Progression
The home page carries the shape of this in a thumbnail. Here it is at full size, and twice over: aligned by birthday, and aligned by how much baseball a hitter had already played. Those two views disagree about Alonso, and the disagreement is the argument.
The comparison
- Lasted (Cruz, Ortiz, Konerko, Thomas and 3 more)
- Collapsed (Howard, Davis, Abreu and 4 more)
- Alonso (actual)
The red group was already bending down by 31. Alonso’s line bent up. Ages 24 to 29 are drawn from only part of the sample and are shown provisionally.
Long dashes on a group line mean the composite is drawn from only part of its sample, which flatters it. Dots and a hollow marker on Alonso's line mean that season is still in progress. The two are unrelated: a completed season of his reads as settled even where the group lines beside it are skewed.
The two group lines are illustrative estimates from a small comp study. Alonso's is actual. An open circle marks where a line stops because its data runs out, not because the hitter did.
The collapsed line stops at 36 and the lasted line at 37, because past those ages the remaining sample is too small to composite. A line ending is the sample running out, not a player falling off a cliff.
Aligned by MLB mileage rather than birthday. The collapsed group broke down in career seasons 7 to 9 regardless of when they debuted. Alonso posted two of his four best seasons in career years 7 and 8.
Long dashes on a group line mean the composite is drawn from only part of its sample, which flatters it. Dots and a hollow marker on Alonso's line mean that season is still in progress. The two are unrelated: a completed season of his reads as settled even where the group lines beside it are skewed.
The two group lines are illustrative estimates from a small comp study. Alonso's is actual. An open circle marks where a line stops because its data runs out, not because the hitter did.
Both lines stop at season 10 for the same reason: not enough of the sample played that long to composite fairly.
Alonso reaches 31 with eight seasons and more than a thousand games of wear, which is more than the late bloomers carried at the same age. He also just posted two of his four best seasons in career years 7 and 8, which is the opposite of the collapsed group’s pattern.
What these terms mean
- wRC+
- Offense measured against the rest of the league, where 100 is exactly average and 141 means 41 percent better than average. Adjusted for ballpark and era, so it compares hitters across both.
The formulas behind them are on The Formulas.
Show the data as tables
| Calendar age | Lasted | Collapsed | Alonso | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 | 120 | 115 | 143 | partial group sample |
| 25 | 126 | 122 | 118 | partial group sample |
| 26 | 132 | 128 | 133 | partial group sample |
| 27 | 138 | 130 | 143 | partial group sample |
| 28 | 140 | 131 | 120 | partial group sample |
| 29 | 141 | 130 | 121 | partial group sample |
| 30 | 142 | 128 | 141 | |
| 31 | 140 | 116 | 143 | partial season |
| 32 | 137 | 100 | not yet played | |
| 33 | 140 | 92 | not yet played | |
| 34 | 133 | 84 | not yet played | |
| 35 | 128 | 72 | not yet played | |
| 36 | 124 | 60 | not yet played | |
| 37 | 112 | no sample | not yet played |
The collapsed line stops at 36 and the lasted line at 37, because past those ages the remaining sample is too small to composite. A line ending is the sample running out, not a player falling off a cliff.
| Career season | Lasted | Collapsed | Alonso | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 118 | 122 | 143 | |
| 2 | 124 | 130 | 118 | |
| 3 | 130 | 134 | 133 | |
| 4 | 135 | 132 | 143 | |
| 5 | 139 | 126 | 120 | |
| 6 | 141 | 116 | 121 | |
| 7 | 139 | 104 | 141 | |
| 8 | 137 | 92 | 143 | partial season |
| 9 | 134 | 78 | not yet played | |
| 10 | 130 | 64 | not yet played |
Both lines stop at season 10 for the same reason: not enough of the sample played that long to composite fairly.
Where he sits between those two curves is not just illustration. It is one of the two evidence terms that move the scenario odds on The Contract, and the reasoning is on The Formulas.
Signal by signal, over time
Not yet. The log holds 1 snapshot, taken , and a per-signal line needs at least 3 before it shows movement rather than a dot. A single point drawn as a line would imply a trend nobody has observed, which is the sort of thing this site exists to catch. These appear on their own as the log grows.
The current reading is on the verdict, and what separated the two groups is on the evidence.