The age-performance profile in baseball

[Economist Ray Fair] asked… Which players have exhibited the most unusual age-performance profiles? Specifically, are there any players who got better with age?

Over the
entire period between 1921-’04, Fair found only 18 hitters who appear
to have defied Mother Nature, logging four or more seasons after the
age of 28 in which their OPS (on-base plus slugging average) exceeded
their age-specific expected level by more than one standard error.

And you know what?  Except for good ol’ Charlie Gehringer (1939), they all come 1987 or later.  Goodness gracious!  Who would have thought?  Check here for the list and further discussion, and thanks to John de Palma for the pointer.

Comments

Comments for this post are closed