors turned out better than expected,” ESPN.com, January 28, 2022, https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/33144413/why-mlb-restructuring-minors-turned-mostly-better-expected, accessed February 10, 2025.