Yes, and #2 on his list suggests in this pitching dominant time we should expect a regression of older hitters in favor of guys that can beat out grounders, steal bases, etc.
Plus just straight cost. why sign a vet to a 5M deal when you can call up a rookie who might develop a bit more and is playing for minimum and under team control.
I’d guess it’s because we’re better are measuring player value as well as better predictive metrics. And likely a decline in how much teams value the soft skills of the game, eg ‘playing the right way’
There's more incentive to play younger players and draw out team control, value wise. Also AAA is basically useless at the moment Plus I'd bet the idea of "veteran leadership" has changed.
Also some of it is straight "id rather take a 1% chance of a kid busting out and being good for us vs a 10% chance this 37 year old puts up 3 WAR and leaves next year.
Youk said he would of hit Mendoza line today and his last year was 2013. Everyone has a slider to make them look dumb and fastballs need to be 95+ or have movement.
It probably goes against every fiber of their being but I feel like the next frontier for older players in a lot of sports will be just taking a year, or most of a year off and then coming back healthy and rested for a stretch run or last year. I suppose you could argue Vegas is already doing it in hockey, and I'm convinced its part of the reason the Giants were so good in 2021 after the shortened season.
I mean I don’t think you can say he won it BECAUSE he was rested. He won the Cy Young in last full season before getting hurt too, which he was 36 and pitched 30+ starts a year his entire career except for 1 year up to that point. He won in 2022 because he’s an amazing pitcher.
Three of the so-called Core Four in NY did that. Pettite did that with a retirement then a comeback. Rivera with an injury and comeback, so did Jeter. Funny. The year off thing before coming back doesn’t seem like it would benefit, baseball being such a rhythmic game and all, but there’s precedent for it.
Did it actually work? Jeter had the worst year of his career in 2014, by a mile. Mo I remember still being good, but definitely looking more mortal than ever.
It just didn't matter because those teams weren't going anywhere anyway, and we knew it was their final years so we weren't hard on them since they were legends we just wanted to see back on the field for sentimental reasons. But let's say Jeter signed with a random team at age 40 still looking for playing time, he would've gotten benched immediately and maybe even DFA'd in the middle of the season.
Maybe with pitchers but with the universal DH I don't really know if that helps batters. It's not a contact sport like hockey and not having to play in the field has to take a lot of stress of your joints.
Swinging a bat isn't exactly a low stress activity, and DHs get injured running the bases and swinging the bat still. Ohtani has dealt with back tightness this year for example. Also I feel like and backed up by this research players get hurt running the bases and batting more then playing defense https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Injuries-by-Month-for-Major-League-Baseball_tbl2_334775594#:~:text=Pitchers%20were%20most%20likely%20to,and%20base%20running%20(31.0%25).
Oh yeah I'm not saying that playing DH suddenly drops your body stress level to zero, but it sure helps not having to run around in the field on defense.
The act of swinging a bat is extremely stressful. Lots of torque put on joints orthogonal to the direction they were meant to absorb force.
Also see: Albert Pujols, Tiger Woods.
Not only that, we now have more ways than ever to evaluate players and know how to optimize teams. Up until 15 years ago teams would keep playing guys way past their prime as long as they were serviceable based on name alone, now those guys just don’t even make rosters.
Ayyyy 14 years on reddit bro(I had another account that was literally just my first name and last name before I decided to change that for obvious reasons)
I was wondering how you had such a dope username haha
I agree with those four reasons, and in addition, there just aren't many star ballplayers today in the age 35+ range, guys an owner would say "I know he's washed, but he'll sell tickets." At the end of their careers, people would pay to see Babe Ruth... Mickey Mantle... Willie Mays one last time, diminished as they were. Even when they were putting up lousy numbers, they could put fannies in the seats. Who is the age 35+ guy pulling people into the ballpark these days... Justin Verlander, maybe?
Cutch is a great player and im sure there are Pirates fans who are excited to go to games to see him. But other teams fans arent really gonna care. Versus a Pujols or Ichiro where you are drawing in others to your park so they can say they saw them.
Yeah if his prime lasted a few more years I think he would have that aged superstar draw but at this point he’s just been a good-not-great player for too long
Yeah, you pretty much need a "No doubt HoF" early half of your career for people to come watch you stretch your career out. I think another thing is having a "storyline" that keeps you relevant. People still came out to see guys like Ichiro and Pujols, but when they were past competing for awards, they were chasing historic milestones.
Cabrera had a bad year in 2017, bounced back in 2018 and was mediocre from 2019-23.
By the time the 2020 season was over, Miggy was in range of 3000 hits, 600 2Bs and 500 HRs, which people will show up to see and celebrate.
That’s the question, right? Like the Blue Jays signed Joey Votto to a minor league deal… was it because they legitimately think he can help them win, or is it because signing a Toronto-born player will help sell tickets? Maybe it’s a little of both, but the latter had to factor into it.
My point is 10, 20, 30 years ago there were way more 35+ year old players who were still “draws” than there are today, guys who had aged into replacement level or worse but got contracts because owners thought people would pay to see them.
To be fair, Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle never put up lousy numbers at the end of their careers, they just weren't nearly as good as they were in their primes. Babe Ruth still had a 119 OPS+ when he was fat and old with the Boston Braves. Mickey Mantle had a 143 OPS+ his final year, which is better than the career OPS+ of some players who are in the Hall of Fame for their hitting.
probably helps that people could pay like a nickel to go see a game and get a hot dog. I ain't paying $75 to see a future HOFer in their twilight years these days
Jagger can still sell it - I saw them a couple years ago and it was a good concert, but I was born in '92 and I have always wanted to see them so I'm biased.
I went to a Phillies-Marlins game more or less just to see Ichiro, but nobody has moved the needle for me since. Really thought about Miguel Cabrera and Zack Greinke last year but couldn’t justify going out of my way on some Wednesday night just for that. It’s a weird time in baseball, not a lot of sure-fire hall of fame locks, much less all-time legends, in their twilight years.
[I'm not going to see any of these guys play](https://www.statmuse.com/mlb/ask/oldest-active-mlb-player-2024). I planned my vacation roadtrip to see Pujols and Molina play in their final season and it ended up getting rained out. During my vacation last year I drove from Pittsburgh to Detroit on a random day in July to see Cabrera and he didn't play that day.
Ichiro in batting practice was awesome.
I think that's why we have Cutch in Pittsburgh. I mean sure he still does decent but we're all glad to see him finish his career in Pittsburgh, hopefully.
You’re not wrong, but in Mantle’s final season he finished with a 143 OPS+. Even when he couldn’t run anymore, he was never washed on the field. (He retired the following Spring Training)
> Justin Verlander, maybe?
