In mid-March, 2007, John Tomase of the Boston Globe asked me if I had any idea as to why there were so many great young players around right now. . .he mentioned Jose Reyes, David Wright and Joe Mauer. I replied that
1) I don’t know whether the amount of young talent around right now is higher than normal or not, and
2) If it is, I don’t have any idea why.
It occurred to me an hour later, however, that I could certainly measure whether or not the amount of young talent around was high or low. How would you develop a "young talent inventory"?
I decided to look at it by using the "RCAP" data from Lee Sinins’ Complete Baseball Encyclopedia. RCAP is Sinins’ own stat, essentially grafting my method—Runs Created—onto Pete Palmer’s view of the world. It attempts to answer this question: How many more (or fewer) runs did this player create than an average player at the same position in the same league? It’s park-adjusted.
To measure the young talent around at each moment in history, I compiled lists of all players aged 25 or younger who had RCAP greater than zero from 1900 to the present. I then multiplied each player’s RCAP by (26 minus age), to create the "young talent inventory contribution" of that player. For example, Ty Cobb in 1909 was 76 runs created better than the average player at his position, and he was 22 years old. This makes a contribution to the total of 76 X 4, or 304 "young talent points".
Cobb, obviously, was one of the most formidable young players of all time. . .I actually have him ranked 12th, behind
- Ted Williams, 1941
- Alex Rodriguez, 1996
- Joe Jackson, 1911
- Eddie Mathews, 1953
- Ted Williams, 1939
- Mel Ott, 1929
- Joe Jackson, 1912
- Mickey Mantle, 1952
- Ty Cobb, 1907
- Joe DiMaggio, 1937
- Arky Vaughan, 1935
- Ty Cobb, 1909
Several of those players did go on to fairly decent careers. By doing this, I evaluated the young talent in the major leagues after each season since 1900, and also the young talent on each team each season.
There are a couple of snarky little points I have to recognize here. . ..I hate doing this filadel, but the protocols or science require it. I capped the maximum contribution of each player at 400 points. The reason for doing this was that there actually was a tie for the number one spot—Ted Williams, 1941, and Alex Rodriguez, 1996, both at 528 points (Williams was 132 X 4, Rodriguez was 88 X 6.) Nobody else had a contribution score higher than 385, and the extremely high figures for A-Rod and Teddy were creating distortions on the other lists. Also, for pitchers, I modified the young talent contribution to:
Integer [RSAA X (26 – Age) * .7 + 1]
RSAA being Runs Saved Against Average. In other words, Dwight Gooden in 1985 (who was the most valuable young pitcher of the twentieth century) was 20 years old and 58 runs better than an average pitcher. That would make 348 contribution points, except that I multiplied that by .7, making 243.6, added 1, making 244.6, and then rounded that down to 244. This was done because,
a) if you don’t do something like this, more than half of the value in the study is young pitchers,
b) the runs "saved" by young pitchers are partially saved by the defenders behind them, and properly should be credited to the fielders if we could figure out how to do that, and
c) young pitchers are less reliably projectable than young hitters, thus making it inappropriate to allow young pitchers to dominate the lists.
The editing dictionary informs me that there is no such word as "projectable", but I’m sticking with it. The adjustment changes the inventory from being about 53% pitching to being about 39% pitching.
It’s not a perfect stat.. .there are no perfect stats.. ..and, to proceed with a real understanding of its imperfections, let me cite a couple of examples. You know Ryan Zimmerman, the Nationals’ third baseman who hit 47 doubles, 20 homers, drove in 110 runs in 2006, aged 21? I couldn’t find him on the list of the best young players of 2006, tried to figure out why and realized that Sinins had evaluated him, somehow, at -2, two runs WORSE than an average National League third baseman, thus excluding him from the study. I’m not really buying that one, and here’s one that’s even worse.
