Say, how come Bonds doesn't run any more? He used to be a demon. Biggio too, as I recall. Bonds began his current SB decline in his age 33 season, and really scaled back his running by age 35. Biggio began a rapid decline in his age 33 season.
Bernie Williams of those go-go Yanks has an 81% sb success rate at age 28 and a 47% rate three years later (in a full season). The next year, he was back up to 72%.
Ryne Sandberg slowed down a lot at 32. Kirby Puckett dropped from 20 sb's at age 25 to 12 the next year as he filled out, and never exceeded that except for 17 SB's at 31. I suspect that's not a terribly unusual pattern, either. Like Cornbread has mentioned, I don't know what any of this proves except that some people are eager to jump to conclusions regardless of sample-size issues.
Mookie4ever wrote:His age is not an issue at all. 30 is a prime age for basestealers.
This is false. SB's start to decline once a player reaches 24 years old. And they drop consistently every year, on average. There are always exceptions, but I don't see A-Rod as an exception. He was dwindling down to almost a non-SB threat, and yes I realize that is partly because Texas didn't let him run as much, but it should still be taken into consideration.
I don't think NY will run him as much, I don't think he'll be as successful as last year, and he's getting older which leads to less SB's. Those are 3 reasons why I think the SB's will drop, and all are basically independant of each other. So what do you mean you've seen only one reason?
"Jack, will you call me, if you're able?"
"I've got your phone number written, in the back of my Bible."
Cornbread Maxwell wrote:Im sorry I said 25-28 since I cant back it up with any facts - I just figured it was common theory, thats all.
Common theory is often wrong, but there have been studies done showing the age at which stats start to decline. The first asset to go away is SB's. They increase until age 24, then decline. Walks are the only stat that continually get better as you get older. The study was done for RBI, R, 2B, 3B, everything. I'll try to find it.
Cornbread Maxwell wrote:Thats a very interesting study LBJ, but I am a bit confused regarding the SB formula. In it they used:
$SB: SB/(.8*1B+.6*BB)
Can you explain to me why they used the constants they did (.8 and .6)? I dont really understand why they used this formula.
It does seem strange... but I assume he was looking for a way to see how often a player successfully stole a base per the amount of opportunities he had. As for the .6 and .8, I honestly don't know for sure. I'd assume that .8 means 80% of the time, when a player hits a single, the base ahead of him is open, and .6 (60%) of the time 2B is open after a walk. The base being open meaning he has an SB chance. Apparently this is more accurate than juding a player's SB abilities by looking at success rate since naturally as you attempt less, your SB% will decrease at a slower rate than if you attempted the same amount every year. Seems primitive if you ask me to pick fixed numbers to apply to everyone, but I guess with limited resources it was the best he could make do with. Eventually I figure a system taking game data into consideration will be used, like they do with ZR/UZR, but until then this seems like a good measure to use.
Last edited by LBJackal on Fri Jan 07, 2005 2:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"Jack, will you call me, if you're able?"
"I've got your phone number written, in the back of my Bible."
Cornbread Maxwell wrote:Im sorry I said 25-28 since I cant back it up with any facts - I just figured it was common theory, thats all.
Common theory is often wrong, but there have been studies done showing the age at which stats start to decline. The first asset to go away is SB's. They increase until age 24, then decline. Walks are the only stat that continually get better as you get older. The study was done for RBI, R, 2B, 3B, everything. I'll try to find it.
Some things are puzzling however, the formula noted by CBM and do I read this right that the prime age for hits is 21? But then hits are calculated (H-HR)/(AB-K-H). Those both seem pretty odd.
Even though they don't say what their sample group is it's good enough for me to show that the prime age for SB is 24. I was wrong on that.
Cornbread Maxwell wrote:Im sorry I said 25-28 since I cant back it up with any facts - I just figured it was common theory, thats all.
Common theory is often wrong, but there have been studies done showing the age at which stats start to decline. The first asset to go away is SB's. They increase until age 24, then decline. Walks are the only stat that continually get better as you get older. The study was done for RBI, R, 2B, 3B, everything. I'll try to find it.
Some things are puzzling however, the formula noted by CBM and do I read this right that the prime age for hits is 21? But then hits are calculated (H-HR)/(AB-K-H). Those both seem pretty odd.
Even though they don't say what their sample group is it's good enough for me to show that the prime age for SB is 24. I was wrong on that.
The sample size given was 1979-1999 for the first set of data, and 1919-1999 for the second set of data. The 1979 might be a typo though, all other mentions of the time frame on the page were 1919-1999. All players who played consecutive seasons were included. It doesn't mention a minimum GP required to be considered for the study, however.
And all the (H-HR)/(AB-K-H) means is that he measured the amount of hits a player got per AB, excluding AB's resulting in a HR or a K. The reason that hits seem highest the younger a player is, probably has to do with leg speed, and the younger you are, the faster you are. That's an assumption at why the results were the way they are, I don't know for sure.
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by Cornbread Maxwell » Fri Jan 07, 2005 1:22 pm 