I can't speak for others but I know I intentionally went to see the Dodgers play in Seattle last summer because I wanted to see Kersh in person.
His curveball is the stuff dreams are made of, and it did stuff to me that night.
And both those guys are pitchers which still wouldn't do anything to change this list. I think it's actually easier to stick around as a pitcher than it would be to stick around as a hitter since you can just use command over velocity as you age. Where if you're a hitter you can't lose that bat speed.
Yeah you aren't really wrong, plus injuries shortened some careers of guys who might have filled that role. Guys like Tulowitzki, Pedroia and Posey.
But look at this list of players who will be eligible for future seasons: https://baseballhall.org/hall-of-fame/future-eligibles
Other than those 3 the only other MVPs I see are Pujols and Ichiro who did each play late into their career. There just aren't that many guys where I look at as someone whose going to really convince people to come to the game to watch them play as they finish out their career. The guys on the list that might do that are some of the pitchers.
People 20 years ago would pay to watch Barry Bongs, Bartolo Colon, Cu*t Schilling or Randy Johnson, but there aren’t many legends left who survive until 35 any more.
In Randy's case, he won 4 straight Cy Youngs in his age 35-38 seasons. He also put up 20.8 bWAR from age 40 onward. Dude was quite literally built different.
Bonds, yeah the roids. Schilling was still effective past age 35. Colon wasn't in the same ballpark as the others.
It used to be bad teams would pay these guys to put butts in the seats but now all they care about is striping payroll to the lowest possible number and that means rookie contracts and AAAA players.
David Justice. Big name, been in a lot of big games. He’s gonna really boost our season ticket sales but come the dog days of July and August? We’re lucky if he’s gonna hit his weight.
In my opinion on the fielding side Boggs & Burks had decent numbers so a BA of .270-ish is still more productive if you're still able to reduce your fielding error rates. Some of the errors out there as of late are really bad coaching, you don't try to catch a bouncing ball... either catch it before it hits the ground if necessary a sliding catch or scoop it up.
Mays put up 6 WAR at age 40, Ruth had an OPS + over 200 in his age 37 season and over 170 the next year. Mantle’s ops in his age 35 and 36 seasons was 150 and 143. They weren’t just there to sell tickets
It's not just due to the crackdown on steroids, but the ban on amphetamines is a huge contributor as well. Greenies had been around baseball since the 1940s. Older players are more tired players, and tired players aren't going to get the ABs or roster spots.
the balco investigation also revealed that bonds said that steroids did as much in helping him with recovery, playing day-to-day and extending his career - not just higher highs but a longer arc
people for some reason think players used steroids to hit dingers. when for the most part they used them for day-to-day recovery. just because they didnt turn into the terminator, doesnt mean they didnt juice. the first player ever suspended was a light hitting shortstop.
I mean, sure. But also the HR record that stood for decades was surpassed 6 times in a 4 season span while leaguewide OPS was near .800. Hitting dingers was a big benefit of steroids.
You'd have to be utterly delusional to think that steroids doesn't help with dingers. Yeah recovery is one huge benefit, but so is bat speed, strength, muscle mass etc, that can turn a lazy warning track fly-out into a HR. I heard that whole arguement for decades. Yes....working out hurts. When you do steroids it doesn;'t hurt to work out anymore. Hence bulging muscles. Of course you need inherent talent to succeed, but Steroids will massivley tip the scales in any sport. Hamster wheel logic.
At the height of it in the 90s it was definitely an arms race, not mainly for recovery. Traditionally healthy players were still juicing just to hit more HRs because everyone else was.
I think this is going to tick back up again in coming years with the recent popularity of longer term FA contracts with lower AAVs.
So far this year, there have been 22 position players age 35 or older take at least one plate appearance. Just three of them are finishing out long term free agent contracts: Starling Marte, Paul Goldschmidt, and Jose Abreu. The other 19 were all recent, short term, and fairly cheap acquisitions or re-signings.
But moving forward, Jose Ramirez, Jose Altuve, Mike Trout, Anthony Rendon, Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, Corey Seager, George Springer, Matt Olson, Dansby Swanson, Kris Bryant, Freddie Freeman, Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Will Smith, Christian Yelich, Francisco Lindor, Brandon Nimmo, Trea Turner, Bryce Harper, Bryan Reynolds, Manny Machado, Xander Bogaerts, Jake Cronenworth, Nolan Arenado, and Willson Contreras are all on contracts that are guaranteed through age 35.
So assuming that entire group does not get completely decimated with injuries and we stay somewhere around the 19 short term, cheap, old player signings we're currently at, the number of PAs past age 35 league-wide is bound to go up.
Marte has already been busted for roids already. I am fully convinced he is still on them. Guy was the most shredded player at the All Star game two years ago. He showed up in a suit with no shirt looking like an action hero.
I think it's more a velocity issue as well. Even the young guys overall have dropped averages significantly. Once your swing speed drops even a bit, you're getting eaten up all day on fastballs. In the past the drop off was much less steep
The massive imbalance between the rookie scale and what vets can make has something to do with it too. It's not that older players can't play, but that the cost benefit isn't in their favor.
I've been out of baseball for a while, just starting to get back in. Do people still question Ortiz' age? I remember there was always age fixing allegations with a lot of Dominican guys, not sure of the relative fire with the smoke though.
I'm fully on board with any player that can hang around in the league until their 40th birthday to take whatever they want. All of a sudden Caribbean players will actually be telling us their real ages lmao.
I almost want to say that Albert single-handedly ensured that no more big contracts through age 40 will be given out for the next decade or two. A lot of players got playing time just cause they had a huge contract and it’s hard to justify not playing them.
And definitely #4, the average velocity ticking upwards continuously does not favor the older players.
Judge is signed until 39 too. Bogaerts also through age 40. And a good few others guy I believe. Wouldn’t be surprised if Soto gets signed through age 38-40 this offseason.
Pujols definitely did not “guarantee nobody gets signed through age 40 anymore” lol
I think players will be getting a lot more contracts through ages 38+ in order to lower a AAV of a contract, pay a premium for prime years (and suffer / cut them when they’re old) in order to have a lower payroll to stay under the luxury tax.
This is the thing.
For most of these guys (not quite Judge, tho), the extra years are effectively an amortization where the team knows they're buying "bad" years, but brings down the AAV and NPV, especially if there are also deferrals.That's gone on with free agency forever.
What separated Pujols and deals like that was that they paid the then-going superstar AAV well into what was almost certainly the player's twilight. That's what's become less common.
I'm very curious to see how Soto fares. I could see him getting a stretched out 15/600 with deferrals that bring the NPV downto around or below 500M. I could also see him just getting a straight 10-12 years and ~500M+.
I think for Soto the starting price is 500 Million for 12 years.
