Quote:
Originally Posted by David Watts
I have Bonds and Mays to use as tests to that theory. I will let you know.
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I'mma look at guys who were/are really good hitters IRL, who came in at 30 years of age or younger in the Inaugural, and see what I see. 30's kind of the mid-point between 27 and 32, which is where a lot of the experts peg that a player's peak takes place. Then I'll look at Amateur Draftees. This is absolutely not scientific in any way. Interesting that we're avoiding pitchers. Maybe I'll look at them in a separate post. I'll just use OPS+, because it's handy, and easier to use as a comparison tool across the 150ish years of baseball that are in our games. (Player Age in 1901), followed by the RL OPS+ during the seven seasons of the player's career, followed by in game OPS+ for the first seven seasons of my save.
Jose Abreu: (29), 128, 106 (note: RL season seven would be 2022, so he's hitting the Player Development system wall, and goodness knows what'll happen to him, now)
Mookie Betts: (28), 126, 110 (his age 28 season was 2021, so he's been at the mercy of the PD system for most of his career)
Edwin Encarnacion: (29), 139, 102
Brian Giles v2.0: (25), 150, 120
Juan Gonzalez: (25), 138, 109
Harmon Killebrew: (27), 157, 116
Manny Machado: (25), 132, 106 (Has spent last three seasons in PD hell)
Scott Rolen: (22), 129, 116
Gene Tenace: (30), 135, 130
Andre Thornton: (25), 131, 116
Billy Williams: (30), 138, 109
Carl Yastrzemski: (21), 135, 131
Ross Barnes: (24), 161, 145
Barry Bonds: (27), 185, 135
Ellis Burks: (28), 128, 134
Miguel Cabrera: (30), 143, 110
Cesar Cedeno: (19), 133, 136
Shin-Soo Choo: (22), 133, 126
Rafael Devers: (20), 120, 118 (only five real life seasons to look at)
Les Fleming: (27), 127, 111 (WWII completely destroyed this guy's career IRL, so I had to get him in, even though the RL PA total for the seven seasons was very low - not his fault)
Billy Hamilton v1.0: (22), 147, 152
Charlie Hickman: (30), 123, 88 (Only three years worth of recalc, and he didn't do enough with them to get anywhere near his RL numbers)
Len Koenecke: (28), 124, 126 (Only three seasons, and a bit over 1,000 RL PA, this dude's been riding the PD wave for quite a while, now)
Albert Pujols: (26), 168, 100 (W.T.A.F.F.???)
Pete Reiser: (21), 139, 141
Mike Schmidt: (29), 161, 137
Kip Selbach: (28), 121, 108
Mike Tiernan: (27), 126, 100 (1907 was first season with no RL stats)
Arky Vaughan: (27), 123, 102
Inaugural Draftees with less than RL career 120 OPS+, who've gone above 120 in game, so far:
Trevor Story: (24), 110, 142
Smoky Joe Wood: (21), 98, 129
Bibb Falk: (24), 119, 129
Eddie Bressoud: (24), 89, 126
Dick Stuart: (27), 115, 122
Mike Hampton: (25), 80, 128
That's a helluva lot more Inaugural Draft guys getting pushed down, some extremely so, than boosted up. Why? I don't know, but unscientifically speaking, this could be a thing, which means that maybe it's impossible to judge the offensive environment of your league, until the older Inaugural Draft guys shuffle off. What say you? This is also telling me that this effect ain't partial to one era of players, or another. For the most part, the Inaugurals are getting walloped, regardless of what era they played in. That's good news.
Amateur Draftees another time, maybe. 1903 draftee Frank Thomas has this league on its knees, begging for mercy, since he arrived in 1904, and there are others. I'll look at the first three amateur drafts when I study it.