The park run factor for Fenway Park in 1955 is screwy (156). This phenomenal park factor makes the Boston pitchers for 1955 evaluate as if they were the legion of super-pitchers. . .in fact, it makes Frank Sullivan, 1955 (18-13, 2.91 ERA, 129/100 strikeout/walk ratio) evaluate as the best pitcher’s season in the major leagues between 1937 and 1966. It shows Willard Nixon (12-10, 4.07 ERA) as +23 runs, which would make him better than, let’s say, Preacher Roe, 1951 (22-3, 3.03 ERA), or Tom Glavine, 1993 (22-6, 3.20 ERA), or Roy Oswalt, 2004 (20-10, 3.49 ERA) or Jamie Moyer in 2001 (20-6, 3.43 ERA.) It would make him better than a lot of Cy Young Award winners. Trust me; he wasn’t that good.
Anyway, it’s not a perfect stat, but there are no perfect stats, and this is the method I set up to study this issue.
The rather stunning conclusion: there is, in fact, more young talent around right now—after the 2006 season, before the 2007 season—than at any other moment in baseball history.
The previous record was after the 1964 season. The burst of young talent that emerged in 1964 is something that I have written about before. I was 14 years old that summer, and it made a huge impact on me, that all of a sudden there were all of these kids who were just a few years older than I was playing and playing well in the major leagues. Without exaggeration, there were 10 players in each league in 1964 who could have won the Rookie of the Year Award. The actual rookies of the year, Tony Oliva and Dick Allen, were two of the greatest ever.
The players who were in the major leagues and playing well (above average) and who were 25 years old or younger at that time included (but were not limited to) Dick Allen, Ken Berry, Jim Bouton, Lou Brock, Gates Brown, Wally Bunker, Johnny Callison, Rico Carty, Dean Chance, Tony Conigliaro, Willie Davis, Larry Dierker, Al Downing, Sammy Ellis, Dick Ellsworth, Ron Fairly, Bill Freehan, Jim Fregosi, Dave Giusti, Dick Green, Jim Ray Hart, Alex Johnson, Deron Johnson, Jim Kaat, Mickey Lolich, Jim Maloney, Dick McAuliffe, Tim McCarver, Sam McDowell, Dave McNally, Tony Oliva, Claude Osteen, Milt Pappas, Gaylord Perry, Vada Pinson, Boog Powell, Pete Rose, Ray Sadecki, Ron Santo, Willie Stargell, Mel Stottlemyre, Luis Tiant, Joe Torre, Pete Ward, Don Wert, Zoilo Versalles and Carl Yastrzemski. That was the greatest explosion of young talent in baseball history—until now; what we have now is even better. That collection of talent (1964) scored at 2,550 points. What we have now scores at 2,812.
The top 15 young players post-2006 were:
RSAA |
Brian McCann |
2006 |
45 |
22 |
Atl Braves |
180 |
Miguel Cabrera |
2006 |
52 |
23 |
Marlins |
156 |
Grady Sizemore |
2006 |
48 |
23 |
Indians |
144 |
Joe Mauer |
2006 |
46 |
23 |
Twins |
138 |
Hanley Ramirez |
2006 |
32 |
22 |
Marlins |
128 |
Jose Reyes |
2006 |
37 |
23 |
Mets |
111 |
Francisco Liriano |
2006 |
31 |
22 |
Twins |
87 |
Robinson Cano |
2006 |
29 |
23 |
Yankees |
87 |
Joel Zumaya |
2006 |
24 |
21 |
Tigers |
85 |
David Wright |
2006 |
28 |
23 |
Mets |
84 |
Scott Kazmir |
2006 |
23 |
22 |
Devil Rays |
65 |
Josh Johnson |
2006 |
20 |
22 |
Marlins |
57 |
Jered Weaver |
2006 |
24 |
23 |
Angels |
51 |
Anibal Sanchez |
2006 |
18 |
22 |
Marlins |
51 |
Jonathan Broxton |
2006 |
17 |
22 |
Dodgers |
48 |
I don’t necessarily agree that Brian McCann is the most valuable young player in baseball, but I’m kind of glad to see him at the top of the list, anyway; it seems like you don’t hear a lot about him, compared to Mauer, Cabrera, Sizemore, Jose Reyes and David Wright, for example. This is a 22-year-old catcher who had a .961 OPS last year. There are only a handful of players in history who scored that well and didn’t go on to Hall of Fame careers. Even if you go down to 75, 80 points, the bottom of the list is still composed of more players who did go on to Hall of Fame careers than those who didn’t.
