That Magic Age

I remember reading somewhere that the magic age for baseball players is 27 years old. So I decided to test out that theory.

I recorded the ages of all the ages of the MVP winners under the assumption that winning the MVP award is the equivalent of having a career year. I took the age as the age at which the player spent the longest time in the season playing at that age. For example, if a player was born in August 1972, won the award in 2002, then he would be on the graph as 29. I used January-June and July-December as cutoffs, meaning that, if a player turned 34 in July, he would be recorded as 33. At the suggestion of my friend, I took two graphs. One looks at the ages of every MVP winner ever. The other takes a more recent look, from 1980 onward.

A few brief notes about this. For multiple winners, like Yogi Berra, I recorded every age at which he won the MVP award. I also included the strike-shortened 1994 season, as well as players who are of a less than reputable reputation regarding the steroids era, such as Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa. See if you can guess which one is the outlier at age 39. (Hint: He's a lefty with a noodle arm.)
The mode of the graph is at 27. The bell curve goes from 25-30. The average of 25 and 30 is 27.5. So, based on history, it is not inconceivable that players perform better at or around age 27. Before we say anything definitive, let's take a more recent look, as it should be a little more relevant to today's discussion.

And now, for the 1980-Present Age.


As you can see, the curve at 27 is much more pronounced here, and it is easy to see why people would say that age 27 is an age where players perform their best. In fact, the three highest occurrences are at 26, 27, and 28.

There is the evidence; I leave the interpretation up to you.

Thanks to Sean for helping get the JPEGs. All images belong to me. Please ask before using them.

Update: "I just turned 25 and I feel like I have the prime of my career ahead of me," Francoeur said. "Most guys don't hit their peak until they're 27 or 28. I feel confident that I'm going to come back, do what I need to do and help this team win, because I know I'm a big part of it."

I know I heard it before reading it there. However, this mentality undoubtedly has an effect on the way a player performs: if a player thinks they will do better because of they are a certain age, then they probably will perform better.