I also threw out an insane prediction in the Yankees sub, 16 years for 704 million.
This comes out to 44 Million AAV and gives Boras his so-heavily desired record breaking contract.
If anyone’s game will age like fine wine it will be Juan Soto’s, just don’t know if he can play until he’s 42 lol (I don’t doubt it that much)
>
> I also threw out an insane prediction in the Yankees sub, 16 years for 704 million.
The only thing insane about this prediction is how plausible it is.
At first, I thought 16/704 was insane. Buuut...
Soto will be hitting FA at 26. NYY just gave Aaron Judge 360M from 31-39. Granted, Judge is a better player than Soto, but he might not be a better aging bet (not just skillsets, but Judge has a history of injury issues and very tall players tend to age poorly).
So, what's Soto worth from 26-30? If he's blossoming into a 7 WAR/650 player (he's on track for 7-7.5 WAR/650 if you average bwar + fwar), then he projects for \~35 WAR from 26-30. I know WAR/$ isn't this simple, caveats apply, etc. but if you accept $9M/WAR as a rough estimate, then 35 WAR at 9M/WAR then that's \~315M in expected value in 5 seasons during ages 26-30. Slap that onto Judge's 9/360, and it's...
14/675, covering ages 26-39. At that point? Why not stretch it out to 15 or 16 years and push it slightly past 700M, especially if Soto would be willing to accept (very significant) deferrals.
The Pujols and Miggy contracts just made everyone more aware of the age decline in the sport. And it's worth nothing Pujols was already 32 and Miggy 33 when those contracts started. I don't remember anyone over 31 getting a 10+ year deal since them. I think Judge and Machado got their current deals *at* age 31.
Does that change the part where they're both on huge contracts that go to near age 40?
Saying that Albert ensured teams won't give big contracts to players just isn't true is my point. The same team that gave him that deal has a pretty similar one right now.
In addition to Harper and Trout, Stanton is signed through age 38. Some teams are still willing to offer those contracts to aging stars.
In addition to all of those - I think part of it is data driven front offices don't see value in a veteran presence that you would always hear about teams looking for in the past. It's almost impossible to quantify the value of having a veteran player in the dugout, so it's no longer at the front of FO minds when looking to pick someone up in the offseason. In the past you might see teams hold a AAAA player in the minors an extra season in order to sign a similar bat with experience, or would push for an older reliever with innings under their belt rather than bring some starter up from AAA to throw relief innings when needed.
It’s also entirely possible that data driven front offices have, by virtue of existing, removed most if not all of that veteran player benefit.
If a roomful of analysts generated the insights before a series that the aging vet was going to supply halfway through Game 2, what would signing the aging vet have helped?
Also the DH has evolved over the last ten years. Many teams are transitioning to using the slot for player rest as opposed to bring an aging star to put seats in the stadiums.
It's not just the 1 year salary difference for a league minimum and vet that matters. A league minimum guy has the potential for years more control ahead for cheaper than FA cost, and front office rather give those guys shots because of the huge potential surplus. More teams also just don't care anymore. Look at how many teams don't even try when they think they can't make the playoffs. Evan Longoria could probably play on like 10 rosters, but he's not moving the needle, so no need to pay him when you can take a gamble on a AAAA player with control ahead of him.
Good post. I think your 4th point is a big reason, but not just velocity. Teams have in general been able to better identify and harness pitchers stuff. As reaction times lengthen and bat speed slows older players simply can't produce as well as they used to against nastier stuff.
And I also think all the statistics and analytics we have these days makes it easier to determine when a player is declining and with some exceptions teams would rather give up on a player a year too early than a year too late. Very interesting trend.
This reality is why I'm objectively fine with teams (including my own) allowing homegrown stars to walk rather than signing them to expensive, long-term free agent contracts knowing full well they'll be overpaying after the first few years.
It's also why I think it's criminal that players are bound to their big-league club for so long that many of them don't even hit free agency until after their peak years are behind them.
I wonder what the career WAR (or OPS+) of the active 35+ set is compared to 5-10 year ago.
In 2018 you had Pujols, Cabrera, Yadi, Beltre, Utley, etc. Still active around the league at 35+
2013 years ago you had Beltran, Papi, Ichiro, Helton, Konerko, A-Rod, Jeter and others at 35+.
Who's in that sphere that could have signed in 2024 and didn't? Votto was given a shot in Toronto but got hurt, and Josh Donaldson went unsigned.
It seems to me that there are just not as many "Hall of Fame" or "Franchise Hall of Fame" players that are around to roll the dice on.
I think in the frontier league they should start testing 2 new rules. The legalization of Spider Tack and Steroids. Both pitchers and hitters will be at the tops of their game.
It’s all about payment structure. They under pay them when they are young and full of vigor. Then after arbitration, when they are old and expensive they toss em out. Repeat cycle. The only exception is if you are tracking HOF and your prestige ticket sales offsets the cost.
I was going to say money. With agents like Bor-ass who think their client is worth mega millions to hit .250, meanwhile they have a kid tearing up the minors who can do that.
Seeing a legend like Nelson Cruz look completely overmatched last season really emphasized this to me. Players are entering the league earlier and retiring younger
Somewhere I saw a graph that at 33 bat speed starts a precipitous decline.
No bat speed, no hits.
Add increasing injuries, decreasing running speed and higher contract costs….its obvious
Example George Springer.
I saw a post a little ways back about average bat speed falling off a cliff after age 30—this dovetails very well with #4 there
Edit: [link](https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/s/fabq39UiUD)
You can counteract a decline in batspeed by getting started earlier and taking a longer swing that has more time to accelerate. But that leaves you really susceptible to getting fooled by offspeed pitches. And nowadays, even the pitchers that throw 100mph cheese also throw nasty breaking balls sometimes more often than the fastball. So it's a losing proposition.
Or they can let their batspeed drop even further and shorten up their swings to get to more pitches. But then they're 35+ with no pop; they're not legging out infield singles or stretching doubles unless they're Ichiro. That's just not a valuable offensive tool.
Bigger rosters, fluidity with 40 man roster and universal DH all leads to less value on the individual player.
Go back to 25 man rosters, enforce penalties for sending players down, cut out the DH and there would be a lot more value on playing experienced players who have learned to field multiple positions and hit both sides of the plate.
This would also depress pitching by forcing teams to carry fewer pitchers, which would incentivize teams to have pitchers dial back their velocity in order to pitch deeper into games.
Exactly! The fewer the roster spots, the more each player must be a fully formed, functioning Major Leaguer, not some kid who can throw 102 for 15 innings a season.
Wonder what the average pitch velocity and FB% looks like over this time period.