It’s an impressive list of fifteen young players—but those 15 account for just over one-half the young talent around now; there’s another 1300 points out there in the terms of players who were not quite as good or a year or two older. Justin Verlander didn’t make the list, or Carl Crawford or Huston Street or Morneau or Papelbon or Bonderman or Sabathia.
The point in history at which there was the least young talent in baseball was 1945—the last season of World War II. Of course, the young talent around now is spread around 30 teams. In 1964 there were 20 teams. Per team, there is nowhere near as much young talent now as there was in 1964—although even per team, there is more now than in any year since 1973.
This chart summarizes the data year-by-year since 1900, first chronologically (left) and second by the amount of talent (right):
YEAR |
Yr Total |
Tms |
Per Team |
YEAR |
Yr Total |
1900 |
745 |
8 |
93.1 |
|
2006 |
2812 |
1901 |
1527 |
16 |
95.4 |
|
1964 |
2550 |
1902 |
1172 |
16 |
73.3 |
|
1972 |
2466 |
1903 |
1211 |
16 |
75.7 |
|
1912 |
2388 |
1904 |
817 |
16 |
51.1 |
|
1980 |
2385 |
1905 |
855 |
16 |
53.4 |
|
1977 |
2374 |
1906 |
865 |
16 |
54.1 |
|
1969 |
2368 |
1907 |
1146 |
16 |
71.6 |
|
2005 |
2359 |
1908 |
1093 |
16 |
68.3 |
|
2001 |
2347 |
1909 |
2128 |
16 |
133.0 |
|
1911 |
2333 |
1910 |
2251 |
16 |
140.7 |
|
1973 |
2293 |
1911 |
2333 |
16 |
145.8 |
|
1970 |
2284 |
1912 |
2388 |
16 |
149.3 |
|
1993 |
2274 |
1913 |
1989 |
16 |
124.3 |
|
1979 |
2258 |
1914 |
1726 |
24 |
71.9 |
|
1910 |
2251 |
1915 |
1733 |
24 |
72.2 |
|
1978 |
2241 |
1916 |
1109 |
16 |
69.3 |
|
1965 |
2235 |
1917 |
1096 |
16 |
68.5 |
|
2003 |
2190 |
1918 |
1037 |
16 |
64.8 |
|
1975 |
2187 |
1919 |
837 |
16 |
52.3 |
|
2000 |
2141 |
1920 |
1026 |
16 |
64.1 |
|
|
|
1921 |
1181 |
16 |
73.8 |
|
|
|
1922 |
1217 |
16 |
76.1 |
|
|
|
1923 |
1410 |
16 |
88.1 |
|
|
|
1924 |
995 |
16 |
62.2 |
|
|
|
1925 |
1121 |
16 |
70.1 |
|
|
|
1926 |
1157 |
16 |
72.3 |
|
|
|
1927 |
1389 |
16 |
86.8 |
|
|
|
1928 |
1647 |
16 |
102.9 |
|
|
|
1929 |
1669 |
16 |
104.3 |
|
|
|
1930 |
2073 |
16 |
129.6 |
|
|
|
1931 |
1283 |
16 |
80.2 |
|
|
|
1932 |
1548 |
16 |
96.8 |
|
|
|
1933 |
1433 |
16 |
89.6 |
|
|
|
1934 |
1574 |
16 |
98.4 |
|
|
|
1935 |
1587 |
16 |
99.2 |
|
|
|
1936 |
1187 |
16 |
74.2 |
|
|
|
1937 |
1600 |
16 |
100.0 |
|
|
|
1938 |
1113 |
16 |
69.6 |
|
|
|
1939 |
1870 |
16 |
116.9 |
|
|
|
1940 |
1797 |
16 |
112.3 |
|
|
|
1941 |
1828 |
16 |
114.3 |
|
|
