Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
I received the following comment regarding my post the other day on Gary Matthews' year of walking easily in 1984:
Lefty
I always lumped Matthews' 1984 BB surge together with Willie Mays v.1971 and Toby Harrah v.1986. Good players with slowing bats laying off pitches they can no longer hit, getting respect from the men in blue. Followed by a precipitous offensive decline.
That got me to thinking about how veteran players are said to be compensated by umpires. Can that be measured? Let's see. Here are the numbers based on the age of the batter:
| Age | BB | IBB | TPA | Exp BB | BB Above Exp | Per PA |
| NA | 663 | 0 | 18,926 | 780.16 | -117.16 | -0.62% |
| 14 | 0 | 10 | 0.25 | -0.25 | -2.53% | |
| 15 | 1 | 0 | 169 | 1.77 | -0.77 | -0.46% |
| 16 | 36 | 0 | 505 | 30.07 | 5.93 | 1.17% |
| 17 | 150 | 0 | 2,952 | 171.99 | -21.99 | -0.74% |
| 18 | 432 | 2 | 9,598 | 593.49 | -163.49 | -1.70% |
| 19 | 2,246 | 42 | 38,160 | 2,769.02 | -565.02 | -1.48% |
| 20 | 7,035 | 235 | 113,049 | 8,127.48 | -1,327.48 | -1.18% |
| 21 | 18,385 | 638 | 274,768 | 20,589.61 | -2,842.61 | -1.04% |
| 22 | 36,521 | 1,358 | 511,855 | 38,927.39 | -3,764.39 | -0.74% |
| 23 | 57,011 | 2,565 | 766,626 | 58,605.56 | -4,159.56 | -0.54% |
| 24 | 80,562 | 3,844 | 1,046,937 | 80,730.36 | -4,012.36 | -0.38% |
| 25 | 97,893 | 4,788 | 1,249,804 | 96,736.16 | -3,631.16 | -0.29% |
| 26 | 108,994 | 5,651 | 1,366,336 | 106,373.51 | -3,030.51 | -0.22% |
| 27 | 112,613 | 5,918 | 1,382,851 | 108,044.63 | -1,349.63 | -0.10% |
| 28 | 108,739 | 5,841 | 1,299,291 | 101,726.41 | 1,171.59 | 0.09% |
| 29 | 100,350 | 5,396 | 1,195,669 | 93,876.48 | 1,077.52 | 0.09% |
| 30 | 93,035 | 4,742 | 1,083,180 | 85,418.24 | 2,874.76 | 0.27% |
| 31 | 79,201 | 4,127 | 912,164 | 72,160.66 | 2,913.34 | 0.32% |
| 32 | 67,332 | 3,636 | 756,556 | 60,061.43 | 3,634.57 | 0.48% |
| 33 | 54,665 | 2,891 | 612,635 | 48,781.41 | 2,992.59 | 0.49% |
| 34 | 42,086 | 2,292 | 466,556 | 37,067.62 | 2,726.38 | 0.59% |
| 35 | 31,590 | 1,725 | 345,018 | 27,558.51 | 2,306.49 | 0.67% |
| 36 | 22,506 | 1,214 | 241,443 | 19,244.48 | 2,047.52 | 0.85% |
| 37 | 14,847 | 957 | 160,744 | 12,739.96 | 1,150.04 | 0.72% |
| 38 | 9,558 | 671 | 103,803 | 8,216.65 | 670.35 | 0.65% |
| 39 | 6,166 | 464 | 64,275 | 5,103.80 | 598.20 | 0.94% |
| 40 | 3,390 | 224 | 36,941 | 2,907.31 | 258.69 | 0.70% |
| 41 | 2,165 | 113 | 21,868 | 1,760.81 | 291.19 | 1.34% |
| 42 | 1,118 | 54 | 10,659 | 867.31 | 196.69 | 1.85% |
| 43 | 405 | 28 | 4,518 | 354.19 | 22.81 | 0.51% |
| 44 | 266 | 17 | 2,605 | 208.87 | 40.13 | 1.55% |
| 45 | 134 | 4 | 1,406 | 110.09 | 19.91 | 1.42% |
| 46 | 3 | 0 | 174 | 13.75 | -10.75 | -6.18% |
| 47 | 3 | 0 | 33 | 2.53 | 0.47 | 1.42% |
| 48 | 1 | 0 | 31 | 2.11 | -1.11 | -3.58% |
| 49 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 0.45 | -0.45 | -7.56% |
| 51 | 0 | 1 | 0.10 | -0.10 | -9.50% | |
| 52 | 0 | 1 | 0.08 | -0.08 | -8.43% | |
| 53 | 0 | 0 | 12 | 0.88 | -0.88 | -7.33% |
| 54 | 1 | 1 | 0.09 | 0.91 | 91.42% | |
| 56 | 0 | 1 | 0.09 | -0.09 | -9.10% | |
| 57 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0.15 | -0.15 | -7.60% |
| 58 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0.08 | -0.08 | -7.87% |
| TOT | 1,160,103 | 59,437 | 14,102,140 | 1,100,666 | 0.00 | 0.00% |
If you graph that and throw out the years with small sample sizes at either extreme, you'll almost see a straight diagonal line from age 17 to 35. The line wavers from 35 to 44 but stays above average. The break-even point is somewhere between age 27 and 28.
I could see the positive numbers after age 35 reflecting the superior skills of players who can remain in the majors for that long. And I could see some sort of development by players as they age. However, this seems a bit excessive.
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