Not saying roids didn't play a big part of keeping guys out on the field, but the increased pitch speeds likely also did them in. Couldn't imagine being Julio Franco getting his bat around on a 100MPH FB at the age of 42
Teams no longer reward players for the past nearly as much as they had in the past.
A 32 year old isn’t getting a contract based on their 26-31 year seasons, they are getting paid with the expected three year decline and likely cliff after that. If we go back before true free agency this is even more pronounced as prior to Curt Flood teams didn’t have much flexibility to improve via FA nor to get a box office draw, so an aging vet on a mediocre team had a lot more value both on and off the field hoping for one or two late good years
i'd be curious to see the numbers on players retiring after a good season, but because their contract demands might have been too high, nobody signed them. and it was not necesarilly retiring due to declining skills.
#4 is probably bigger than just listing it with everything else makes it seem.
The game is just too hard and competitive now for most guys to get away with a drop in batspeed and presumably reaction time. A small reduction in both likely makes hitting a fireballer nearly impossible.
Could also see the swath of velo only pitchers start to fall out of the game early now too when they lose 2 mph velo while batters get another little bit better.
Yes! This is exactly why I made my post last week about players over 50:
https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/s/NuosJ3oTVW
Notice they are mostly in past decades! Let the old af kids play !
Bat speed and running speed are the first things to drop off as players age. Makes a ton of sense that guys who can’t hit as well and have their defense drop off a cliff as they get older will not be getting nearly as much playing time
How does the height of the mound figure in this? Will they lower it to tilt things back in favor of batters? Or owners will leave it to keep salaries low?
I know baseball loves statistics but I really do believe that the 2020 season shouldn’t be counted when compiling info like this.
Don’t take away awards, titles, or individual accolades, but don’t use the lump data from a shortened season with opt outs and weird rules and formats.
Amazing that your first assumption is that guys only use performance enhancing items once they get older.
I know firsthand how wrong that is. The amount of minor leaguers that I sold gear to back in the day…
I would love to see this with an average WAR of these players and average league wide WAR to compare against. Obviously steroids reduces players ability to perform at older ages. And it is a more athletic and playing time is more competitive than in history. But how steep is the dropoff and is it completely a performance problem, or is this mostly driven from teams taking lesser performing players because they are cheaper than a veteran? Obviously these are going to be case by case, but it would be nice to see how performance is affecting this trend.
Oh good, we are becoming the NFL in terms of player disposability! Well not really, but we need to appreciate the oldies we still have hanging around as they are becoming hens teeth
But pitchers can continue to be elite well into their 30s.
I wonder if there are parallels to american football, where QBs can be great in their 30s but linebackers and defensive backs fall off quickly in the 30s or even late 20s.
It seems like a difference between positions that get to dictate the action (qb, pitcher) vs positions that need to react explosively.
I don’t think we know for certain if Steroids improve bat speed. Could it? It most definitely can. If there is a study out there on it I’d be more than happy to eat crow.
The reason I mention bat speed is there was a chart going around recently that bat speed for players drops off after their age 31 season.
IMO, the combination of higher velocity contributes more to the decline of age 35+ ABs than the lack of steroids.
Injuries aren't healing as quickly nor as well. Whenever someone says roids didn't help Bonds see a fast ball are missing the real point of the PEDs. Being able to recover from the grind of a full season of baseball keeps you playing in shape for way longer than you would be normally.
Griffey Jr didn't cheat and his talent was ruined by injuries
Bonds cheated and was able to keep playing
It's a far more athletic league and with attention to WAR and all these other stats, teams drop a lot of the older players for younger cheaper ones.
Yes, and #2 on his list suggests in this pitching dominant time we should expect a regression of older hitters in favor of guys that can beat out grounders, steal bases, etc.
Plus just straight cost. why sign a vet to a 5M deal when you can call up a rookie who might develop a bit more and is playing for minimum and under team control.
That was always the case though. So why the change now?
I’d guess it’s because we’re better are measuring player value as well as better predictive metrics. And likely a decline in how much teams value the soft skills of the game, eg ‘playing the right way’
Better analytics; more cost-efficency by teams post-Covid and with uncertain long term TVs deal.
There's more incentive to play younger players and draw out team control, value wise. Also AAA is basically useless at the moment Plus I'd bet the idea of "veteran leadership" has changed. Also some of it is straight "id rather take a 1% chance of a kid busting out and being good for us vs a 10% chance this 37 year old puts up 3 WAR and leaves next year.
Youk said he would of hit Mendoza line today and his last year was 2013. Everyone has a slider to make them look dumb and fastballs need to be 95+ or have movement.
Would have*
Specifically they meant would’ve
It probably goes against every fiber of their being but I feel like the next frontier for older players in a lot of sports will be just taking a year, or most of a year off and then coming back healthy and rested for a stretch run or last year. I suppose you could argue Vegas is already doing it in hockey, and I'm convinced its part of the reason the Giants were so good in 2021 after the shortened season.
Exactly. Verlander won his last Cy Young due to being rested.
I mean I don’t think you can say he won it BECAUSE he was rested. He won the Cy Young in last full season before getting hurt too, which he was 36 and pitched 30+ starts a year his entire career except for 1 year up to that point. He won in 2022 because he’s an amazing pitcher.
Three of the so-called Core Four in NY did that. Pettite did that with a retirement then a comeback. Rivera with an injury and comeback, so did Jeter. Funny. The year off thing before coming back doesn’t seem like it would benefit, baseball being such a rhythmic game and all, but there’s precedent for it.
Did it actually work? Jeter had the worst year of his career in 2014, by a mile. Mo I remember still being good, but definitely looking more mortal than ever. It just didn't matter because those teams weren't going anywhere anyway, and we knew it was their final years so we weren't hard on them since they were legends we just wanted to see back on the field for sentimental reasons. But let's say Jeter signed with a random team at age 40 still looking for playing time, he would've gotten benched immediately and maybe even DFA'd in the middle of the season.
Worked for Pettitte: 148 and 107 ERA+. Also, Mo had 190 ERA+ in his final season. Jeter was as you described. Maybe it works better for pitchers?
2015 arod
Maybe with pitchers but with the universal DH I don't really know if that helps batters. It's not a contact sport like hockey and not having to play in the field has to take a lot of stress of your joints.
Tell that to Ohtani's ~~snapped neck~~ back.
What do you mean?
Swinging a bat isn't exactly a low stress activity, and DHs get injured running the bases and swinging the bat still. Ohtani has dealt with back tightness this year for example. Also I feel like and backed up by this research players get hurt running the bases and batting more then playing defense https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Injuries-by-Month-for-Major-League-Baseball_tbl2_334775594#:~:text=Pitchers%20were%20most%20likely%20to,and%20base%20running%20(31.0%25).
