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Friday, November 16, 2007

Breaking News!

No, it's not Barry Bonds. More than the content, the title of this article from the "world wide leader" struck me as particularly funny...

Players tend to produce less as they enter mid-to-late 30s

Really? Do you think? Also liked this quote:

But studies by the Red Sox's baseball operations staff have shown that
players are at risk for a drop-off in production as they enter their mid-to-late
30s.

But more seriously this is a reminder that what you may think is common knowledge may not necessarly be so.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

so why did clemens and johnson produce so well in their 30's?

Dan Agonistes said...

In short, not everyone is a Clemens or Johnson.

But more generally it is true that players can sustain their performance at greater ages today than in the past because of better medical care and training. However, if you were to look at the trajectory of careers even for modern players what you'd find is that there is a steep rise in performance in the early to mid 20's before reaching a peak at ages 27 and 28 followed by a decline. Keep in mind that when you consider players like Clemens and Johnson you also need to think about all of those players who were selected out of the league because of their poor performance before they reached their late thirties. Even so, for good players a typical performance curve looks like the one I posted for Pete Rose a week or two ago.