Ummm, where's Albert Pujols? He was only 27 years old in 2007 and was 6th in the NL with 132 Runs Created. That was his worst showing since 2002.

(Yes, yes, make all the age jokes you want. He's innocent until proven guilty.)

Seems to be enough of an oversight to make reading the book a waste of time.

Holy ####--Jamie Shields (D-Rays) had a great season, and I've never heard of him. Have I been living under a rock, or has he flown under the MSM's radar?

Ummm, where's Albert Pujols? He was only 27 years old in 2007 and was 6th in the NL with 132 Runs Created. That was his worst showing since 2002.

BJ did this list off one of his crazy metrics. It was next to impossible to make it on this list and be of an age near 30. Part of the metric is how close one is to age 33. Which is why virtually all of the hitters are below the age of 25, except for Granderson and Gonzalez.

I'm skeptical, but how did he (Pujols) not make the blogger's Honorable Mention list? Texiera had 25 fewer RC than Pujols (which doesn't account for AP's defense), and both are the same age.

Ask anyone with a pulse (or without a pulse for that matter), and they'd pick AP over Tex.

AP even has a cooler last name.

where's Robinson Cano?
[here I should cut and paste you-all-know-what....]

so bill james' new statistic list from some formula does not list albert pujols as one of the top 25 players under 30

something wrong here. on exactly what planet is granderson a better baseball player then pujols???

i would guess that a "sabermetric" list that leaves out pujols as one of the top HITTERS (let alone players) under 30 is one of the things that makes the "old timers" disrespect sabermetrics.

and it is one of the things that makes me dislike bill james

Holy ####--Jamie Shields (D-Rays) had a great season, and I've never heard of him. Have I been living under a rock, or has he flown under the MSM's radar?

Flown under the MSM's radar. He came out of nowhere in 2005 even to Rays prospect watchers to put up a superb season at AA and in the AFL, then had a solid rookie season last year. Fastball 90-92, solid curveball, one of the best changeups in the majors, and superb control.

so bill james' new statistic list from some formula does not list albert pujols as one of the top 25 players under 30

That's NOT what this is meant to represent. It's not just a list that takes everyone who is eligible because they are under 30 years old and treats them equally once they are eligible and then ranks them from 1-25 based on their ability/quality.

The ranking is based on a combination of ability + youth. Being older not only moves you closer to being ineligible to even be on the list; it also hurts your ranking. It's similar, in form, to James's power/speed number: to rank high, you have to be good in BOTH power and speed. A guy with 30 steals and 30 homers does better than someone with 70 homers and 10 steals. For this list, you have to be BOTH young and really good. Pujols is penalized because he's relatively old.

What James is trying to capture here, I suppose, is who are the best truly young talents, for purposes of informing our thinking about which players have established (already) the most value from which they are likely to provide great performance between now and the time they reach the onset of their genuine, predictable decline phase. That's an age that varies, certainly, but by age 33, it's pretty predictable that most players will be coming out of their prime years. Pujols has considerably fewer years left in that period than most of the guys on this list, and you could at least argue enough fewer that between now and the time he hits 33, he will provide less thrills, chills, and value than the others will before THEY hit 33. Only because they have so much more time in that space, mind you.

Remember the premise the essay starts with: there is a ton, perhaps unprecedented, of YOUNG talent exploding into the game. If that's the premise you are trying to illustrate, I think it's reasonable to do so with a list of players that doesn't really include Prince Albert. He's the established royalty -- not the next generation of young talent.

sam,

then he should make it players under 25, not 30. i disagree with you that a list that penalizes for how close you are to 30 is valid at ALL. suppose some guy came up at age 28 (say he was OOB for years) and pitched this year and last like maddux 95/pedro 99. he WOULD be THE top pitcher under 30. next year got absolutely nothing to do with who ARE the top players under 30.

AND james cannot KNOW whether or not albert will agree to go therough the proper decline at the correct time like a good little ballplayer supposed to.

i disagree with you that a list that penalizes for how close you are to 30 is valid at ALL.

Why? James isn't trying to rank them purely on ability, in which case of course factoring age into the equation would be nonsense. He's ranking them based on their status as being the best young talent in the game, trying to show who are the elite, brilliant young stars who support his claim that there is an unprecedented infusion of kids in baseball right now. The older a player is, the less he really fits . . . but it's not like he doesn't at all if he's 26 or 27. It's just that he becomes less a good fit. So James -- I think quite reasonably -- just gives weight to both ability and youth in some measure, favoring younger over older and better over worse.

This list just isn't trying to say who is the "top player under 30." It reflects who are the talents who can be expected to make the largest contributions between now and the time we'd expect them to run through their primes, essentially. Because a kid in his early 20s has more time to contribute than a player in his late 20s, and has a lot of value -- even if on a per year basis a 27 or 28 year old might be better.

You want a list of the best players under 30? Make one! ;-)

in practical terms, if you wanna lock somebody up for 8-10 yrs, the difference btw proven star at 24 and proven star at 25 is huge--you're getting ages 25-27 instead of 35-37--the way to make James's ranking make sense is to ask: who would you rather have the next 10 yrs of?

If GG defense and a 157 OPS+ can't get you on this list at age 27, the perimeters are such that players 27 and older are going to almost always be excluded. You might as well just make it "... under 27 years old"

I understand what Sam is getting at, but I do think age is being overvalued here to the point where a small age difference outweighs a large performance difference. Tom Gorzelanny over C.C. Sabathia and Brandon Webb because he's 24 instead of 26?? I could maybe see it if it was 19 vs. 21 or something... but is 24 vs. 26 that big a deal, when you're talking about that big a difference in performance? I certainly don't think so. (Especially for pitchers.)