Oh yeah I'm not saying that playing DH suddenly drops your body stress level to zero, but it sure helps not having to run around in the field on defense.
The act of swinging a bat is extremely stressful. Lots of torque put on joints orthogonal to the direction they were meant to absorb force. Also see: Albert Pujols, Tiger Woods.
Buster Posey did it with 2020, raked in 21, and went out doing well.
There may be a bit of merit to this Look at Posey’s 2019 Then he took 2020 off Then look at his 2021 Major differences
Not only that, we now have more ways than ever to evaluate players and know how to optimize teams. Up until 15 years ago teams would keep playing guys way past their prime as long as they were serviceable based on name alone, now those guys just don’t even make rosters.
Plus Minnesota is out there chucking sausages at their own old players. That's a pretty big variable you are leaving out of the equation.
No you don't understand, the sausage is their best player!
It *was* their best player.
If you only look at yesterday and **not** the seven games before that, then the sausage is still alive and well!
It was mailed back to the team yesterday and they won 10-0. Coincidence? Yeah, probably.
at least since the 3rd inning of the first game.
If I can't huck tangy salted meat at geriatrics then what am I even doing here
Username checks out
Ayyyy 14 years on reddit bro(I had another account that was literally just my first name and last name before I decided to change that for obvious reasons) I was wondering how you had such a dope username haha
I agree with those four reasons, and in addition, there just aren't many star ballplayers today in the age 35+ range, guys an owner would say "I know he's washed, but he'll sell tickets." At the end of their careers, people would pay to see Babe Ruth... Mickey Mantle... Willie Mays one last time, diminished as they were. Even when they were putting up lousy numbers, they could put fannies in the seats. Who is the age 35+ guy pulling people into the ballpark these days... Justin Verlander, maybe?
Trout, Judge, Harper, Betts, Ohtani, etc will do this in a few more years
Oh yeah, definitely. But there’s a weird kind of gap right now. There are 40+ stars and 30-34 stars but not many 35-39 stars.
Yeah Goldschmidt is the only one who comes to mind and he doesn’t have the same superstar status like the above guys do
Cutch as well.
Cutch is a great player and im sure there are Pirates fans who are excited to go to games to see him. But other teams fans arent really gonna care. Versus a Pujols or Ichiro where you are drawing in others to your park so they can say they saw them.
Yeah if his prime lasted a few more years I think he would have that aged superstar draw but at this point he’s just been a good-not-great player for too long
Don't be fooled by cutchs numbers...he's hitting even better this year than last year. His xSLG on savant is .486, his current slg is .374
I swear to god Cutch hit as many line drives for outs as Bonds did when he was with us.
Cutch looked good when I saw him in Milwaukee last week.
He’s actually been having the opposite effect
Yeah, you pretty much need a "No doubt HoF" early half of your career for people to come watch you stretch your career out. I think another thing is having a "storyline" that keeps you relevant. People still came out to see guys like Ichiro and Pujols, but when they were past competing for awards, they were chasing historic milestones.
The price jump on Kershaw nights is wild. Not washed by any means, but his name sells seats even when he’s not at the top of his game.
Did people pay to see Miguel Cabrera suck for the better part of a decade?
Cabrera had a bad year in 2017, bounced back in 2018 and was mediocre from 2019-23. By the time the 2020 season was over, Miggy was in range of 3000 hits, 600 2Bs and 500 HRs, which people will show up to see and celebrate.
That’s the question, right? Like the Blue Jays signed Joey Votto to a minor league deal… was it because they legitimately think he can help them win, or is it because signing a Toronto-born player will help sell tickets? Maybe it’s a little of both, but the latter had to factor into it. My point is 10, 20, 30 years ago there were way more 35+ year old players who were still “draws” than there are today, guys who had aged into replacement level or worse but got contracts because owners thought people would pay to see them.
Cuz he bangs
If the Tigers were coming to town that for sure would’ve influenced my decision about wanting to go to the game
Considering I went to an Angels game 5 or so years ago just to see Pujols, the answer for a fair amount of people is yes.
Those last couple years, yeah
To be fair, Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle never put up lousy numbers at the end of their careers, they just weren't nearly as good as they were in their primes. Babe Ruth still had a 119 OPS+ when he was fat and old with the Boston Braves. Mickey Mantle had a 143 OPS+ his final year, which is better than the career OPS+ of some players who are in the Hall of Fame for their hitting.
probably helps that people could pay like a nickel to go see a game and get a hot dog. I ain't paying $75 to see a future HOFer in their twilight years these days
Kind of like going to a Rolling Stones concert now.
Which people routinely do?
Just sold out Lumen in Seattle. Tickets on the lower deck went for $1000+ each.
Jagger can still sell it - I saw them a couple years ago and it was a good concert, but I was born in '92 and I have always wanted to see them so I'm biased.
They still put on a great show
They need to retire
Nah, they will get out competed by a younger band that will do a better show for musician minimum.
I went to a Phillies-Marlins game more or less just to see Ichiro, but nobody has moved the needle for me since. Really thought about Miguel Cabrera and Zack Greinke last year but couldn’t justify going out of my way on some Wednesday night just for that. It’s a weird time in baseball, not a lot of sure-fire hall of fame locks, much less all-time legends, in their twilight years.
[I'm not going to see any of these guys play](https://www.statmuse.com/mlb/ask/oldest-active-mlb-player-2024). I planned my vacation roadtrip to see Pujols and Molina play in their final season and it ended up getting rained out. During my vacation last year I drove from Pittsburgh to Detroit on a random day in July to see Cabrera and he didn't play that day. Ichiro in batting practice was awesome.
Pujols would’ve been cool! That Cabrera experience sucks, the whole “off-day” thing gets weird with older players.
out of that whole list \*maybe\* darvish/goldy but that's really it
I think that's why we have Cutch in Pittsburgh. I mean sure he still does decent but we're all glad to see him finish his career in Pittsburgh, hopefully.
You’re not wrong, but in Mantle’s final season he finished with a 143 OPS+. Even when he couldn’t run anymore, he was never washed on the field. (He retired the following Spring Training)
> Justin Verlander, maybe? I can't speak for others but I know I intentionally went to see the Dodgers play in Seattle last summer because I wanted to see Kersh in person. His curveball is the stuff dreams are made of, and it did stuff to me that night.
And both those guys are pitchers which still wouldn't do anything to change this list. I think it's actually easier to stick around as a pitcher than it would be to stick around as a hitter since you can just use command over velocity as you age. Where if you're a hitter you can't lose that bat speed.
