Had I been less resolved to work, I would perhaps had made an effort to begin immediately...[I]t was better not to choose a night at which I was not well-disposed for a debut to which the following days proved, alas, no more propitious.
—Marcel Proust

When Hoyt Wilhem hit a home run in his first major-league at-bat just about three months shy of his thirtieth birthday, it must have been one of those Roy Hobbs-types moments. Wilhelm went on to hit zero home runs over the rest of his career (431 at-bats), but went on to set the major-league appearance record (1070 games), which has since been broken, and to record 21 major-league seasons, finishing his Hall-of-Fame career with the Dodgers 16 days before his fiftieth birthday.

Of all the Hall of Famers, who earned their paques as a simple major-league player, Wilhelm had the latest debut. There were Hall-of-Fame players, like Satchell Paige, who debuted two days after his 42nd birthday, whose major-league careers were delayed due to baseball's color line.

But of the 514 players through 2004 who debuted at age 30 or older, none have earned a spot in Cooperstown based solely on what he did on the field as a major-league player. Wilhelm is the only one of 341 major-leaguers who debuted at age 29 to make it into the Hall.

Cliff's questions to my previous post made me wonder how much debut age affected one's chances of getting into the Hall. Are players who debut in their teens that much better players so that larger numbers of them have entered the hallowed halls? How about those who debut in their twenties? Is there a difference between debuting at age 22 as opposed 25 or 27 as far as one's likelihood of getting into the Hall?

Well, I ran the numbers and here's what I found:

To make it even clearer, I grouped the data by ranges:

The numbers show that by far the best group to belong to is the one with players who debuted in their teens. The next highest range is the 20-to-22-year-old debut group, in which Hall likelihood is about a two-fifths of the teen group. Other than those two groups, it's virtually impossible to get into the Hall (0.46% likelihood overall).

That made me wonder what this predicts about today's players. Given the breakdown of debut age for the 2004 group of players, here is the expectation, based on the odds in the past, of the players one day reaching the Hall:

Thirteen major-leaguers, less than half a player per team, that's the number expected to become Hall of Famers, none of whom debuted past age 25.

Where have all the Hoyt Wilhelm's gone?