Happy Saturday, Razzballers!
Pitchers and catchers report on Monday. Just in time to take your early season hopes and dreams on a romantic dinner for Valentine’s Day.
What better time is there than to continue where I left off in last week’s edition of Ambulance Chasers about aging baseball players. A few weeks ago, our guy snapper asked a question: “Is there a relationship between average age at a position and number of injuries?”.
This question seems simple enough but to answer it in a way that is statistically significant, it would take a lot of data mining or an API or some shi….anyway. Tracking down published research about Snapper’s question proved difficult. There is research on injuries by position. There are baseball aging curves that show when players peak in hitting and pitching. While there are positions that are more injury prone than others, aging is the more variable factor when it comes to injury and performance.
The Magic Number is….
If you are looking for a specific age at which a player begins to decline you will see anything from ages 20-30. This complication comes from what we define as key metrics marked for decline. In 2009, J.C. Bradbury published an article in the Journal of Sports Science using a regression model that showed both pitchers and hitters peak around age 29 or 30. In a response to Bradbury, Mitchel Lichtman presented another model via Fangraphs that put the peak for hitting at around 26-28. Jeff Zimmerman has done a lot of work on aging curves and post-PED era aging and performance.
Does this mean we have seen peak Aaron Judge or Mookie Betts? Not necessarily. The peaks are a suggested floor, rather than a ceiling.
WAR since 2017
Mookie Betts: 38.5 WAR
Aaron Judge: 37.2 WAR
Mike Trout: 34.6 WAR
Nolan Arenado: 33.9 WAR
Max Scherzer: 33.6 WAR
Jose Ramirez: 32.7 WAR
Paul Goldschmidt: 30.4 WAR
Jacob deGrom: 29.4 WAR
DETROIT TIGERS: 28.8 WAR
Alex Bregman: 28.5 WAR pic.twitter.com/ipRIGoqQSD— Danny Vietti (@DannyVietti) February 3, 2023
In a 2010 retrospective, Bradbury mentions that aging and injury are correlated but not necessarily age and performance. However, a weakness of the statistical models is that they are not able to pick up whether injuries are aging or non-aging related injuries.
Additionally, there are a host of articles about age peaks for various hitter and pitcher stats. Things like velocity peak earlier than walk prevention, which is a great segue into….
Sorry, youths! It’s true that with age there comes some wisdom. And sorry, olds! It’s also true that your bodies are deteriorating and your wisdom might be the only thing keeping you afloat.
While power-related stats may dip closer to 30 and after, both hitters and pitchers become more controlled and skilled about walking or avoiding walks, respectively. Hitters also do not peak in OBP and home runs until about 30, and in the case of Albert Pujols, age 42.
https://twitter.com/michael_schlact/status/1623492136187355136
So Snapper, if you read this, in terms of injury numbers and position players, pitchers and catchers are typically the most injured. However, if you look at the oldest MLB players, most of them are pitchers, which seems contradictory. The remaining few are mostly designated hitters (now). One thing a lot of these older guys have in common is that they are not in positions that require a lot of running. There is an outlier: Robinson Canó. To that point, there will always be outliers and exceptions, and that’s why we are so obsessed with Pujols, Verlander, Scherzer, and even Goldschmidt at the ripe ol’ age of 35.
As a general rule of thumb, you can expect a post-30 decrease in performance related to power and speed and an increase in injury due to deterioration of the human body. It may not be immediate, but time eventually catches us all (especially without the intervention of PEDs). The question for most MLB players is will they retire because of waning performance, nagging injuries, or both.
On that note, take a look at yourself in the mirror and ponder your own deteriorating body before going to enjoy the rest of your weekend.
What players are you surprised to see continue past the typical prime? Hit me up in the comments or on Twitter: @keelin_12ft.