I'm not sure if the decline was proof that he was older, but it is becoming clearer that Pujols is in fact older than his stated age. He's either lying about hitting a home run off of Octavio Dotel when he was a kid, or he hit a home run off of a teenager over 6 years older than him. Or he's currently about 41 years old, which would align pretty well with his performance curve.vinsanity wrote:Weren't you stating that "decline" was proof he was older than he claimed?33anda3rd wrote:The numbers don't lie, haltz. I was saying in 2012 that the decline had begun and people were arguing with me that it had not. Go look on fangraphs today and tell me when the decline began.
That's part of why I'm the GRB Resident Expert On Aging Curves Among Pro Jocks.
According to Fangraphs 6+ wins is MVP caliber season. I have a little trouble saying going from first to second to fifth in WAR is a "decline" and not random variance in performance. Using three year cherry picked windows of peak performance that happen to have a linear trend doesn't prove a decline. Otherwise you'd have to say he was in decline from 2003-2005 when his WAR went from 9.5, 7.8, 7.7.
I think everyone agreed by by 2012 everyone had agreed 31 year old Albert Pujols was on the wrong side of his peak but I also think the drama of his move, injury and new team/league compounded it early so that by time he came back in 2014 his power and his batting eye were fairly pedestrian.
What's your Harper Hunch?
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Re: What's your Harper Hunch?
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Re: What's your Harper Hunch?
I didn't make that claim and that claim was not part of my research on Pujols' career arc up to that time and projected forward. I took all the "Great Hitters" who met a certain criteria that Pujols could be lumped with, guys like Mantle, Bonds, the top X number of hitters prior to age 30 in history, and created an average age curve of that population (something that had not been done before), then comped that to the arc of the average player then said "this is where we should expect Pujols to go." I think I said toward the end, after hours and thousands of words spent debating the topic "...and that's if he's as old as he says he is" but that Pujols was fudging his age was never a thing I took to be more than a rumor and it didn't impact my thinking.vinsanity wrote:Weren't you stating that "decline" was proof he was older than he claimed?
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Re: What's your Harper Hunch?
Fast forward 7 years and it looks like all the GMs have seen that aging curve now which has led to the salary suppression aging players face which will undoubtedly lead to a strike in a few years as the CBA is re-negotiated. Thanks a lot, 33. You killed baseball.33anda3rd wrote:I took all the "Great Hitters" who met a certain criteria that Pujols could be lumped with, guys like Mantle, Bonds, the top X number of hitters prior to age 30 in history, and created an average age curve of that population (something that had not been done before), then comped that to the arc of the average player then said "this is where we should expect Pujols to go."
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Re: What's your Harper Hunch?
It had never been done before.
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Re: What's your Harper Hunch?
33 is the Captain Kirk of GRB...Boldly going where no one had gone before!MAGA wrote:It had never been done before.
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Re: What's your Harper Hunch?
Correct. There were pretenders to my throne like cpebbles and that guy who claimed to work for the Red Sox but I am the Resident GRB Expert On Aging Curves.wart57 wrote:33 is the Captain Kirk of GRB...Boldly going where no one had gone before!MAGA wrote:It had never been done before.
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Re: What's your Harper Hunch?
33anda3rd wrote:Correct. There were pretenders to my throne like cpebbles and that guy who claimed to work for the Red Sox but I am the Resident GRB Expert On Aging Curves.wart57 wrote:33 is the Captain Kirk of GRB...Boldly going where no one had gone before!MAGA wrote:It had never been done before.
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Re: What's your Harper Hunch?
The aging curve on this thread is definitely showing some decline
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Re: What's your Harper Hunch?
has there been any news at all in the last few weeks? seems super quiet.
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Re: What's your Harper Hunch?
Phillies sending folks, including their owner, to Vegas to chat with Harper this Saturday. Maybe that'll kickstart this thing.