Photo Credit: Andy Kuno | SF Giants | Getty Photos
The notion of “prospects” is, of course, entirely artificial. It says nothing meaningful that Luis Matos was on one side of the prospect divide a year ago and is on the other side of it today. To him, and everyone around him, he’s just a young player trying to get better, trying to get to the point where he doesn’t have to worry about getting optioned back to the minors. And, to the Giants, he’s a player they’re hoping will establish himself as a regular part of the lineup, but, as of yet, is still in the “potential” bucket.
Now that we’ve put the Top 50 prospect list behind, I thought it was appropriate to dispense with this artificial divide for at least one post. Young talent is the coin of the realm in today’s baseball, and getting that talent to the big leagues quickly has become a priority across the industry. There are a lot of ways to illustrate the changing facts of playing time and value in the game, but here’s a graphic I found during the lockout, looking at the difference between production and earnings by age during the 2021 season:
As you can see in the above graph, three years ago, the most productive age for players in the majors was 26 followed by 28. That’s been broadly true the last two seasons as well. In 2023, the most value was had by 28-year-olds (80 fWAR), followed closely by 26 (72 fWAR) and 25-year-olds (68 fWAR). Once again, oddly, 27-year-olds showed a significant dip in value from their 26-year-old selves (37.5 fWAR).
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to There R Giants to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.