re: Poz on Hamilton and Pujols

quote:

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That's pretty much what Hosmer is at this point. No doubt very talented. But you are telling me right now you'd take 2 prospects over 2 guys who have each finished top 5 in an MVP voting the last 2 seasons....

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First off, Hosmer is no longer a prospect. He's a MLB player. He's been in the league for two seasons. He's a young player and still improving, but he's not a prospect anymore. He's a player. There's a difference between a guy in the minors and a guy who has made the jump to the majors. While Hosmer was disappointing last year, he has shown he can hit MLB pitching.

but no... it's Poz saying it, and I found his argument interesting. I'd rather have Hosmer and Gordon, though. Just because of my natural skepticism of prospects. But the point is about the aging process. I did not say ALL players decline at 33, I just said they were MORE LIKELY to decline. Cherry picking a few names who did well in their late career doesn't disprove this theory. Eddie Murray had an effective late career, too.

The argument presented was:

quote:

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You can do this year-by-year too. The best 32-/33-year-olds in 1982, for instance, were Cecil Cooper, Toby Harrah, Bill Russell and Mike Schmidt. Their combined WAR over the next five years was 46.9 -- almost two-thirds of it coming from Schmidt.

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i'm not a fan of WAR, so let's use OPS+ for players with at least 400 AB's. The last year we can get a five-year lookahead is 2006. So let's look at how the best 31 and 32 year olds in 2006 did in 2007-2012, to test your recency theory:

31
Vlad 329/382/552 138
Rolen 296/369/518 126
Sexson 264/338/504 117
Matthews 313/371/495 121
Brown 287/358/457 109

First off, that's a pretty horrid group of 31 year olds. Sorry. That's just who we had. When Emil Brown is the best 31 year old, it says something about the aging process. Anyway, here's their next five years:

32-36
Vlad 303/355/490 122
Rolen 276/344/441 107
Sexson 311/306/392 86 (out of baseball at age 34)
Matthews 245/322/377 84 (out of baseball at age 36)
Brown 250/298/366 78 (out of baseball at age 35)

All of them declined, and only Vlad was still an All-Star caliber player. OK, Gary Matthews and Emil Brown were never all that great to begin with, but Richie Sexson cratered and Rolen went from potential Hall of Famer to a merely decent bat in the lineup.

32
Abreu 297/424/462 126
Damon 285/359/482 115
Dye 315/385/622 151
Nomar 303/367/505 120
Helton 302/404/476 118
Tejeda 330/379/498 126

I took a sixth 32-year-old to include Damon, but you can throw him out if you wish. Now, this is a group of star players who all received big contracts at some point. How did this group of studs age?

33-37
Abreu 277/367/432 115
Damon 273/349/426 107
Dye 267/334/496 112 (out of baseball at age 36)
Nomar 279/325/395 87 (out of baseball at age 36)
Helton 293/396/445 113
Tejeda 284/323/411 97

The answer: Not well. Only Abreu was still a top tier player, and that's barely. Don't be fooled by Helton's OPS+, as he's been a part time player for three seasons now. Dye and Nomar both only lasted three more years, with Nomar's descent being rather dramatic. Damon is still trading in on his Idiots aura and received another nice contract this year, but he's a slightly above league average outfielder now.

Every one of these guys declined. All were All-Star level players, some arguably HOF level, and only one was able to retain All-Star level value, and that's giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Older players decline. Even great ones.