|
1942 |
1728 |
16 |
108.0 |
|
|
|
1943 |
1116 |
16 |
69.8 |
|
|
|
1944 |
980 |
16 |
61.3 |
|
|
|
1945 |
487 |
16 |
30.4 |
|
|
|
1946 |
863 |
16 |
53.9 |
|
|
|
1947 |
967 |
16 |
60.4 |
|
|
|
1948 |
941 |
16 |
58.8 |
|
|
|
1949 |
1048 |
16 |
65.5 |
|
|
|
1950 |
1222 |
16 |
76.4 |
|
|
|
1951 |
945 |
16 |
59.1 |
|
|
|
1952 |
910 |
16 |
56.9 |
|
|
|
1953 |
1207 |
16 |
75.4 |
|
|
|
1954 |
1317 |
16 |
82.3 |
|
|
|
1955 |
1968 |
16 |
123.0 |
|
|
|
1956 |
1689 |
16 |
105.6 |
|
|
|
1957 |
1552 |
16 |
97.0 |
|
|
|
1958 |
866 |
16 |
54.1 |
|
|
|
1959 |
1429 |
16 |
89.3 |
|
|
|
1960 |
1515 |
16 |
94.7 |
|
|
|
1961 |
1649 |
18 |
91.6 |
|
|
|
1962 |
1457 |
20 |
72.9 |
|
|
|
1963 |
1853 |
20 |
92.7 |
|
|
|
1964 |
2550 |
20 |
127.5 |
|
|
|
1965 |
2235 |
20 |
111.8 |
|
|
|
1966 |
1915 |
20 |
95.8 |
|
|
|
1967 |
1902 |
20 |
95.1 |
|
|
|
1968 |
1430 |
20 |
71.5 |
|
|
|
1969 |
2368 |
24 |
98.7 |
|
|
|
1970 |
2284 |
24 |
95.2 |
|
|
|
1971 |
1972 |
24 |
82.2 |
|
|
|
1972 |
2466 |
24 |
102.8 |
|
|
|
1973 |
2293 |
24 |
95.5 |
|
|
|
1974 |
1986 |
24 |
82.8 |
|
|
|
1975 |
2187 |
24 |
91.1 |
|
|
|
1976 |
1789 |
24 |
74.5 |
|
|
|
1977 |
2374 |
26 |
91.3 |
|
|
|
1978 |
2241 |
26 |
86.2 |
|
|
|
1979 |
2258 |
26 |
86.8 |
|
|
|
1980 |
2385 |
26 |
91.7 |
|
|
|
1981 |
1312 |
26 |
50.5 |
|
|
|
1982 |
1694 |
26 |
65.2 |
|
|
|
1983 |
1869 |
26 |
71.9 |
|
|
|
1984 |
2083 |
26 |
80.1 |
|
|
|
1985 |
1985 |
26 |
76.3 |
|
|
|
1986 |
1775 |
26 |
68.3 |
|
|
|
1987 |
2106 |
26 |
81.0 |
|
1916 |
1109 |
1988 |
1955 |
26 |
75.2 |
|
1917 |
1096 |
1989 |
1451 |
26 |
55.8 |
|
1908 |
1093 |
1990 |
1737 |
26 |
66.8 |
|
1949 |
1048 |
1991 |
2047 |
26 |
78.7 |
|
1918 |
1037 |
1992 |
2053 |
26 |
79.0 |
|
1920 |
1026 |
1993 |
2274 |
28 |
81.2 |
|
1924 |
995 |
1994 |
1311 |
28 |
46.8 |
|
1944 |
980 |
1995 |
1347 |
28 |
48.1 |
|
1947 |
967 |
1996 |
1807 |
28 |
64.5 |
|
1951 |
945 |
1997 |
1682 |
28 |
60.1 |
|
1948 |
941 |
1998 |
1936 |
30 |
64.5 |
|
1952 |
910 |
1999 |
1981 |
30 |
66.0 |
|
1958 |
866 |
2000 |
2141 |
30 |
71.4 |
|
1906 |
865 |
2001 |
2347 |
30 |
78.2 |
|
1946 |
863 |
2002 |
1618 |
30 |
53.9 |
|
1905 |
855 |
2003 |
2190 |
30 |
73.0 |
|
1919 |
837 |
2004 |
1757 |
30 |
58.6 |
|
1904 |
817 |
2005 |
2359 |
30 |
78.6 |
|
1900 |
745 |
2006 |
2812 |
30 |
93.7 |
|
1945 |
487 |
