Has Billy Butler Reached His Offensive Peak?

by Jeff Zimmerman on Jun 1, 2011 8:30 AM EDT

Yesterday, I posted an article on the background and implementation of position player aging curves. I have extended that work to create a hitting aging curve for players similar to Billy Butler. The results generally surprised me.

Billy is a rather unique player that he hits for high average, high power (home runs and doubles) and has zero speed at an early age. To create the curve I needed to find some similar players. Also, I didn't really care about his defense and positional adjustment since these values are already set since he is primarily a DH. I decided I would look at players with the following attributes:

<= 25 years old: Young
<= 5SB: Slow
>=0.290 AVG: Hits for decent average
2B >= 40 and HR >= 10: Hits for power, especially doubles

With this criteria, I got 22 players that matched the description: Sean Casey, Dmitri Young, Geoff Jenkins, Jose Vidro, Jermaine Dye, John Olerud, Albert Pujols, Ivan Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira, Vernon Wells, Miguel Cabrera, Delmon Young, Robinson Cano, Stephen Drew, Brian McCann, Pablo Sandoval, Aaron Hill, Adam Lind, Kent Hrbek, Don Mattingly, Cal Ripken and Billy Butler.

Looking at the most similar players at baseball-reference.com through the same age (which will generally only look at the same position), some the names are the same:

John Olerud (954), Kent Hrbek (942), Nick Markakis (922), Chet Lemon (915), Carlos May (912), Delmon Young (912), Carl Yastrzemski (911), Ellis Valentine (910), Tony Horton (910) and Keith Hernandez (909)

As a whole, a decent group of players.

One problem I have with aging curves is that they are generally a little rough unless I have about 50 samples in my query. I decided to loosen the criteria a bit, (AVG down to 0.280 and 2B down to 30) and got 65 total players. Using these 2 groups of players, here is the aging curve for the 22 similar players, the 65 similar players and the overall population:

Note: The peak for the 2 groups of similar players in higher than the general population. This difference should not be a surprise because if a player is hitting over 0.280 with at least 30 doubles, they are going to be a fairly productive player.

The main point to get from this data is that the hitting aspect from this type of player generally peaks at age 28 vice 25 like the general population. Billy is currently 25 years old, so his hitting should not begin to decline for another 3 years. The Royals seemed to have him locked up over his prime hitting years.

Different types of players age at different rates. Billy's type of hitter (slow and good) historically age better than the average player. Since he has not reach his offensive peak, it should be taken into consideration when looking at his future value.

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Comments

Good work

I think John Olerud is a good comparison (bat-wise) and I would be very happy if Billy had a career similar to his.

by Connor Moylan on Jun 1, 2011 10:07 AM EDT reply actions

There was some comments in the BtB article for the curve to have its max at 0. Here is that curve:

- .-. ..- … – / – …. . / .—. .-. - .. . … …

by Jeff Zimmerman on Jun 1, 2011 10:19 AM EDT reply actions

Good work

Makes me more solid in my already solid opinion that Billy is a keeper. He’s going to improve between now and 2015. Other AL teams have shitty 34-year-old DHs that they have to platoon and that OPS under 800. Billy is dependable (though his power is temporarily down; that shouldn’t be a long-term problem, and he’s still got upside in three of five tools: hitting for average, hitting for power, and fielding first base).

I harp on the idea that he should play first once or twice a week, when we’re sending out flyball pitchers like Luke, to keep his skills sharp. He was adequate defensively last year at 1B.

His decline will likely begin early, a couple of years after he leaves the Röyals.

"They may make cool judgements after the fact
But the name of the game is be hit and hit back" --Warren Zevon

by Juancho on Jun 1, 2011 10:51 AM EDT reply actions

but that will be the Yankee's problem, not ours

"Things could always be worse." - Buddy Bell

by buddyball on Jun 1, 2011 3:13 PM EDT up reply actions

Great work

That contract Billy signed looks better and better.

Just out of curiosity, what types of players age worse than the typical curve? It seems like every type you’ve pulled out, both here and at the BTBS post yesterday, have comparable or better aging curves than the overall sample.

by KSinDC on Jun 1, 2011 12:30 PM EDT reply actions

Has to be the guys who don't make the cutoffs in PA's and everything else,

the MLB regular/just above replacement population.

Glad I came, just wish I hadn't stayed so long.
Rock Chalk Talk

by Warden11 on Jun 1, 2011 12:44 PM EDT up reply actions

Right, but I mean by skill profile

Jeff’s work showed that fast players and (contrary to what Bill James found) young guys with old player skills have better aging curves than the overall body. Even players with poor plate discipline fared no worse. There’s got to be some group that’s well below the mean to offset these groups above, but I’m not sure what it is.

by KSinDC on Jun 1, 2011 1:28 PM EDT up reply actions

Unless I missed it, everybody is included in the average.

It’d include all of those that aren’t good enough to even be labeled with a profile, that population would be much higher than the ones Jeff’s pulling out. Even this group of players is only 65 with his loosened criteria, that’s a pretty select group.

Glad I came, just wish I hadn't stayed so long.
Rock Chalk Talk

by Warden11 on Jun 1, 2011 1:53 PM EDT up reply actions

I'm mainly referring to the groups in his BTBS profile

I was particularly surprised that players with poor plate discipline (walk rate <5%, K rate >20%) fared no worse than typical. I know for that group he set a cut off of 200 PAs, but that’s such a low number that I can’t imagine it’s excluding too many people considering you have to play 2 years in order to be included in the overall study

by KSinDC on Jun 1, 2011 2:00 PM EDT up reply actions