from Amazon
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Do speedsters peak earlier than power hitters?
I always wanted to do this study, and I actually did it nearly 3 years ago, AND posted the results in this blog. Weird. I remember Bill James’ studies more than I remember my own.
This is what I did:
1. For the player’s peak season, figured out his SLG relative to the league
2. A guy who was 90 points or more above the league is “Power”, a guy who was -36 points or worse relative to league is “Punk”, and -36 to +90 is “Rest”.SLGclass Start End peakAge n
Power 1895 1969 28.8 521
Rest 1895 1969 28.0 1288
Punk 1895 1969 27.3 512The “Start” and “End” refers to the birth year. As you can see, your power hitters peak at a later age than your punks.
Here’s guys born from 1940-1969:
SLGclass Start End peakAge n
Power 1940 1949 28.4 89
Power 1950 1959 28.5 79
Power 1960 1969 29.1 116Power hitters are peaking a bit later, and there’s alot more of them.
Punk 1940 1949 27.2 78
Punk 1950 1959 26.1 85
Punk 1960 1969 27.9 67The number of punks born 1950-1959 actually exceeded the sluggers, but now there are twice as many sluggers as punks. As you can see, the punks born 1950-1959 peaked very early (probably alot of one-dimensional guys who couldn’t hack it in their later years).
The big takeaway is: don’t presume the composition of the league is similar in any given time period. What you think you are seeing (later peaks) may be explained partially by the change in personnel.
Note that the way I calculate age (season minus birth year) means that my ages are 0.5 years older than those that follow the “if born after July 1, subtract 1 from the way Tango calculates age”.
Sample of players was anyone with at least 300 PA in any one season (2321 players). I simply looked at his actual peak. So, a guy with 1 season, well.... that was his observed peak. A guy with 2 seasons, well, whichever season was his best, THAT was his observed peak. Whether it was his TRUE peak is another story of course.
Glove-slap: AZ Snake Pit.
Recent comments
Older comments
Page 1 of 344 pages 1 2 3 > Last »Complete Archive – By Category
Complete Archive – By Date