Taking a probabilistic approach to aging.
The terrible thing about growing old in 2018 is that everyone else talks more like Lenin and I just look more like him. It’s a Saturday in mid-April, and stinging rain pelts the retractable roof of Safeco Field, and the summer is almost over. I am sick, and amongst the youthful chatter, I feel terribly…
This is my first Opening Day without my dad. Not that Opening Day had been a ritual for us, or that it holds any particularly special meaning beyond our shared love of baseball. But my dad and I did share many of these ceremonial beginnings, mostly of the amateur kind as he coached my Little…
You wake up one morning and everything is fine. Your room looks the same as it did when you went to sleep. Nothing has been disturbed or altered. You didn’t have the nightmares last night. There are no demons in this room. You feel okay. You get out of bed and open the curtain. It…
The Hazard Ratio and Robinson Cano.
Ben and Sam discuss Mike Trout’s chances of becoming the best player ever, then talk about how the Phillies’ Chase Utley extension will work out.
And why we find it so difficult to remember how quickly the end can come for professional athletes.
How old does a player have to be before we should stop expecting him to improve?
Alex Rodriguez had an extraordinary prime, but he’s aging much more like an average player, and that’s not good news for the Yankees.
After looking like he was on his last legs in 2009 and again in 2010, David Ortiz has returned to near-peak form. How did he do it?
Has Albert Pujols fallen off a cliff at age 32? If so, he’s an outlier among his rarified comps.
The defending NL East champs should gather their titles while they may, since the same Phillies that flower today tomorrow will be dying.
Was Mike Piazza one of the best defensive catchers ever? How does catcher defense age? What effect do managers have on their pitching staffs, and do former catchers really make the best skippers? And how good was Leo Mazzone, really?
Two AL West veterans are feeling the effects of age, but only one seems resigned to his fate.