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Friday, September 22
Searching for an age-old truth
Special to ESPN.com
Editor's note: The team of writers from the Baseball Prospectus (tm) will be writing twice a week for ESPN.com. You can check out more of their work at their web site at baseballprospectus.com.
In 1998, the Baltimore Orioles hobbled onto the field with the third oldest team in baseball history, a squad that averaged 31.8 years of age. Peter Angelos' Camden Yards Retirement Community joined an all-time top 10 geriatric list that includes eight teams from the last 20 years.
This fact, and the ability of has-beens like Jeff Brantley and Ozzie Guillen to keep drawing major-league paychecks, could lead one to think that despite alleged budget constraints, teams are recycling veteran players more than ever. However, tune into a game and it won't be long before you hear somebody grousing about how players today are rushed to the big leagues before they are ready. On which side of the fence does the truth lie?
To examine this, I looked at the average age of pitchers and position players in the major leagues since 1950, weighted for plate appearances and innings pitched. Players' ages on July 1 of a particular season were used in the calculations. To drown out the noise and more clearly identify trends, seasons were lumped into five-year intervals. Hitters and pitchers were given equal weight in the "Overall" totals. The results are as follows:
Years Hitters Pitchers Overall 1950-54 28.4 28.9 28.6 1955-59 28.3 28.0 28.2 1960-64 27.7 27.6 27.7 1965-69 27.3 27.1 27.2 1970-74 27.5 27.3 27.4 1975-79 27.6 27.6 27.6 1980-84 28.6 28.3 28.4 1985-89 28.5 28.5 28.5 1990-94 28.5 28.4 28.4 1995-99 28.9 28.5 28.7As you can see, the average age of a big-league ballplayer has increased steadily since bottoming out at just over 27 years of age in the late 1960s. The timing of this age nadir makes sense, since the pool of young talent at that point in time would have been quite large. Even teams that were slow to embrace integration, like Boston and Philadelphia, had come to grudgingly accept it, and the first wave of baby boomers hit prospect beach. Like an echo in a canyon, though, the impact from the second wave of boomers, which occurred in the early 1990s, was not nearly as pronounced. Except for the war years of the 1940s, when major-league owners filled their wool uniforms with any available body (including those with one arm), the average age of today's position player is the highest it has been in the history of the game. And the average pitcher's age is the greatest since Harry Truman was president, approaching the all-time high of 29.1, reached in the late 1920s. So, why the wrinkles on the faces of today's ballplayers? Many claim that expansion has diluted talent at the major-league level. However, this assertion doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Although the 50 percent increase (from 20 to 30) in the number of teams since 1965 has outstripped the 40 percent U.S. population growth (from 195 million to 275 million) in the same time period, the resulting smaller talent pool has been more than offset by organizations harvesting talent in Latin America and, more recently, the Far East and Australia. Also, there is no consistent effect on player age when major-league owners vote to add more teams. Below are the overall ages for the years before and after each of the six modern-era expansions:
'60-'61 '61-'62 '68-'69 '76-'77 '92-'93 '97-'98
Pre 27.8 27.6 27.2 27.5 28.4 28.7
Post 27.6 27.7 27.1 27.4 28.4 28.8
In two of the campaigns immediately following expansion the average player age increased, while in four instances it decreased. If anything, expansion seems to cause a slight decrease in average team age.
There are more plausible reasons for the aging trend over the past 35 years. Obvious ones include players extending their careers through better training methods, year-round conditioning and improved surgical techniques. Another is that there is a greater demand to succeed in pro sports today, and teams tend to go with veteran players when pressured to win. This might be labeled the "Familiarity Effect," similar to people's tendency to eat franchised food when in an unfamiliar town, even though they know it's thoroughly mediocre.
So, despite the constant cry in baseball circles that players are being pushed through the system more quickly than in years past, apparently that isn't the case. In fact, prospects are languishing in the minor leagues longer than at any point in the last 50 years. This becomes evident when we look at how many players 20 years of age or less had seasons in which they logged at least 250 plate appearances or 100 innings pitched in the majors:
Hitters Pitchers Total
1950-59 19 14 33
1960-69 12 17 29
1970-79 16 9 25
1980-89 6 6 12
1990-99 5 0 5
Included in the list of hitters are names like Hank Aaron, Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle. Others who can still be seen dominating the evening highlights include Ken Griffey Jr., Alex Rodriguez and Andruw Jones. These players were so dripping with talent that it would have been silly to hold them back in the minors.
While the group of pitchers includes Don Drysdale, Bert Blyleven and Dennis Eckersley, the role call isn't nearly as illustrious. However, they were no less talented -- it's just that many of them blew out their arms before they could fulfill their potential. On a side note, the Cardinals' Rick Ankiel is the first new member added to the pitchers' list since Edwin Correa in 1986.
Set aside the time-gilded memories of the past. The level of play in baseball today is as dazzling as it has ever been, and there are no fewer great prospects than there used to be. The skill level of young players hasn't decreased; how often teams allow them to take the final step in their journey before they can legally drink has.
Jeff Bower may be reached at jbower@baseballprospectus.com.
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