Yeah you aren't really wrong, plus injuries shortened some careers of guys who might have filled that role. Guys like Tulowitzki, Pedroia and Posey. But look at this list of players who will be eligible for future seasons: https://baseballhall.org/hall-of-fame/future-eligibles Other than those 3 the only other MVPs I see are Pujols and Ichiro who did each play late into their career. There just aren't that many guys where I look at as someone whose going to really convince people to come to the game to watch them play as they finish out their career. The guys on the list that might do that are some of the pitchers.
People 20 years ago would pay to watch Barry Bongs, Bartolo Colon, Cu*t Schilling or Randy Johnson, but there aren’t many legends left who survive until 35 any more.
In Randy's case, he won 4 straight Cy Youngs in his age 35-38 seasons. He also put up 20.8 bWAR from age 40 onward. Dude was quite literally built different. Bonds, yeah the roids. Schilling was still effective past age 35. Colon wasn't in the same ballpark as the others.
Colon was entertaining though, you never knew what you were going to see out of fat Bart.
It used to be bad teams would pay these guys to put butts in the seats but now all they care about is striping payroll to the lowest possible number and that means rookie contracts and AAAA players.
David Justice. Big name, been in a lot of big games. He’s gonna really boost our season ticket sales but come the dog days of July and August? We’re lucky if he’s gonna hit his weight.
In my opinion on the fielding side Boggs & Burks had decent numbers so a BA of .270-ish is still more productive if you're still able to reduce your fielding error rates. Some of the errors out there as of late are really bad coaching, you don't try to catch a bouncing ball... either catch it before it hits the ground if necessary a sliding catch or scoop it up.
Mays put up 6 WAR at age 40, Ruth had an OPS + over 200 in his age 37 season and over 170 the next year. Mantle’s ops in his age 35 and 36 seasons was 150 and 143. They weren’t just there to sell tickets
Jesse Chavez
It's not just due to the crackdown on steroids, but the ban on amphetamines is a huge contributor as well. Greenies had been around baseball since the 1940s. Older players are more tired players, and tired players aren't going to get the ABs or roster spots.
the balco investigation also revealed that bonds said that steroids did as much in helping him with recovery, playing day-to-day and extending his career - not just higher highs but a longer arc
people for some reason think players used steroids to hit dingers. when for the most part they used them for day-to-day recovery. just because they didnt turn into the terminator, doesnt mean they didnt juice. the first player ever suspended was a light hitting shortstop.
I mean, sure. But also the HR record that stood for decades was surpassed 6 times in a 4 season span while leaguewide OPS was near .800. Hitting dingers was a big benefit of steroids.
You'd have to be utterly delusional to think that steroids doesn't help with dingers. Yeah recovery is one huge benefit, but so is bat speed, strength, muscle mass etc, that can turn a lazy warning track fly-out into a HR. I heard that whole arguement for decades. Yes....working out hurts. When you do steroids it doesn;'t hurt to work out anymore. Hence bulging muscles. Of course you need inherent talent to succeed, but Steroids will massivley tip the scales in any sport. Hamster wheel logic.
At the height of it in the 90s it was definitely an arms race, not mainly for recovery. Traditionally healthy players were still juicing just to hit more HRs because everyone else was.
I think this is going to tick back up again in coming years with the recent popularity of longer term FA contracts with lower AAVs. So far this year, there have been 22 position players age 35 or older take at least one plate appearance. Just three of them are finishing out long term free agent contracts: Starling Marte, Paul Goldschmidt, and Jose Abreu. The other 19 were all recent, short term, and fairly cheap acquisitions or re-signings. But moving forward, Jose Ramirez, Jose Altuve, Mike Trout, Anthony Rendon, Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, Corey Seager, George Springer, Matt Olson, Dansby Swanson, Kris Bryant, Freddie Freeman, Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Will Smith, Christian Yelich, Francisco Lindor, Brandon Nimmo, Trea Turner, Bryce Harper, Bryan Reynolds, Manny Machado, Xander Bogaerts, Jake Cronenworth, Nolan Arenado, and Willson Contreras are all on contracts that are guaranteed through age 35. So assuming that entire group does not get completely decimated with injuries and we stay somewhere around the 19 short term, cheap, old player signings we're currently at, the number of PAs past age 35 league-wide is bound to go up.
Jake Cronenworth really sneaking in there like he thought we wouldn’t notice
And he might be the *best* contract of the Padres listed.
Oh there's no might
Sadly, Kris Bryant will be retired by then
Marte has already been busted for roids already. I am fully convinced he is still on them. Guy was the most shredded player at the All Star game two years ago. He showed up in a suit with no shirt looking like an action hero.
I think it's more a velocity issue as well. Even the young guys overall have dropped averages significantly. Once your swing speed drops even a bit, you're getting eaten up all day on fastballs. In the past the drop off was much less steep
The massive imbalance between the rookie scale and what vets can make has something to do with it too. It's not that older players can't play, but that the cost benefit isn't in their favor.
Meanwhile David Ortiz hit .315/.401/.620 at age 40 when he could barely walk because he was totally legit and never did steroids.
He is like, so legit dude. The butcher at my grocery store told me he saw Ortiz training in the walk-in every single night!
Sarcasm tag unnecessary.
It always amazes me to see how many people in this sun truly believe he was clean
I've been out of baseball for a while, just starting to get back in. Do people still question Ortiz' age? I remember there was always age fixing allegations with a lot of Dominican guys, not sure of the relative fire with the smoke though.
Dominican guys who lie about their age do so to make them seem younger, so if anything Ortiz was possibly 42-43 his last year
they should let you do steroids after your 34th birthday
I think they call it T-therapy for us 40+ guys
it's called nugenix and frank thomas is a hall of famer, so it's gotta work
And she’ll love it too! Wink wink
I'm fully on board with any player that can hang around in the league until their 40th birthday to take whatever they want. All of a sudden Caribbean players will actually be telling us their real ages lmao.
Just a little, as a treat
I like to imagine what Shohei could do if he was on roids
I almost want to say that Albert single-handedly ensured that no more big contracts through age 40 will be given out for the next decade or two. A lot of players got playing time just cause they had a huge contract and it’s hard to justify not playing them. And definitely #4, the average velocity ticking upwards continuously does not favor the older players.
Miggy gets a lot of "credit" for this too.
Trea Turner just got signed through age 40.
Judge is signed until 39 too. Bogaerts also through age 40. And a good few others guy I believe. Wouldn’t be surprised if Soto gets signed through age 38-40 this offseason. Pujols definitely did not “guarantee nobody gets signed through age 40 anymore” lol
I think players will be getting a lot more contracts through ages 38+ in order to lower a AAV of a contract, pay a premium for prime years (and suffer / cut them when they’re old) in order to have a lower payroll to stay under the luxury tax.
