It’s that time of year again – it gets later every year – for my division previews powered by Established Win Shares Levels (originally explained here): before we get to rolling out the 2012 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 eight 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.
To my mind, the age data is actually some of the most interesting stuff from this whole project, arguably more useful than the annual team previews, because it’s a mostly objective (albeit unscientific) dataset that gives us a different look at the aging curve from the perspective of the guys who look like they have roster spots in March and April of each year.
I’ll skip some more of the usual preliminaries (see this post from 2010 explaining more) and get right to the charts:
Non-Pitchers 2011 and 2004-2011:
| 2011 NP | 04-11 | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Age | # | WS | EWSL | % | # | WS | EWSL | % |
| 21- | 3 | 55 | 48 | 1.146 | 9 | 127 | 107 | 1.187 |
| 22 | 2 | 26 | 33 | 0.793 | 30 | 462 | 260 | 1.779 |
| 23 | 4 | 53 | 33 | 1.603 | 71 | 865 | 704 | 1.229 |
| 24 | 22 | 286 | 205 | 1.393 | 137 | 1788 | 1368 | 1.307 |
| 25 | 22 | 270 | 238 | 1.137 | 195 | 2292 | 1906 | 1.203 |
| 26 | 28 | 304 | 246 | 1.235 | 241 | 2718 | 2491 | 1.091 |
| 27 | 43 | 569 | 495 | 1.149 | 277 | 3174 | 2997 | 1.059 |
| 28 | 41 | 457 | 481 | 0.950 | 280 | 3255 | 3227 | 1.009 |
| 29 | 29 | 350 | 350 | 1.000 | 253 | 3010 | 3103 | 0.970 |
| 30 | 31 | 358 | 361 | 0.992 | 261 | 2939 | 3239 | 0.907 |
| 31 | 32 | 240 | 378 | 0.636 | 241 | 2436 | 2969 | 0.821 |
| 32 | 23 | 264 | 308 | 0.857 | 219 | 2167 | 2695 | 0.804 |
| 33 | 24 | 173 | 247 | 0.701 | 189 | 1901 | 2230 | 0.853 |
| 34 | 17 | 174 | 183 | 0.953 | 163 | 1672 | 1923 | 0.869 |
| 35 | 26 | 231 | 314 | 0.735 | 148 | 1256 | 1702 | 0.738 |
| 36 | 6 | 42 | 63 | 0.665 | 96 | 904 | 1217 | 0.743 |
| 37 | 11 | 102 | 175 | 0.583 | 75 | 622 | 989 | 0.629 |
| 38 | 1 | 5 | 11 | 0.476 | 50 | 399 | 587 | 0.680 |
| 39 | 7 | 49 | 74 | 0.661 | 39 | 358 | 481 | 0.744 |
| 40+ | 5 | 21 | 40 | 0.525 | 43 | 282 | 523 | 0.540 |
| 377 | 4029 | 4282 | 0.941 | 3017 | 32627 | 34716 | 0.940 |
The younger age cohorts, as usual, were volatile due to their small sample size. Among the 20somethings, the 28 year olds got hit the hardest (led by Joe Mauer, David Wright, Shin-Soo Choo, Kendry Morales, Casey McGeehee, Stephen Drew and Franklin Gutierrez), while the 26 year olds did the best (led by Matt Kemp, Matt Joyce, Emilio Bonifacio, and Melky Cabrera); the 31 year olds (led by Adam Dunn, Adam LaRoche, Felipe Lopez, Juan Uribe and Ryan Spilborghs) and 33 year olds (led by Chone Figgins, Marlon Byrd, Rafael Furcal, and Luke Scott) also took it on the chin, and as has been the pattern since the end of the steroid/Barry Bonds age, the over-35 crowd did more poorly than the overall results since 2004.
Pitchers 2011 and 2004-2011:
| 2011 P | 2011 Total | Age | # | WS | EWSL | % | # | WS | EWSL | % | 21- | 1 | 12 | 8 | 1.500 | 11 | 85 | 64 | 1.328 | 22 | 3 | 29 | 18 | 1.656 | 36 | 294 | 224 | 1.312 | 23 | 14 | 121 | 90 | 1.339 | 76 | 583 | 496 | 1.175 | 24 | 16 | 94 | 93 | 1.016 | 120 | 850 | 754 | 1.127 | 25 | 21 | 144 | 136 | 1.062 | 184 | 1306 | 1172 | 1.114 | 26 | 27 | 238 | 169 | 1.408 | 231 | 1624 | 1459 | 1.113 | 27 | 39 | 244 | 319 | 0.765 | 231 | 1492 | 1692 | 0.882 | 28 | 30 | 218 | 232 | 0.938 | 219 | 1497 | 1595 | 0.939 | 29 | 25 | 152 | 157 | 0.967 | 202 | 1299 | 1498 | 0.867 | 30 | 18 | 137 | 153 | 0.897 | 188 | 1158 | 1373 | 0.843 | 31 | 13 | 74 | 99 | 0.744 | 173 | 1037 | 1326 | 0.782 | 32 | 21 | 123 | 154 | 0.801 | 141 | 865 | 1099 | 0.787 | 33 | 17 | 69 | 106 | 0.654 | 116 | 628 | 892 | 0.704 | 34 | 16 | 100 | 137 | 0.730 | 99 | 562 | 708 | 0.794 | 35 | 9 | 80 | 70 | 1.137 | 70 | 387 | 477 | 0.812 | 36 | 10 | 86 | 85 | 1.016 | 61 | 363 | 400 | 0.908 | 37 | 4 | 11 | 19 | 0.595 | 46 | 274 | 344 | 0.797 | 38 | 2 | 2 | 22 | 0.093 | 44 | 284 | 361 | 0.788 | 39 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 0.364 | 30 | 210 | 247 | 0.851 | 40+ | 5 | 31 | 40 | 0.769 | 73 | 494 | 693 | 0.713 | 284 | 1917 | 2058 | 0.931 | 2343 | 15242 | 16821 | 0.906 |
|---|
Besides the youngest arms, the 26 year olds (led by Ian Kennedy, Justin Masterson, Eric O’Flaherty, Fernando Salas and David Robertson) and 35 year olds (led by Kyle Farnsworth, Scott Downs, Freddy Garcia, and Joel Peralta) had the best 2011 showings; the 24 year olds (led by Tommy Hanson, Jaime Garcia, Tommy Hunter and Brian Matusz) and 27 year olds (led by Josh Johnson, Ubaldo Jimenez, Andrew Bailey, Joakim Soria, Jonathan Broxton, and Kevin Slowey) the worst aside from an overall decay above age 30.
We wrap up with the rookie adjustments:
Rookies
| Type of Player | # in 2011 | WS in 2011 | # 2004-11 | WS 2004-11 | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Everyday Players | 9 | 82 | 75 | 793 | 10.57 |
| Bench Players (Under 30) | 4 | 16 | 70 | 269 | 3.84 |
| Bench Players (Age 30+) | 0 | 0 | 4 | 3 | 0.75 |
| Rotation Starters | 2 | 8 | 34 | 146 | 4.29 |
| Relief Pitchers | 6 | 11 | 24 | 107 | 4.46 |
| TOTAL | 207 | 1318 | 6.37 |