The team with the most young talent of all time, by this method, was the 1970 Cincinnati Reds—Johnny Bench, Bobby Tolan, Gary Nolan, Don Gullett, Bernie Carbo, Dave Concepcion, Hal McRae, Wayne Simpson and Milt Wilcox. Three of the five best of those players (Tolan, Carbo and McRae) had serious injuries as young players, and injuries also limited the careers of Gullett and Nolan. Still, the team did go on to become one of the great dynasties of baseball history. Following the Big Red Machine on the team-total list were:
The 1928 New York Giants (4 Hall of Famers aged 25 or less—Mel Ott, Carl Hubbell, Travis Jackson and Fred Lindstrom.)
The 1942 Boston Red Sox (Williams, Pesky, Dom DiMaggio, Bobby Doerr, Jim Tabor)
The 1941 Boston Red Sox
The 1929 New York Giants
The 1953 Milwaukee Braves (Eddie Mathews, Joe Adcock, Del Crandall, Johnny Antonelli, Bob Buhl.) This team added one of the greatest players of all time the next season, the 20-year-old Henry Aaron.
The 1909 Philadelphia A’s (Eddie Collins, Home Run Baker, Jack Barry, Chief Bender, Stuffy McInnis. Also Joe Jackson, although they led Joe get away from them.)
The 2006 Florida Marlins (Cabrera, Hanley Ramirez, Mike Jacobs, Jeremy Hermida, Dontrelle Willis, Anibal Sanchez.)
There is an obvious question here with an obvious answer: does a historic concentration of young talent predict future championships? Historically, it has, obviously. . ..all of these teams went on to win numerous championships over the next ten years, except for the 1941-42 Red Sox, who probably lost most of their championship seasons to World War II, won the league in ’46, and the 2006 Marlins, who haven’t won anything yet and will face financial/marketing issues in trying to keep their talent base together.
On the other end. . .historically, there have been many teams that had no young talent that registered by this method. Everybody had at least some young talent in 2006, but the Astros had none in 2005, not much in 2006.
Hmmmm. I started this research not really expecting to find anything significant. . ..I was just kind of messing around. This, however, is a significant contention, that we are sitting in the middle of a historic bubble of young talent, and once I reached that conclusion, it occurred to me that I should make the people I work for—the Boston Red Sox owners and management—aware of this, in that it could impact the organization’s strategic thinking. In order to do that, though, I needed to be more confident that I was correct. I thus decided to study the issue by a distinct and independent method, to see if I could verify this conclusion.
