After last night's performance, Papi's numbers look pretty gaudy. He's got an excellent chance to top 30 HR and 100 RBI for the first time in three years, and if he heats up again he's got an outside shot at a second straight 1.000 OPS season.
If his 2013 ended today, it would be top 10 among all age-37 years in baseball history in OPS+, OPS, and SLG.
This made me stop and wonder, given the late start Papi got in terms of playing opportunities compared to most elite sluggers, how he would rank among all players for performance from age 27 (his first year with the Sox) through age 37. I used a 6000-PA minimum (David has 6464 in that stretch) to eliminate some of the guys who didn't play much past their early 30s, to keep it as apples-to-apples as possible.
In OPS+, he ranks 20th.
In SLG, 8th.
In HR, 10th.
In 2B, 9th.
In RBI, 10th.
Pretty remarkable stuff--there are a slew of HoFers below him on these lists. Makes me wonder what his numbers would look like if he had developed a little quicker (or alternatively, if the Twins had realized what they had a little sooner). Impossible to tell, of course--the extra mileage might have ended his career by now--but fun to speculate on. He's certainly becoming one of the great late-career hitters of all time.
If his 2013 ended today, it would be top 10 among all age-37 years in baseball history in OPS+, OPS, and SLG.
This made me stop and wonder, given the late start Papi got in terms of playing opportunities compared to most elite sluggers, how he would rank among all players for performance from age 27 (his first year with the Sox) through age 37. I used a 6000-PA minimum (David has 6464 in that stretch) to eliminate some of the guys who didn't play much past their early 30s, to keep it as apples-to-apples as possible.
In OPS+, he ranks 20th.
In SLG, 8th.
In HR, 10th.
In 2B, 9th.
In RBI, 10th.
Pretty remarkable stuff--there are a slew of HoFers below him on these lists. Makes me wonder what his numbers would look like if he had developed a little quicker (or alternatively, if the Twins had realized what they had a little sooner). Impossible to tell, of course--the extra mileage might have ended his career by now--but fun to speculate on. He's certainly becoming one of the great late-career hitters of all time.