Seattle Sports Insider

Ackley next year: Age 26 with Experience

The Johnny Damon of the '10's?

Posted by

8/31/14

In baseball terms, Ackley is still developing: this was his age-25 season, and he was an NCAA player. Not benefitting from the rigors of long-season pro ball at ages 19 and 20. The issue of the metal vs wooden bats added to the consternation.

A recent Hey Bill:

....

Re Wally Joyner "not being an early peak sort of guy": His career highs in runs, RBI, home runs, OPS, OPS+, slugging percentage, total bases, and even walks and sacrifice flies all came in his second season. His second-highest homer and RBI totals and third-highest runs total came in his first season. His only MVP votes and only All-Star Game appearance came in those two seasons. His WAR totals by age, according to Baseball Reference: 3.1 at 24, 4.1 at 25, 3.2 at 26, 2.7 at 27, 2.0 at 28, 3.8 at 29, 1.3 at 30, 2.7 at 31, 1.4 at 32, 2.2 at 33, 2.8 at 34, 3.7 at 35, 2.0 at 36, 0.5 at 37, 0.2 at 38, -0.1 at 39. Seems like an early peak to me. Maybe an early peak and a late peak. By bWAR, he did not play at "more or less the level of his rookie year—usually a bit better" through age 36. I don't mean to disparage him. He was consistently good for a long time. But that doesn't look like a typical career progression to me, although I could be wrong and often am.

Asked by: stevemillburg

Answered: 8/28/2014

I don't think it is radically atypical, honestly. I think a lot of players have their best seasons in their second or third year up, and there is nothing all that notable about it.

(Later) I looked at the age and experience of prime seasons for players who had careers of 1800 to 2300 games; Joyner is in the middle of that range at 2,033 games. There are 151 players in the group.

Joyner had his best season (1987) at the age of 25. 42 of the 151 players in the group had their best seasons at ages 24 or earlier, and another 26 at the age of 25, so Joyner isn’t at all unusual in that respect. Claudell Washington had his best season at the age of 20, and six players at the age of 21 (Donie Bush, Greg Gross, Al Lopez, Stuffy McInnis, Cesar Cedeno and Bill Mazeroski. Second Greg Gross reference of the week; eat your heart out, ESPN.)

Anyway, Joyner had his best season in his second season in the major leagues, which is closer to being unusual, if not quite getting there. One of the 151 players, one had his best season in his first major league season (Junior Gilliam), and nine had their best seasons in their second major league seasons (Claudell, Donie, Greg Gross, Al Lopez, Chris Speier, Joe Tinker, Wally, Mark Gudzielanek, and Bing Miller.)

However, Joyner had no “cup of coffee” callup before his rookie season, as many players do. If you count the seasons by excluding the cups of coffee, there are 17 players who had their best seasons in their first or second major league seasons, as we add to the list Marty McManus, Lenny Harris, Mike Higgins, Stuffy McInnis, George Burns the leadoff man, Norm Cash, and Dusty Baker. Baker had four cups of coffee before his meal finally came.

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This was a reminder, to me, of something I'd forgotten: that the most common age for "breakouts" -- big plateau leaps -- is more like age 26 than age 23 or 24.

Next season will be Ackley's age-26 year, the John Benson bustout year. If he did jell halfway through his age-25 season, that wouldn't be late at all to do it.

Ackley finished June with a 7-game hitless streak, 0-for-20, and then exploded exactly on July 1 ::weird:: with three hits. He had three hits on July 2, also, and has gone 61-for-192 since (.318/.351/.521 with 'only' a .346 BABIP).

Most-comparable hitters? If you scale back his SLG to .475, but add a few BB (not tons; Ackley isn't scary like a Joey Votto), and remember that Ackley is playing in Safeco ... there really is nobody that I like as a good fit. Ackley has a weird swing, a weird talent and a weird skillset. Like Ichiro, he defies templates.

Lefty Michael Young with more power? Johnny Damon, at his very peak, used to hit .320 with fair walks and a .475 SLG.

Damon's bustout was at ages 25-26, easy All-Star both years ... he sank back a little bit, and then had a terrific ages 30-37. You could easily see the same path for Ack Attack.

Right now, Damon is the closest comp I can think of. He was a ferocious table-setter (#1 or #2 in the lineup) with dangerous power for a little guy.

........

I didn't realize that Ackley is under club control for 2015, 2016 ... and 2017?! That's what b-ref.com says. Seemed like 2011 was a year in Seattle, but ... apparently they held him out just long enough. Here's a case where that really meant something.

Blog:

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Comments

Damon......Maybe

Damon....if we don't have another Ackley collapse. He's had two of them you know. But he's had three real productive streaks, too.
But right now, he's OUR Damon. Don't know if it will last (this level of performance won't)...but it is a great comp right now.

Great comp

The comp to Damon makes a lot of sense to me. Even down to defense. Good with the glove, but a weak arm. Ackley's might be a *tad* better, but he's also in LF now instead of CF so maybe it's mitigated. Between the lines they look a lot alike. But between the ears? Probably couldn't find two more different players personality-wise than Ackley and Damon, haha.

Ackley would have to add

Ackley would have to add walks (OBP) and more SB's to his game in order for the comp to be really strong. It was these extra contributions that made Damon so valuable during his peak years.

What would we 'settle' for moving forward?

275/350/450? After all the peaks and valleys?
Or realistically is he a 300 hitter?
Dutton's hard hit ball reference was interesting.He's #30 in MLB so far this year.

Was thinking of the way they look in the batter's box

Right DaddyO.
As Gordon has emphasized, we'd expect Ackley's BB's to rise as he is recognized as more of a threat. He definitely can tell a ball from a strike.
He'll never have Damon's SB's -- probably will never be a prototypical leadoff guy -- but he could have more PWR and actually more HIT also.
Like we sez, Ackley defies a really compelling template...

A few months ago

A few months ago we all would have taken what Ackley's done since with alacrity. Visions of our original expectations, of his potential ceiling, have reappeared and dance like sugar-plums in our heads. Suddenly LF looks to be crossed off our list of needs.
Wasn't there a period when Andy Van Slyke was mentioned as a comp? I can't be sure, but a vague memory makes me think you had offered that up as a comp at one point. I just looked up Van Slyke's B-Ref page, and he had more BB and SB than Ackley as well, but bat-wise he seems a decent profile for Ackley to attain. But like Damon, Van Slyke brough CF'er skills to the game as well.
Yeah, Ackley hitting like this will result in more walks. We'll all take Johnny Damon / Andy Van Slyke with lesser defense and fewer walks and SB's.
Ackley's defense is puzzling to me. He sometimes just looks awkward, or at least not smooth, but he gets the job done just fine, and the metrics love him.