I based the second study on Win Shares, and I used all Win Shares by players aged 26 or younger since 1876. In this study, I multiplied:
Win Shares at age 26 by .90
Win Shares at age 25 by 1.00
Win Shares at age 24 by 1.10
Win Shares at age 23 by 1.20
Win Shares at age 22 by 1.30
Win Shares at age 21 by 1.40
Win Shares at age 20 by 1.50
Win Shares at age 19 by 1.60
Win Shares at age 18 by 1.70
Win Shares at age 17 by 1.80
Win Shares at age 16 by 1.90
By this method, all of the most valuable young players in history were 19th-century pitchers. (The same would be true of the other study, as well. . .that’s why I eliminated the 19th century from that study.) The highest-valued young players of all time who weren’t 19th century pitchers were:
1. Ty Cobb, 1907 |
61.5 |
2. Joe Wood, 1912 |
57.2 |
3. Tris Speaker, 1914 |
56.1 |
4. Eddie Collins, 1913 55.9 |
|
5. Ted Williams, 1942 55.2 |
|
6. Eddie Mathews, 1953 |
54.6 |
7. Joe Jackson, 1911 |
54.6 |
8. Walter Johnson, 1913 |
54.0 |
9. Mickey Mantle, 1956 |
53.9 |
10. Dick Allen, 1964 |
53.3 |
11. Rogers Hornsby, 1917 |
53.2 |
12. Babe Ruth, 1916 |
51.8 |
13. Alex Rodriguez, 1996 |
51.0 |
14. Joe DiMaggio, 1937 |
50.7 |
15. Stan Musial, 1943 50.7 |
|
16. Dwight Gooden, 1985 |
49.5 |
17. Sherry Magee, 1907 |
49.4 |
18. Albert Pujols, 2004 |
49.2 |
19. Reggie Jackson, 1969 |
49.2 |
20. Lou Gehrig, 1927 |
48.4 |
21. Willie Mays, 1954 48.0 |
|
22. Bob Feller, 1939 |
48.0 |
23. Jimmie Foxx, 1929 |
47.6 |
24. Arky Vaughan , 1933 |
47.6 |
25. Rickey Henderson , 1980 |
47.6 |
Again, several of these players did go on to have fairly decent careers. . .In compiling this list, I eliminated redundant entries from the same player. A lot of it’s the same list, of course, but you do occasionally get significant discrepancies between the methods. The other method evaluates Frank Sullivan, 1955, at 62 points (62 times 1) and Ryan Zimmerman, 2006, at zero (0 times 5). This method evaluates Sullivan at 22 points (22 times 1) and Ryan Zimmerman at 33.6 (24 times 1.40).
Anyway, that’s fun, but what I was really doing here was not comparing Stan Musial to Albert Pujols, but comparing the young talent of 2006 to the young talent of 1978 and every other year. This method uses a flatter weight ratio for ages, and thus is more likely to give a player his highest number at age 24 or 25, rather than 22 or 23. It thus tends to show peaks arriving a couple of years later than the other method. The other method shows the historic Ty Cobb/Tris Speaker/Walter Johnson/Joe Jackson/Eddie Collins/Pete Alexander/Joe Wood/Home Run Baker talent burst as peaking in 1912. This method shows the peak at 1914. The other method shows the mid-sixties peak in 1964. This method shows a peak in 1966, and then shows the baby boom peak, after a couple of years, pushing on even higher. Interestingly, though, this method tends to show the low points of the graph occurring at the same times or even a year or two earlier than the other method.
By this method, the young talent around at this moment is not at an all-time high. However, the conclusions of this study are essentially consistent with the other study, and tend to confirm that we are, in fact, sitting in the middle of an explosion of young talent. By this method, the total young talent in the major leagues in 2004 was scored at 2,105 points. By 2006 it had gone up to 2,515, the highest total since 1987. History suggests that this figure will move upward even higher over the next two to three years, and will reach a historic peak sometime before 2010.
Years with Most
Young Talent
Year |
Young Talent |
1890 |
3111 |
1914 |
2975 |
1977 |
2954 |
1969 |
2936 |
1975 |
2905 |
1884 |
2878 |
1973 |
2823 |
1974 |
2817 |
1978 |
2707 |
1972 |
2671 |
1970 |
2660 |
1979 |
2635 |
1915 |
2633 |
1986 |
2616 |
1987 |
2591 |
1976 |
2590 |
1971 |
2577 |
1980 |
2527 |
2006 |
2515 |
1985 |
2511 |
Both of these methods show that the Boston Red Sox are relatively low among major league teams in terms of proven major league talent—not at the bottom, but close. The Yankees as of a year ago (post-2005) were extremely low, but moved up sharply last year with the contributions of Cano, Cabrera and Wang.
Bill James
Ft. Myers, Florida
March 28, 2007 |