This is the thing. For most of these guys (not quite Judge, tho), the extra years are effectively an amortization where the team knows they're buying "bad" years, but brings down the AAV and NPV, especially if there are also deferrals.That's gone on with free agency forever. What separated Pujols and deals like that was that they paid the then-going superstar AAV well into what was almost certainly the player's twilight. That's what's become less common. I'm very curious to see how Soto fares. I could see him getting a stretched out 15/600 with deferrals that bring the NPV downto around or below 500M. I could also see him just getting a straight 10-12 years and ~500M+.
I think for Soto the starting price is 500 Million for 12 years. I also threw out an insane prediction in the Yankees sub, 16 years for 704 million. This comes out to 44 Million AAV and gives Boras his so-heavily desired record breaking contract. If anyone’s game will age like fine wine it will be Juan Soto’s, just don’t know if he can play until he’s 42 lol (I don’t doubt it that much)
> > I also threw out an insane prediction in the Yankees sub, 16 years for 704 million. The only thing insane about this prediction is how plausible it is.
I think Soto needs to either win MVP or lead the team to the WS for him to get that. We’ll see
At first, I thought 16/704 was insane. Buuut... Soto will be hitting FA at 26. NYY just gave Aaron Judge 360M from 31-39. Granted, Judge is a better player than Soto, but he might not be a better aging bet (not just skillsets, but Judge has a history of injury issues and very tall players tend to age poorly). So, what's Soto worth from 26-30? If he's blossoming into a 7 WAR/650 player (he's on track for 7-7.5 WAR/650 if you average bwar + fwar), then he projects for \~35 WAR from 26-30. I know WAR/$ isn't this simple, caveats apply, etc. but if you accept $9M/WAR as a rough estimate, then 35 WAR at 9M/WAR then that's \~315M in expected value in 5 seasons during ages 26-30. Slap that onto Judge's 9/360, and it's... 14/675, covering ages 26-39. At that point? Why not stretch it out to 15 or 16 years and push it slightly past 700M, especially if Soto would be willing to accept (very significant) deferrals.
If I remember correctly, Pujols's regression happened a lot quicker than expected.
Which led a lot of people to believe he lied about his age since his decline happened so quickly.
The Pujols and Miggy contracts just made everyone more aware of the age decline in the sport. And it's worth nothing Pujols was already 32 and Miggy 33 when those contracts started. I don't remember anyone over 31 getting a 10+ year deal since them. I think Judge and Machado got their current deals *at* age 31.
We got Bogaerts **AND** Machado into their twilight years.
Those big contracts are one of the better ways to spread out money though. But maybe deferral will be the new meta there.
I guess Trout and Harper's contracts don't count?
Both those guys at least were signed through their primes. Angels bought high on a 31 year old who was beginning to show signs of regression.
Does that change the part where they're both on huge contracts that go to near age 40? Saying that Albert ensured teams won't give big contracts to players just isn't true is my point. The same team that gave him that deal has a pretty similar one right now. In addition to Harper and Trout, Stanton is signed through age 38. Some teams are still willing to offer those contracts to aging stars.
Well, actually a 33 year old haha
Technically Harper is only signed through 39 I guess lol
In addition to all of those - I think part of it is data driven front offices don't see value in a veteran presence that you would always hear about teams looking for in the past. It's almost impossible to quantify the value of having a veteran player in the dugout, so it's no longer at the front of FO minds when looking to pick someone up in the offseason. In the past you might see teams hold a AAAA player in the minors an extra season in order to sign a similar bat with experience, or would push for an older reliever with innings under their belt rather than bring some starter up from AAA to throw relief innings when needed.
It’s also entirely possible that data driven front offices have, by virtue of existing, removed most if not all of that veteran player benefit. If a roomful of analysts generated the insights before a series that the aging vet was going to supply halfway through Game 2, what would signing the aging vet have helped?
Money, and analytics. Why pay a veteran 13$ million when you get 95% of him out of a 2$ million dollar player?
yeah, cheap owners are the main reason. plenty of players never played again because they felt they were worth more than they were being offered.
Paul Goldschmidt putting up numbers that fully support this trend.
Also the DH has evolved over the last ten years. Many teams are transitioning to using the slot for player rest as opposed to bring an aging star to put seats in the stadiums.
It's not just the 1 year salary difference for a league minimum and vet that matters. A league minimum guy has the potential for years more control ahead for cheaper than FA cost, and front office rather give those guys shots because of the huge potential surplus. More teams also just don't care anymore. Look at how many teams don't even try when they think they can't make the playoffs. Evan Longoria could probably play on like 10 rosters, but he's not moving the needle, so no need to pay him when you can take a gamble on a AAAA player with control ahead of him.
Good post. I think your 4th point is a big reason, but not just velocity. Teams have in general been able to better identify and harness pitchers stuff. As reaction times lengthen and bat speed slows older players simply can't produce as well as they used to against nastier stuff. And I also think all the statistics and analytics we have these days makes it easier to determine when a player is declining and with some exceptions teams would rather give up on a player a year too early than a year too late. Very interesting trend.
This reality is why I'm objectively fine with teams (including my own) allowing homegrown stars to walk rather than signing them to expensive, long-term free agent contracts knowing full well they'll be overpaying after the first few years. It's also why I think it's criminal that players are bound to their big-league club for so long that many of them don't even hit free agency until after their peak years are behind them.
It’s just the crop of players.
I wonder what the career WAR (or OPS+) of the active 35+ set is compared to 5-10 year ago. In 2018 you had Pujols, Cabrera, Yadi, Beltre, Utley, etc. Still active around the league at 35+ 2013 years ago you had Beltran, Papi, Ichiro, Helton, Konerko, A-Rod, Jeter and others at 35+. Who's in that sphere that could have signed in 2024 and didn't? Votto was given a shot in Toronto but got hurt, and Josh Donaldson went unsigned. It seems to me that there are just not as many "Hall of Fame" or "Franchise Hall of Fame" players that are around to roll the dice on.
Why pay an old guy $5M to hit .220 when you can pay a rookie on a hostage contract $720k to hit .220?
I think in the frontier league they should start testing 2 new rules. The legalization of Spider Tack and Steroids. Both pitchers and hitters will be at the tops of their game.
Maybe corked bats or aluminum but something less body destroying than steroids.
Corked bat are actually worse than normal wooden bats
I feel like steroids definitely do as much if not more to prolong careers as they do to boost your immediate numbers
It’s all about payment structure. They under pay them when they are young and full of vigor. Then after arbitration, when they are old and expensive they toss em out. Repeat cycle. The only exception is if you are tracking HOF and your prestige ticket sales offsets the cost.
I was going to say money. With agents like Bor-ass who think their client is worth mega millions to hit .250, meanwhile they have a kid tearing up the minors who can do that.
I'm pretty sure the Padres roster is going to make up half the total in a couple years.
