The way to win the World Series is to lose big for three years

[OriolesMagic83]

Our "plan" is working perfectly.  1/3 of the way to a World Series.  How bad can the O's be when they work at it?

[now]

13 hours ago, wildcard said:

. If its true that the prime years for players is now 24-27 as has been reported then most of the time free agents are past their prime.   Manny and Harper not with standing.

Interesting to hear this. Previously I understood it was 27-28. I did my own research a few decades ago and found the 27-28 peak too, though with an earlier spike for batters at 24 (a la Mancini) and pitchers at 26. Would love to see where your info comes from and find out why the earlier shift.

[foxfield]

2 hours ago, OriolesMagic83 said:

Our "plan" is working perfectly.  1/3 of the way to a World Series.  How bad can the O's be when they work at it?

Well that’s a good question. We lost 115 games “going for it”.  I’m willing to bet that ‘18 is the low water mark though. We’ll see. 

[Frobby]

20 hours ago, wildcard said:

If its true that the prime years for players is now 24-27 as has been reported then most of the time free agents are past their prime.   Manny and Harper not with standing.

Where has that been reported?   First I’ve heard of it.   

[weams]

22 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Where has that been reported?   First I’ve heard of it.   

It's never been reported. 

[weams]

Just now, weams said:

It's never been reported. 

What is true is that pitchers arms deteriorate with every pitch. 

[Frobby]

Here’s an interesting article on the topic of physical peak vs. performance peak.    http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/23916211/major-league-baseball-aging-cycle-how-mike-trout-becomes-albert-pujols.   It basically says players physically peak at 23 but performance peak is in the late 20’s.

[spiritof66]

22 hours ago, wildcard said:

I think the O's are about where the Astros were at the time Luhnow took over.  The O's have Hays, Diaz, DL Hall and Grayson Rodriguez who all project to be part the O's next playoff team.  There could be more in the system like Kremer but those 4 are the most likely future  stars.  The O's have also secured that #1 choice in next years draft.

I think there are some significant differences. Here's a likely one, even though I don't know much about the Houston side of the comparison.

I think it's pretty likely that in 2011 (Luhnow took over in December of '11) the Astros were active participants in the Latin American talent market. (They signed Altuve in 2017, when he was 16, after an Astros' try-out camp in Maracay, Venezuela.)

I assume the Orioles are committed to start planning and spending right away to catch up in Latin America. Even if that's the case, and even if they increase international signings next summer, I am guessing it will take the Orioles a couple of years to build a productive scouting and training infrastructure in Latin America, improve the team's reputation, and begin signing players in numbers comparable to other MLB teams. Since the most promising players are signed when they're 16, figure a four-year period between the time they're signed and the time they're ready to make a contribution at the MLB level -- longer than that for some. 

[wildcard]

2 minutes ago, spiritof66 said:

I think there are some significant differences. Here's a likely one, even though I don't know much about the Houston side of the comparison.

I think it's pretty likely that in 2011 (Luhnow took over in December of '11) the Astros were active participants in the Latin American talent market. (They signed Altuve in 2017, when he was 16, after an Astros' try-out camp in Maracay, Venezuela.)

I assume the Orioles are committed to start planning and spending right away to catch up in Latin America. Even if that's the case, and even if they increase international signings next summer, I am guessing it will take the Orioles a couple of years to build a productive scouting and training infrastructure in Latin America, improve the team's reputation, and begin signing players in numbers comparable to other MLB teams. Since the most promising players are signed when they're 16, figure a four-year period between the time they're signed and the time they're ready to make a contribution at the MLB level -- longer than that for some. 

I agree that the Astros were far ahead on the O's international.  However I think the Astros team that Luhnow took over was not deep in prospects.  Altuve was the only player on the major league at that time that was still on the team that made the playoff in 2015.  

It was a total rebuild for the Astros as it will be for the Orioles.

[Frobby]

10 minutes ago, wildcard said:

I agree that the Astros were far ahead on the O's international.  However I think the Astros team that Luhnow took over was not deep in prospects.  Altuve was the only player on the major league at that time that was still on the team that made the playoff in 2015.  

It was a total rebuild for the Astros as it will be for the Orioles.

Melewski quoted Jim Callis as saying the O’s farm system is better than the Astros’ when Luhnow took over in 2011.    However, they did have George Springer, Dallas Keuchel (not highly rated at the time), Mike Foltynewicz, Delino DeShields and a few others in their system.    

[wildcard]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

Where has that been reported?   First I’ve heard of it.   

I have heard and read different numbers but the conventional wisdom of players peak from 28-32 has been challenged.   

Here is as a quote from Bill James:

Quote

The essay is most frequently referenced as a successful challenge the conventional wisdom that baseball players peak between 28 and 32, with James bluntly stating, “that one truism is blatantly false.” James used his “Value Approximation Method” (VAM) to measure player performance by aggregating individual VAM ratings of players by age. He found that the player-age of 27 had the highest total performance of any other age and concluded, “If you must assign a five-year peak period to all players regardless of description, the best shot would be 25 to 29.”

https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/9933/how-do-baseball-players-age-investigating-the-age-27-theory/

[wildcard]

Here is an article from Fangraph's:

Aging is based on the premise that players skills and health will change over time and aging curves are developed by comparing players across many years. There is some disagreement about whether hitters improve until they peak around 27-28 or if it’s more of a flat line from 22 until 28 when they start to decline. The jury is still out because a lot of our original premises were based on some data from the Steroid Era.

https://www.fangraphs.com/library/principles/aging-curve/

 

 

[Frobby]

15 minutes ago, wildcard said:

I have heard and read different numbers but the conventional wisdom of players peak from 28-32 has been challenged.   

Here is as a quote from Bill James:

https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/9933/how-do-baseball-players-age-investigating-the-age-27-theory/

Thanks.   I think 28-32 was debunked long ago, but 24-27 is too young.   27 may be the peak but there’s a huge difference between 24 and 27.   Heck, the average player doesn’t even debut until 24.

Getting back to your main point, yes, most players are passing peak when they hit free agency (usually at 28-31 years old).    That’s one of the reasons Harper and Manny are so valuable — they are hitting free agency before their age 26 seasons.   

[Pheasants]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

Here’s an interesting article on the topic of physical peak vs. performance peak.    http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/23916211/major-league-baseball-aging-cycle-how-mike-trout-becomes-albert-pujols.   It basically says players physically peak at 23 but performance peak is in the late 20’s.

In other words, they add how-to knowledge to their physical ability.  I remember a few years ago, someone (Drungo?) was quoting some national analyst about pitchers only having so many pitches in their arms so we shouldn't waste a lot of them in the minors after they are pitching well.  Then we hear the rushing argument for Gausman.  I don't really think anyone has figured out when to send a pitcher to the majors.

[wildcard]

Here is one on pitchers:

Quote

That's more like it! This is a two-axis chart, with the left axis the total number of pitchers of a certain age and the right their total fWAR. For example, between 1988 and 2013 there were a total of 537 seasons pitched by pitchers who were 22, and the total fWAR was 327.9. In this time span pitchers join major league rosters around age 23-24, peak around 26 with a sustained decrease in numbers from 27 on that gradually flattens out a bit around age 35.

 

This graph shows the peak years for pitchers at 24 to 28

• https://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2014/2/25/5437902/pitching-aging-curves