Also, what about that thing we call defense?? To say that Prince Fielder is the best property in baseball simply because he created the most runs of any young guy seems ignorant, frankly. Did James consider the simple fact that the man plays 1B, and badly, I might add?

And what about the things we know about aging patterns? Does James seriously think Fielder projects to have more productive seasons in him than Grady Sizemore, based solely on the fact that he's a year younger??

I probably shouldn't take this too seriously because James surely knows it's a "fun toy" type of stat, but, man! It just comes off dippy. Save it for the real <u>Baseball Digest</u>, IMO. They love this type of stuff.

I feel like the main criticism that people have here is that Bill James mis-titled his list. And to that, I say, "whatevs". He says, "I am making a list with these criteria," and then gives you the list. And people say, "You can't make a list with those criteria!" What? That doesn't make any sense.

That said, I agree with #12 that this list does appear to be overvaluing age to some degree. It seems legitimate to me to take issue with how well the criteria shake out, but stupid to declare the list invalid because you don't like the criteria.

Here's a list:


1. Uranus
2. My dad's Corolla from 1992
3. Douglas Fir trees
4. My living room walls


My list is titled, "Things which are green." This is a legitimate list. If you said, "This list sucks because it doesn't include Lake Michigan", you'd be missing the point.

And now, having gone through that thought experiment, gotten distracted, and watched ten minutes of "Phil of the Future", I've forgotten what I was talking about. I'm going to post it anyway.

Chris Young (DBacks) is on the list, but Cano isn't? The one year difference in age is THAT important?

Also, how the hell is Russell Martin not on that list?

I'd agree age is probably overvalued in the balance, or at least that relatively small age differences are. What I think is definitely valuable, though, is to try and identify who are the truly great (and the best of the great) young players, and including in the criteria points for those who are actually the youngest is a valid way to do that.

What I don't think James has done here that I would like to see is to compare this list to a similar list from other eras. After all, the major point of the thing was to highlight his argument that "there is more outstanding young talent around right now than at any other moment in baseball history." Listing all the good players we have now is great -- showing that they are better than the ones we've had before would be better.

So what's the big distinction between Cabrera and Fielder?

Also, these are funny:

Star players who are 28, or even 27 years old, are nowhere to be found.

On the pitching side, Oakland's Dan Haren gets penalized because he's 27 and John Lackey, Chris Young, and Erik Bedard because they're 28.

Brandon Webb was born in May of '79 and somehow made it. Johan Santana was born two months earlier and didn't make the cut.

So what's the big distinction between Cabrera and Fielder?

Cabrera is a comedy at third base. Fielder would be a tragedy.

Cabrera is a comedy at third base. Fielder would be a tragedy.

Shakespeare's birthday is celebrated during baseball season - How's about MLB set aside those day's games for just that sort of comedy? No impact on the W/L column. Fielder at short, Randy Johnson catching, David Ortiz in center . . .

I feel like the main criticism that people have here is that Bill James mis-titled his list. And to that, I say, "whatevs". He says, "I am making a list with these criteria," and then gives you the list. And people say, "You can't make a list with those criteria!" What? That doesn't make any sense.

Well, OK. But by those criteria, it's about as useful as a list of guys who hit 25-30 HR, 30-33 2B, had 16-18 steals add those three numbers up and then multiply by their range factor divided by league average range factor, then rank them. I suppose I could compile such a list and people would look at it and (rightly) say "so?"

OK, James' list is probably more useful than that one but as #11 put it:

If GG defense and a 157 OPS+ can't get you on this list at age 27, the perimeters are such that players 27 and older are going to almost always be excluded. You might as well just make it "... under 27 years old"

except I'll note this was a "down" year for Pujols. (OH NO, HE'S IN DECLINE!!!)

Barring Lou Gehrig's disease or WW3, I will take Pujols over any other player over the next 10 years. I think I might take him over two Grandersons.

Of Pujols' 8 retired comps at b-r, they averaged 9 seasons, about 130 games a season, with an OPS+ of 155. Take out Hal Trosky ...

For cyring out loud, the man is in Aaron/Robinson/Foxx territory. Does anyone really think he's going to "fade" anytime soon?

For cyring out loud, the man is in Aaron/Robinson/Foxx territory. Does anyone really think he's going to "fade" anytime soon?

Hal Trosky did!

And no. No I don't.

Sam:

What James is trying to capture here, I suppose, is who are the best truly young talents, for purposes of informing our thinking about which players have established (already) the most value from which they are likely to provide great performance between now and the time they reach the onset of their genuine, predictable decline phase. That's an age that varies, certainly, but by age 33, it's pretty predictable that most players will be coming out of their prime years. Pujols has considerably fewer years left in that period than most of the guys on this list, and you could at least argue enough fewer that between now and the time he hits 33, he will provide less thrills, chills, and value than the others will before THEY hit 33. Only because they have so much more time in that space, mind you.

Walt beat me to it, but here's my bottom line:

Pujols will be more productive (create more runs, whatever metric you want to use) between now and age 33 than damn near every guy on that list. Adrian Gonzalez is two years younger than Albert, but I'm pretty sure that: (a) 45 more RC per year will make up for the 2-year age difference, and (b) Pujols proven record should be an indicator that he's not a one-year wonder.

If this article had been published 12 years ago, would Pat Listach and Bob Hamelin have made the cut?

For cyring out loud, the man is in Aaron/Robinson/Foxx territory. Does anyone really think he's going to "fade" anytime soon?

Hal Trosky did!

That's because he ran afoul of this guy.