from Amazon
Thursday, March 10, 2011
When to bring up Bryce Harper to maximize performance pre-free agency?
Steve Goldman brings up the case of Bryce Harper, of when can you maximize his output in Washington while minimizing his cost. In other words, when should you bring him up so that you can get seven(*) years of pre-free agency performance?
(*) You can bring someone up in mid-April, so you could theoretically(**) have a player on the roster for 6 years and 171 service days (one year is 172 service days).
(**) Theoretically, like Evan Longoria.
This is what I did:
1. For every player born since Babe Ruth, figure his WAR from age 18 to 24 (WAR18_24), from age 19 to 25 (WAR19_25), ... from age 25 to 31 (WAR25_31).
2. Figure out the first age at which he came to bat at least 300 plate appearances (PA). Call that his “rookie age”.
3. Group the data by rookie age, and figure out the average WAR18_24, WAR19_25… WAR25_31.
The second line says: there were 30 players who had their first 300 PA season at age 20. From age 23 to 29, they had 24.9 WAR, which is the best seven-year stretch for any starting age.
If you look at each row, we see that the peak age is ages 23-29. Therefore, in order to maximize pre-free agency performance, you want a player from age 23 to 29. The incentive therefore is that even if Bryce Harper has enough talent to be a rookie at age 19, he’s going to get his six year peak at age 23-29 (on average).
(Data below)
Recent comments
Older comments
Page 1 of 344 pages 1 2 3 > Last »Complete Archive – By Category
Complete Archive – By Date