When will Nelson Cruz age out of his skill set?
We reveal the age at which to be scared ...

 

Nelson Cruz is signed for four years:  Age-34, 35, 36 and 37.

We do a deep scan of the aging profiles of four good comparable hitters:

  • Jeromy Burnitz
  • Reggie Sanders
  • Jermaine Dye
  • Alfonso Soriano

There are quite a few common threads, and one big Danger Zone.

Comments

1

Z structured it exactly right....apparently.  Based on those four comps, anyway.
Great stuff, Spec.
Basically I had figured Cruz was toast in the final year of the contract anyway, with 2 of the previous three years being Cruz-like.  Meaning we needed to get his full value out in 2-2.5 years, in my mind anyway.
Your post gives more room for hope at the end of the contract.
75 homers for the next three years, without a Gorman Thomas batting average, earns his paycheck.
85 homers means we've got some gravy, too.
90+?  Oh, can we dare to dream?
moe
 
 

2
Taro's picture

Good stuff Spec. Cruz turns 35 on July 1st so hes slightly older than those comps, but that's difficult to factor. It seems as a general pattern we saw only a small loss in power and roughly 20 points loss in BABIP ability as they hit their mid-to-late 30s. That would put Cruz at .250/.310/.480 ish if he can maintain career ISOs and lose only 20 BABIP with age and Safeco. That is pretty much the line I expected regressed for Safeco. He needs to sustain the 230 ISOs (career average) in order to stay at that line though, he goes to around 200 and he gets closer to a mid 400s SLG which kills his value. He gets any lower than true talent .280 BABIP and that hurts him as well since it zaps his OBP. Overall, I'm pretty comfortable for his 2015 and nervous beyond that as turns 36 during the 2016 season.

3

How many of those guys played as DH's though? Maybe that will help extend Cruz's Abilities by avoiding nagging age related injuries. On the other hand many of those comps may have been on steroids.

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