Little help: Prime age for baseball

[TOBTTReds]

I know there have been some statistical studies on when the prime age of a baseball player is, and I am looking for those.

I believe the age is 28, but I haven't been able to find anything on it from a website that is recognized as a baseball specialist site (BA, BP, or others like that).

If someone could help me win a small discussion/argument with a review of a "prime age" study from a reputable site. Thanks.

Can I offer a reward of rep?

[rotnoid]

For me it was age 12. I started regressing after that. :)

I know Bill James has done studies on this, but I don't have any links. Sorry. I think he divides players into categories like young, prime, and old. Interesting stuff.

[Hands22]

I have heard more about age 27, especially with hitters. I don't have the subscription but maybe someone hwo does here can see if there's any information actually worthwhile in it.

http://insider.espn.go.com/fantasy/baseball/flb/story?id=2798688&action=upsell&appRedirect=http%3a%2f%2finsider.espn.go.com%2ffan tasy%2fbaseball%2fflb%2fstory%3fid%3d2798688 (http://insider.espn.go.com/fantasy/baseball/flb/story?id=2798688&action=upsell&appRedirect=http%3a%2f%2finsider.espn.go.com%2ffan tasy%2fbaseball%2fflb%2fstory%3fid%3d2798688)

I did a few more searches but found nothing but fantasy baseball sites listing the 27 year olds, but offering no solid backs backing up their claims.

baseball-reference.com has a nice feature where you can see particular MLB records of a certain age. Maybe if you looked at certain categories http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/leaders_27_bat.shtml with 27 year olds who have broken out, and compare their % increases over those who have had great seasons at say 25-26, or 28-29 you might get somewhere. Unfortunately though you'll only get the top 10 in each category and I can't see the sample size being big enough to offer something concrete.

The best bet might be to look at the top couple hundred or whatever hitters of an era and do the hard number crunching. Would we be looking for the age that a player puts up his best numbers of his career, or the age in which the is the biggest increase over his prior career marks?

[Dracodave]

Heres a decent article for you.

Its fantasy but it deals with the age 27-30 "prime" (http://www.sportsline.com/mlb/fantasy/story/9949470)

[Johnny Footstool]

I read an article years ago about how 31 was more of a breakout age than 27.

[MississippiRed]

I have heard more about age 27, especially with hitters. I don't have the subscription but maybe someone hwo does here can see if there's any information actually worthwhile in it.

Basically the "peak" is a range between 25 and 28. The jumps from 23 to 26 are quite high, then it levels out. This is for hitters.

[EddieMilner]

I don't know what you guys are talking about with the 28 prime. You obviously didn't see that Barry Bonds character at 37 hit 73 HRs. :D

[George Anderson]

I don't know what you guys are talking about with the 28 prime. You obviously didn't see that Barry Bonds character at 37 hit 73 HRs. :D

I wonder what numbers Bonds would have put up had he started juicing in his early 20's. Im guessing he would have 1000 career home runs by now. Sickening thought though.:thumbdown

[jojo]

I know there have been some statistical studies on when the prime age of a baseball player is, and I am looking for those.

I believe the age is 28, but I haven't been able to find anything on it from a website that is recognized as a baseball specialist site (BA, BP, or others like that).

If someone could help me win a small discussion/argument with a review of a "prime age" study from a reputable site. Thanks.

Can I offer a reward of rep?

Really it's skill dependent. Generally, with offense, it's age 27-28 if you consider the total aggregate of skills but it dramatically varies by skill type (i.e. power, OBP, walks). Defensively, a player generally peaks at around 24. Pitchers, once again considering their aggregate skill set probably peak somewhere around 27-28. But once again, their individual skills have dramatically different peak ages with power declining at around 25 while walk rates aren't so "peaky" and BABIP really doesn't change and thus doesn't peak (I guess you can only fall off a cliff on this one). You might see the motivation for getting a stud arm to the majors ASAP...

So really a simple question is in fact fraught with peril as I'm sure these estimated ages would spark a debate at a SABR convention....

[OSUmed2010]

I wonder what numbers Bonds would have put up had he started juicing in his early 20's. Im guessing he would have 1000 career home runs by now. Sickening thought though.:thumbdown

His head would also be roughly the size of Alaska... and let's not even mention the man-boobs :eek: