HOME RUNS (WHAT ELSE?)/4: THE -29/30+ DIVIDE & THE 31 IN THE "DOUBLE 200 CLUB"...

WE operate under strange handicaps, with a computer that has ceased to permit certain characters to appear on the page as we t*pe (get the idea?). The problem will be rectified with a new machine later in 2024, but for now we just avoid using words with a certain letter that has been aggravatingl* disappeared from us (and *ou thought *ou had problems!)...

But it's clear that nothing, not even this, will stop us--we might even go back and fix the first graf after the fact (something we've done a number of times with previous posts, but it gets a bit tedious)...

ALL that said, we can't wait to drop this data and charts here, so bear with us--for what's coming down the pike in this edition is unusual even for BBB. What are we babbling about? It's more homer stuff, of course--we are working through our cognitive dissonance regarding them, though we will insist toujours that we need more triples and that the 190-foot rule is the best method for making that happen--but that's enough forepla*...

This edition of Home Runs (What Else?) features the age breakdown that never quite gets the full-on treatment it deserves. (We wanted to use "s*stematic, but, *ou know...) 

We will divide home run production just as the Romans divided Gaul--into two parts: those taters struck when hitters are in their twenties, and those "big flies" (God, we love pluralism!) that arrive when the batter is in his thirties. For ease of use here, we're following the formulation in the title, which is -29/30+. 

SO let's get the first big chart out here and get down to cases:

That's right, we've created two lists of age-oriented "200+ HR" hitters. These should look similar to the ones created for the 300+ lifetime HR lists seen in our recent series--except, of course, we've divided them into our "-29/30+" formulation.

IT's instructive to put these up in tandem, so that we can see how each segment differs. Despite the fact that hitters often have fewer seasons to work with during their twenties, there are more members of the "200+ HR club" in the -29 group (98) than in the 30+ group (82). 

But before we get deep into the nuances of these large-membered clubs, let's take a quick look at the upper echelons that we find here--what's the breakdown of 300+ HRs via these age groups? There are 15 hitters who've hit 300+ HRs in their twenties, and there are 17 hitters who've hit 300+ HRs in their thirties. And there are just two hitters who managed to hit 300+ HRs in each age range: Hank Aaron (age -29, 342; age 30+, 413) and Albert Pujols (age -29, 366; age 30+, 337).

--aka "Jackie Coogan's bluff"...

Jimmie Foxx was the age -29 leader for quite a long time, but A-Rod and Junior surpassed him. Likewise, Babe Ruth was the age 30+ leader for a similar stretch, until a fellow named Bonds went into orbit once the new millennium arrived and blew him out of the water. Baseball's favorite pariah hit 503 HRs during the age 30+ phase of his career--a fact that should inspire infinite awe, but will all too often be cited as prime facie evidence of "cheating." (Who knew that of all the centuries in all the gin joints in all the freakin' world, the 21st would take all of the meanness in the previous several and double down on it in a manner that would make Uncle Fester proud?) 

Soon we'll take a focused look at the 31 hitters who hit 200+ HRs in each age range, but next we will look at some distribution charts that can provide some additional context for the 180 members of the "200+ HR in an age range" club.

Let's start with a scatter chart that shows us the 98 hitters in the -29 range, plotted via the intersection of their HR totals in the age range and their overall performance during same (which we measure with OPS+). Remember when looking at this chart that there is more variation in the career lengths of the hitters in the -29 range: some folks start at age 19, others at age 24 (and then there's Babe Ruth, starting as a pitcher in Deadball Era, with four seasons where his HR totals are suppressed due to limited plate appearances)--that explains how the data here is not quite so linear.

And Ruth is one of the three data points on the scatter chart that we've singled out with different coloration from the rest--which one is he? That's right, the one in red at the far right. His HR total in the -29 range was kept under 300 due to the reasons noted above, but his OPS+ (218) was off the charts during this time frame (1914-24). The other data point in red belongs to A-Rod, the all-time leader in -29 range HRs (426).

So who's the fellow over toward the left middle shown in pale green? That's our old pal Andruw Jones, the man that the post-neo-sabes are bound & determined to push into the Hall of Fame. Jones started at age 19, so he got what is close to the maximum possible number of PAs in the -29 age range (he ranks sixth behind Mel Ott, A-Rod, Junior, Al Kaline, and Mantle). He did hit a nice number of HRs in the time frame (his 342 is tied for seventh with Ott and Hank Aaron), but look at his OPS+: it's just 115, a performance level several galaxies apart from the other two hitters with the same -29 HR totals (Ott's OPS+ through age 29 was 157, Aaron's was 158). Jones hit 92 HRs after the age of 30--the lowest total for a member of the -29 age range with 300+ HRs--and hit just .214 during that time...a Hall of Fame impostor if there ever was one (but remember that we live in an age of cults).

NOW let's look at related measure--HR per 162 games--and scatter that against OPS+. What kind of results will that give us (as compared to the raw HR totals)? The results are shown in the chart at right, which looks a good bit more linear than the first one. Note that this one provides population averages for the measures here: HR/162 rates for the 98 -29 age range is just over 34 (as shown in the green horizontal line...), and the aggregate OPS+ for these hitters is 145 (as shown in the green vertical line). 

But we can see that Babe Ruth is still an outlier thanks to that insane OPS+ (218, to be exact) with a much better HR/162 rate once we've adjusted for his total PA over the 1914-24 time frame. And we can see A-Rod in the upper center of the chart, with a homer rate a little better than Ruth's, but with an OPS+ that's just about identical with the average for the hitter population captured here. And move back down and further to the left to find Andruw Jones again: he's far off the average OPS+, in a cluster of hitters whose main offensive skill was hitting homers. Even at that, his homer rate is just about average amongst the hitters here. Just to be tiresome, we'll repeat what we said above: Hall of Fame impostor (don't care how good his glove was--and his glove has been overrated).

