Carey: The worst seasons by a Hall of Fame position player, by age
From SABR member Ross Carey at Replacement Level Podcast on July 21, 2015:
A lot of time is spent, rightfully so, on the greatness of Hall of Fame players. When you look at the greatest individual seasons ever produced almost all of them are by players who eventually made the Hall of Fame and Barry Bonds. I wondered though how many Hall of Famers had at one point during their career a season so bad they finished with a WAR of zero or below. More specifically how often that happened by age groups. Going into this I expected there would be a handful of such seasons before a player turned 23 and a bunch after a player turned 37 but not many in the middle. Here’s what I found.
The first chart represents the future Hall of Fame position players who produced a season with negative or no value (using Baseball-Reference‘s WAR) through their age 23 season. I set the minimum number of plate appearances at 300.
Read the full article here: http://www.replacementlevelpodcast.com/2015/07/21/the-worst-seasons-by-a-hall-of-fame-position-player-by-age/
Originally published: July 23, 2015. Last Updated: July 23, 2015.