It’s time once again, however belatedly, for my annual division previews using Established Win Shares Levels, which are explained here. Before we get to rolling out the 2010 EWSLs, I have to update the age adjustments and rookie values I use each year. These are based on the data I have gathered over the past six seasons, and so with each passing year, one would hope they become progressively more stable and useful in evaluating the established talent base on hand for each team entering each season. As a reminder: EWSL is not a prediction system. It’s a way of assessing the resources on hand. Time, chance, and mid-season replacements happen to all.
First up is the age adjustments; I’ve reformatted the table a bit from year to year. See my writeups on the age adjustments following the 2004 season – also here – 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008 seasons. Here’s the 2009 age adjustments (i.e, how each age of non-pitcher or pitcher stacked up to their un-age-adjusted EWSL), and the totals for 2004-09 – in some ways, if you study these sorts of things, the numbers accumulated over this many seasons become interesting in themselves:
| 2009 | Total | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Age | # | WS | EWSL | % | # | WS | EWSL | % |
| 21- | 1 | 19 | 8 | 2.375 | 5 | 52 | 42.00 | 1.238 |
| 22 | 2 | 36 | 13 | 2.769 | 26 | 414 | 207.87 | 1.992 |
| 23 | 9 | 99 | 98 | 1.010 | 55 | 694 | 560.50 | 1.238 |
| 24 | 16 | 163 | 141 | 1.156 | 99 | 1292 | 1014.31 | 1.274 |
| 25 | 36 | 496 | 384 | 1.292 | 151 | 1844 | 1482.40 | 1.244 |
| 26 | 29 | 410 | 387 | 1.059 | 174 | 1990 | 1779.67 | 1.118 |
| 27 | 28 | 327 | 315 | 1.038 | 191 | 2117 | 2025.83 | 1.045 |
| 28 | 35 | 338 | 351 | 0.963 | 210 | 2456 | 2409.53 | 1.019 |
| 29 | 34 | 401 | 407 | 0.985 | 189 | 2263 | 2393.47 | 0.945 |
| 30 | 24 | 353 | 325 | 1.086 | 198 | 2241 | 2481.17 | 0.903 |
| 31 | 31 | 294 | 310 | 0.948 | 185 | 1900 | 2251.04 | 0.844 |
| 32 | 23 | 164 | 259 | 0.633 | 171 | 1678 | 2099.83 | 0.799 |
| 33 | 32 | 349 | 395 | 0.884 | 147 | 1519 | 1796.77 | 0.845 |
| 34 | 15 | 144 | 170 | 0.847 | 116 | 1175 | 1371.33 | 0.857 |
| 35 | 19 | 253 | 265 | 0.955 | 108 | 931 | 1240.67 | 0.750 |
| 36 | 5 | 27 | 48 | 0.563 | 76 | 700 | 927.83 | 0.754 |
| 37 | 14 | 119 | 195 | 0.610 | 62 | 509 | 789.33 | 0.645 |
| 38 | 6 | 42 | 73 | 0.575 | 39 | 316 | 453.50 | 0.697 |
| 39 | 1 | 7 | 14 | 0.500 | 27 | 280 | 361.83 | 0.774 |
| 40+ | 3 | 14 | 25 | 0.560 | 33 | 242 | 448.66 | 0.539 |
| 363 | 4055 | 4183 | 0.969 | 2262 | 24613 | 26137.55 | 0.942 |
It was a tough year for the 28-year-olds and the over-35 crowd, but the 30- and 35-year-olds had a banner year, confounding prior trends of age 35 being a dramatic falloff. The 30-year-olds were bolstered by players like Nick Johnson and Victor Martinez rebounding from injury, while the 35-year-old cohort was strong in depth – Jeter, Tejada, Helton, Ichiro, Damon, Abreu, Casey Blake. That said, history still cautions to beware of 35-year-olds.
Then, the pitchers:
| 2009 | Total | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Age | # | WS | EWSL | % | # | WS | EWSL | % |
| 21- | 1 | 12 | 5 | 0.000 | 9 | 68 | 43.00 | 1.581 |
| 22 | 1 | 4 | 7 | 0.571 | 27 | 196 | 173.60 | 1.129 |
| 23 | 9 | 74 | 46 | 1.609 | 56 | 416 | 373.76 | 1.113 |
| 24 | 11 | 80 | 74 | 1.081 | 91 | 645 | 572.37 | 1.127 |
| 25 | 34 | 260 | 241 | 1.079 | 142 | 1001 | 910.40 | 1.100 |
| 26 | 29 | 182 | 163 | 1.117 | 164 | 1080 | 1002.20 | 1.078 |
| 27 | 29 | 139 | 187 | 0.743 | 156 | 1038 | 1131.56 | 0.917 |
| 28 | 25 | 179 | 222 | 0.806 | 162 | 1122 | 1178.30 | 0.952 |
| 29 | 17 | 85 | 113 | 0.752 | 155 | 999 | 1149.31 | 0.869 |
| 30 | 28 | 208 | 253 | 0.822 | 156 | 950 | 1123.40 | 0.846 |
| 31 | 23 | 97 | 147 | 0.660 | 132 | 812 | 983.47 | 0.826 |
| 32 | 20 | 154 | 161 | 0.957 | 104 | 649 | 837.46 | 0.775 |
| 33 | 11 | 54 | 89 | 0.607 | 82 | 434 | 633.30 | 0.685 |
| 34 | 14 | 111 | 99 | 1.121 | 70 | 373 | 485.63 | 0.768 |
| 35 | 8 | 29 | 29 | 1.000 | 52 | 235 | 343.17 | 0.685 |
| 36 | 7 | 45 | 38 | 1.184 | 46 | 264 | 292.17 | 0.904 |
| 37 | 4 | 17 | 27 | 0.630 | 37 | 240 | 291.33 | 0.824 |
| 38 | 3 | 13 | 17 | 0.765 | 37 | 247 | 310.00 | 0.797 |
| 39 | 6 | 33 | 51 | 0.647 | 27 | 197 | 228.33 | 0.863 |
| 40+ | 7 | 32 | 55 | 0.582 | 62 | 430 | 594.34 | 0.723 |
| 287 | 1808 | 2024 | 0.893 | 1767 | 11396 | 12657.09 | 0.900 |
Tough year all around, with the rot setting in as early as age 27 – the dramatic falloff in pitchers in their late 20s is driven heavily by injuries – while the age 34-36 survivors, though few in number, prospered, though other than Chris Carpenter it was mostly low-expectations relievers.
Finally, the rookie adjustments:
| Type of Player | # in 2009 | WS in 2009 | # 2004-09 | WS 2004-09 | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Everyday Players | 6 | 44 | 58 | 629 | 10.84 |
| Bench Players (Under 30) | 18 | 92 | 62 | 251 | 4.05 |
| Bench Players (Age 30+) | 1 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 0.75 |
| Rotation Starters | 10 | 36 | 28 | 113 | 4.04 |
| Relief Pitchers | 4 | 21 | 15 | 86 | 5.73 |
| TOTAL | 39 | 194 | 167 | 1082 | 6.48 |
Not a whole lot of alteration to historical patterns there.