MLB rumors and rumblings. Younger Players are More Productive
It’s fitting that younger players are getting more playing time recently because they’ve earned it. For most of the last 30 years, players 24 and under have rarely been more productive than players in the 25-29 and 30-34 range, but this is changing.
Players 24 and under have averaged more than 2.0 WAR per 600 plate appearances in each of the last three seasons (2.3, 2.4, and 2.0 WAR, to be exact). Before this stretch, they’d done this just twice in the previous 27 years. In fact, this group of players has been more productive than the age 25-29, 30-34, or 35 and older groups in two of the last three seasons.
More from Call to the Pen
- Philadelphia Phillies, ready for a stretch run, bomb St. Louis Cardinals
- Philadelphia Phillies: The 4 players on the franchise’s Mount Rushmore
- Boston Red Sox fans should be upset over Mookie Betts’ comment
- Analyzing the Boston Red Sox trade for Dave Henderson and Spike Owen
- 2023 MLB postseason likely to have a strange look without Yankees, Red Sox, Cardinals
These excellent young players 24 and under in the last few years include Jose Ramirez, Mookie Betts, Francisco Lindor, Kris Bryant and the dynamic duo of Bryce Harper and Mike Trout, both of whom had a season with nine or more WAR before they were 25 years old.
The historically great Trout has had three such seasons at a young age, along with two other seasons with 7.9 and 8.9 WAR. The last time players aged 24 and under were this good in a single season was 2007, when they averaged 2.3 WAR per 600 PA.
The top young players that year included David Wright, Grady Sizemore, and Jose Reyes. Unlike the current crop of young players, the 2007 group was an outlier. The WAR per 600 PA for players 24 and under dropped back down to 1.7 the following year. Younger players are getting more playing time and are more productive, while older players are fading out sooner than they have in the past.
Next: Rafael Palmeiro is making his MLB comeback, no for real
After diving into these MLB rumors and rumblings, players under 34 have almost always been better than players 35 and older, but this is truer recently than at any time in the last 30 years.