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Spectator sez that Nelson Cruz reminds his seismo gear of Reggie Sanders.  The Labs sign off on this cheery idea.  Sanders "crushed his age 34 to 37 seasons," sez Jim, so Cruz' contract runs out at precisely the right time.  Good thing.  We wouldn't want the M's suits having to put bricks into their toilet tanks to save on water.  Times are tight all around.

Reggie Sanders was a right-hand hitter who batted .265ish, drew 60 walks and fanned 140 times per year, and slugged .500ish.  In other words, he couldn't have been more different from Nelson Cruz.

He wasn't as naturally big and strong as Nelson Cruz, not by a long shot, and wasn't as unnaturally strong, either.  Interestingly, Sanders' #2 career comp was Jermaine Dye, also on Spec's list.  

An Irritating Truth for Angels' fans:  Sanders slugged .567 at age 35, and then .546 at age 37.  There are a couple of hundred ML batters in this category, extra-talented guys who figured out their swings and the game, and were at their best in their 30's.  A few have played in Seattle, such as Rauuuul and Edgar.

Spec is getting scary good at this stuff; why he doesn't go do the Fangraphs circuit is beyond me.  But here are 9 complementary paradigms on the age-arc question of, "Will Nelson Cruz detonate enemy pitching next year, or will he simply detonate?"

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Jay Buhner sez that Nelson Cruz reminds him of the smell of rubbing alcohol and the hands of 58-year-old massage therapists.  

Jay's wiry-rope body collapsed at age 33, as did the bodies of a great many blocky right hand batters like Cruz and Buhner.  For a mini-list of 10 such players who cratered about age 34, see the first 10 players on Nelson Cruz' b-ref comps list .  Namely, Phil Nevin, Marty Cordova, Josh Willingham and Josh's own comps list.

As a general rule, SSI does not care for football players going into their mid-30's.

The biggest problem with "linebacker" cleanup hitters is the joints and hammies, not the ability to handle a 32-ounce bat like a willow switch.  Like Dr. Grumpy points out, the DH position helps with that.  Worked for The Edgar.  

That said, my own reservations would be how the body holds up.  We don't say that Nelson Cruz is a HOF'er.  We just been saying that he's a 100 RBI man.  We been right, dawg.

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BaseballHQ's paradigm is not HR-and-EYE, and not medical; it's Jamesian, tracking "component" skills across the last four years, searching for a direction up or down, and things in the stats that are out of alignment.  By a happy coinkydink, this is one of Dr. D's favorite oscilloscopes also.

Shandler sez that the 4-year trendlines underneath Cruz' production -- his xPX, EYE, flyball rate, RC/game, etc -- are as placid as Ichiro's heart rate.  "Won't hit 40 again, but should continue to be a stable power source."

That's goin' out on a limb, baby:  "Won't lead the majors in homers twice in a row."  In related predictions, Marshawn Lynch won't "run for his freedom" 79 yards into a NesTea Splash this week against the Rams.

Frank Thomas was a RH hitter with a football body, zero backswing, that I feared for at age 33-34.  How right I was.  He was down to his last 5 MVP seasons.

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Ballpark adjustments say that Nelson Cruz is about to become the Orcs' worst nightmare.  We heard for several years that Cruz was a product of Texas' park, and that his natural slash line (.265/.330/.500) was really only equivalent to about a 115 OPS+.

This sounded fishy to Dr. D, who had actually watched Nelson Cruz swing pieces of lumber at flying objects headed in his direction.  Cruz hit 27 homers in 2013 in 108 games, this projected to 41 homers, and Dr.D overlaid these homers onto Safeco.  None disappeared.  And this of course convinced exactly nobody.  Sensible lads!

Sure enough, when Cruz ran away from the border, the theoretical OPS+ penalties simply vanished in a puff of smoke.  Much like Dr. D's savings when he "exploited" the real estate market a few years back.

So you removed the ballpark "penalties," and you left Cruz with a 140 OPS+.  Perhaps his real ability is more like 140 than like 115?

Maybe you've been reading carefully, and you tagged into the idea that Cruz has hit 40 homers the last two seasons.  Pro-rated.  He does it three times in a row?, like the title, and Felix wins 34 games.

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Whereupon Bill James sez -- the hypothetical James living in Dr. D's amygdala - that Cruz is in good shape.  "All players are ski'ing down a slope.  Their decline simply depends on how high they are on the slope."

If Cruz is more like a 140'ish hitter than a 115'ish hitter... well.  Figure on a good age-39 season.

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WAR mathematics, to be fair, predict that the Mariners won't get their dollar's worth out of Nelson Cruz.  This is certainly possible, not that the M's would then need to toilet train their cats to save on kitty litter.

It was also certainly possible that WAR mathematics were going to be right about David Ortiz, when sabertistas stuck the Red Sox on a skewer and roasted them over the River Styx about his contract.  In 2007.  

Dr. D likes WAR.  WAR is a friend of his.  But WAR is a poor substitute for coherent human judgment.  Like we sez at the Mainframe a coupla days ago, projection systems pretty much just "regress" everybody in a 1-size-fits-all shtick ("regress" them to mediocrity, and to decline) and therefore only get about 30% of the "true" forecast.

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Aiki mechanics see a football player with a crazy-compact path to the zone, with virtually no hitch or load, easy upper-deck power, and easy reach to high and low parts of the strike zone.  See these two HR's embedded in a fun Sullivan article.  

The second one, the grand slam that the LF tracked well until he lost it in an overhead cloud, was a fastball above the letters.  The first one is on a Felix jam pitch.  In technical baseball terms, that's called "Barry Bondsing" it.

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The funny milkshakes see Miguel Cabrera, David Ortiz, Bartolo Colon, and a bunch of edgy med studies that show benefits to 'roid ragers for years after they stop using.  That in combo with the move to DH don't hurt none.

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Human language sez that Cruz is okay by it.  Bill James pointed out that baseball statistics are unique in that they are -- sabertistas' whining notwithstanding -- a unique and distinct language.

• 20 Wins = Opening Day Ace
• .300 Hitter = Wizard with the Willow
• 100 RBI = Cleanup Hitter
• 30 Homers = Scary Power
• 40 SB's = Leadoff hitter

What do forty homers say?  Supposing Dr. D finally confessed that he's a time traveler, that this is why he's always right on pitchers ... and that your son would one day hit 40 homers in the American League?

You'd naturally respond, "yeah, but what's his UZR gonna be."

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The HBDI-style overview, as Biology Rick puts it?  Some baseball players are at their best in their 30's, like Edgar was.  Cruz may have been a bit camouflaged by a late promotion, by missed time and (ironically) by people assuming that Texas helped him.

The key element in the "Nelson Cruz age-arc" chess position, the one that transcends the others:  do you think he's more like a 135 hitter, or more like a 115 hitter?  You answer your own question as to his age-37 season.

In either case, he ain't Edgar, but he's a legit cleanup hitter, the first since Edgar.  For Part II, see the D-O-V mainframe.

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BABVA,

Dr D