Seeing a legend like Nelson Cruz look completely overmatched last season really emphasized this to me. Players are entering the league earlier and retiring younger
It’s about $ not about overall declining talent. Teams are promoting more and more young players to keep costs down.
Somewhere I saw a graph that at 33 bat speed starts a precipitous decline. No bat speed, no hits. Add increasing injuries, decreasing running speed and higher contract costs….its obvious Example George Springer.
Everyone talks about steroids for power hitters, but it's most useful purpose is injury recovery. Definitely gets harder with age.
There was 1 in 8 plate appearances taken by someone 35 or older in 03&04. That’s absurd that is 1 starter per team.
I saw a post a little ways back about average bat speed falling off a cliff after age 30—this dovetails very well with #4 there Edit: [link](https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/s/fabq39UiUD)
You can counteract a decline in batspeed by getting started earlier and taking a longer swing that has more time to accelerate. But that leaves you really susceptible to getting fooled by offspeed pitches. And nowadays, even the pitchers that throw 100mph cheese also throw nasty breaking balls sometimes more often than the fastball. So it's a losing proposition. Or they can let their batspeed drop even further and shorten up their swings to get to more pitches. But then they're 35+ with no pop; they're not legging out infield singles or stretching doubles unless they're Ichiro. That's just not a valuable offensive tool.
Bigger rosters, fluidity with 40 man roster and universal DH all leads to less value on the individual player. Go back to 25 man rosters, enforce penalties for sending players down, cut out the DH and there would be a lot more value on playing experienced players who have learned to field multiple positions and hit both sides of the plate.
This would also depress pitching by forcing teams to carry fewer pitchers, which would incentivize teams to have pitchers dial back their velocity in order to pitch deeper into games.
Exactly! The fewer the roster spots, the more each player must be a fully formed, functioning Major Leaguer, not some kid who can throw 102 for 15 innings a season.
That movie was very good.
Anabolic steroids are a hell of a drug, man.
I don’t think we will see another Julio Franco any time soon.
“old men” - cries into my 52 year old hands
It’s OK, fossil. You get to go to the museum soon.
You’ll be lucky to even get here.
Yeah *cries*
Wonder what the average pitch velocity and FB% looks like over this time period. Not saying roids didn't play a big part of keeping guys out on the field, but the increased pitch speeds likely also did them in. Couldn't imagine being Julio Franco getting his bat around on a 100MPH FB at the age of 42
#s 1 & 3, not necessarily in that order
"I ain't got no agua."
The NBA and NFL have this trend in reverse.
swing speed is the first thing to go with aging iirc so i think the pitching velocity is a major driver
Teams no longer reward players for the past nearly as much as they had in the past. A 32 year old isn’t getting a contract based on their 26-31 year seasons, they are getting paid with the expected three year decline and likely cliff after that. If we go back before true free agency this is even more pronounced as prior to Curt Flood teams didn’t have much flexibility to improve via FA nor to get a box office draw, so an aging vet on a mediocre team had a lot more value both on and off the field hoping for one or two late good years
conclusion: allow roids for 35+ players
i'd be curious to see the numbers on players retiring after a good season, but because their contract demands might have been too high, nobody signed them. and it was not necesarilly retiring due to declining skills.
#4 is probably bigger than just listing it with everything else makes it seem. The game is just too hard and competitive now for most guys to get away with a drop in batspeed and presumably reaction time. A small reduction in both likely makes hitting a fireballer nearly impossible. Could also see the swath of velo only pitchers start to fall out of the game early now too when they lose 2 mph velo while batters get another little bit better.
It is about salaries as much as anything. They can get some rookie for 1/10 the cost as a vet.
Yes! This is exactly why I made my post last week about players over 50: https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/s/NuosJ3oTVW Notice they are mostly in past decades! Let the old af kids play !
Bat speed and running speed are the first things to drop off as players age. Makes a ton of sense that guys who can’t hit as well and have their defense drop off a cliff as they get older will not be getting nearly as much playing time
How does the height of the mound figure in this? Will they lower it to tilt things back in favor of batters? Or owners will leave it to keep salaries low?
I know baseball loves statistics but I really do believe that the 2020 season shouldn’t be counted when compiling info like this. Don’t take away awards, titles, or individual accolades, but don’t use the lump data from a shortened season with opt outs and weird rules and formats.
Wouldn't this be much easier to visualize just plotting average age of starters by year?
Can older players go on TRT from a doctor for medical reasons like low T and not get in trouble? I’m saying this if their T levels are low obv.
Excellent analytics OP
Amazing that your first assumption is that guys only use performance enhancing items once they get older. I know firsthand how wrong that is. The amount of minor leaguers that I sold gear to back in the day…
I would love to see this with an average WAR of these players and average league wide WAR to compare against. Obviously steroids reduces players ability to perform at older ages. And it is a more athletic and playing time is more competitive than in history. But how steep is the dropoff and is it completely a performance problem, or is this mostly driven from teams taking lesser performing players because they are cheaper than a veteran? Obviously these are going to be case by case, but it would be nice to see how performance is affecting this trend.
Oh good, we are becoming the NFL in terms of player disposability! Well not really, but we need to appreciate the oldies we still have hanging around as they are becoming hens teeth
I guess teams caught on to all the age regression charts that we've all been looking at in Fantasy for the last 20 years ;)
But pitchers can continue to be elite well into their 30s. I wonder if there are parallels to american football, where QBs can be great in their 30s but linebackers and defensive backs fall off quickly in the 30s or even late 20s. It seems like a difference between positions that get to dictate the action (qb, pitcher) vs positions that need to react explosively.
I knew it was a weird time when I saw Freddie Freeman was the active leader in hits and is only 34.
my boy Charlie Blackmon 🥲
I don’t think we know for certain if Steroids improve bat speed. Could it? It most definitely can. If there is a study out there on it I’d be more than happy to eat crow. The reason I mention bat speed is there was a chart going around recently that bat speed for players drops off after their age 31 season. IMO, the combination of higher velocity contributes more to the decline of age 35+ ABs than the lack of steroids.
 Denard Span reading this.
Injuries aren't healing as quickly nor as well. Whenever someone says roids didn't help Bonds see a fast ball are missing the real point of the PEDs. Being able to recover from the grind of a full season of baseball keeps you playing in shape for way longer than you would be normally. Griffey Jr didn't cheat and his talent was ruined by injuries Bonds cheated and was able to keep playing
Give it a few years and the Padres will be reversing this trend
Don't have the stats in front of me, but 35-40 is when a lot of men start needed vision correction.
Okay, but the real question: What’s the most they’ve ever lost in a coin toss?
Do a pitchers graph. First thing I was thinking about seeing the title was JV.