OK, we are all glad that we got that out of our s*stem (oops, there's that glitch again... that missing "real question" that Brock Hanke used to tweak me about!). But there's one last special data point highlighted on this chart--it can be seen at the top of the chart near the vertical green line. That's the hitter with the highest HR/162 rate of all the folk in the -29 age range. Who is that? Is it going to be a surprise to discover that this hitters's name is going to subject to the same computer glitch we've been working so hard to avoid as we tap out this text? Of course not! But see what we mean when we list the name: it's R*an Howard. That's right: R*an Howard, who came up at age 24 and had a monster five seasons of taterdom, averaging just under 49 HRs per 162 games. (That homer rate took a significant nosedive once Howard reached 30, however: from that point on it was just 31 per 162 games--and his OPS+ plummeted as well: down to just 107.)

So let's move on to the 30+ range and some of the controversial people who populate it--Bonds, Mark McGwire, Samm* Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro...the folks who've had the doors to Cooperstown slammed in their faces.

As should be clear, this chart does have more of a linear flow going for it, as the upward drift to the right kinda sorta takes those anomalies named Bonds (topmost data point in red) and Ruth (next topmost data point in red) and McGwire (the third data point in red, with his somewhat truncated HR total due to injuries: if we could plop into the "375 HR, 175 OPS+" intersection point on the chart, he would be just about dead linear with the overall spread trend in the chart). Even with the linear feel in the chart, it's still mind-blowing to see where Bonds and Ruth reside on this chart--if we'd been told in 1999 that someone would break Ruth's 30+ age range home run record (430), we'd have recommended that the person doing so get a visit from the men in white coats...and for Bonds to have done so without so much as breaking a sweat--our minds should still be reeling.

But we have some other colored markers to explain. The gold marker belongs to Aaron (413 HRs in the 30+ age range, and a 153 OPS+). The light green marker belongs to Palmeiro, who sits in third place for age 30+ HRs (414, one more than Aaron), but with a lesser OPS (133). Of course, his Cooperstown snub is also absurd, but consider the times we live in. The marker in "amarillo" (we'll do whatever we can to avoid the asterisk!) captures two hitters whose 30+ careers have never been compared as far as we can tell, but whose numbers here indicate just how tremendous their achievements were in adjacent decades. These two are Willie Stargell and Mike Schmidt, who in the 1970s and 1980s respectivel* (oh, sh*t!) compiled identical 153 OPS+. Stargell hit 310 homers in the 30+ range; Schmidt hit 313. Both of them, of course, are enshrined in Cooperstown. (Palmeiro, with 100 more HRs during his thirties than either of them and a higher HR/162 rate, is somehow little better than dog meat: go figure.)

AND now for the HR/162--OPS+ scatter chart for the "oldsters" (we should all be so old, eh?). As might be expected, this chart is the most linear of them all (and thanks to the mirror, mirror on the wall). It just reminds us that rate stats are much more useful that counting stats--but who's counting, and whose opinion counts? 

What will blow minds (and perhaps even some of the lower chakras...) is the rate stat residing at the top of this chart. It belongs to the greatest home run hitter in baseball histor*. (It figures that we'd get an asterisk right here, doesn't it?) That man is...Mark McGwire. In his 30+ age period, Big Mac averaged 61 homers per 162 games, which blows all of the other sluggers clear out of the water and deposits them into a ring of adjoining palm trees, where even these men of might can be heard whimpering like puppies. In case folks are wondering, that's Ruth ahead of Bonds in the rate stats over near the 200 OPS+ line. Right there with 'em, however, is Samm* Sosa (damned if it isn't still the real question, Hanke!), not close to those two as an overall offensive force but just as potent at hitting the long ball. 

The other two fellas who are somewhat separated from the oldster slugger "school of fish" that we see on the chart are: Lou Gehrig (at the intersection of 40 and 175) and Ted Williams (higher OPS+, lower HR rate). That might not be all that surprising, n'est-ce pas?

SO let's wrap things up with the 31 members of the "Double 200 Club"--the hitters who hit 200+ HRs in each age range (-29, 30+). Note that since we are friendlier than most folks think we are (statistical studies corroborating this fact are available for a not-so-small fee...), we are listing these folk in alphabetical order--but using their first names. That's friendlier than would have been expected, right?

Hitters with their names in black are in the Hall of Fame; hitters with their names in red are not, and aren't going to be for some time to come; hitters with their names in green aren't in so far, but will be soon.

We highlighted some numbers here--OPS+ and homers--but we will leave to the reader to discern whatever patterns might emerge from that. We will note that, in terms of OPS+, these sluggers are almost 50-50 in terms of having a better one earlier (-29 seasons) than later (30+ seasons). 

And we will note that of all the lists we've compiled in all the gin joints in all the "mobius strip" narratives we've concocted over the decades, this one is just about as close to a slam-dunk, unanimous recommendation for the Hall of Fame we've seen thus far (aside from the actual Hall of Fame list, of course: just wanted to clear that up!). But for the appearances of Dave Kingman and Paul Konerko on this list, however, all of the other names are folk deserving of enshrinement. (Some might quibble about Adrian Beltré, but we wouldn't: a solid long career--and a bump-up in the 30+ range--at a position where HOFers remain scarce: he's a keeper in our book. We're less convinced about Carlos Beltran, but the cult will bring him in over the line...)

So fhat's 29 of 31--not too shabb* (but not as shabb* as our freaking ke*board!!!). So far 21 of the 29 are in--two more will make it, which leaves six "qualified pariahs" barred at the door. For f*ck's sake, let's figure out how to fix that, OK?