What is "Young"?

[bighat]

I think the term "young" is thrown around too loosely by Twins fans. People confuse "prospect" with "young" all too often.

Our prospects are NOT young.

Larnach and Kirilloff are pretty much the average age of an MLB ballplayer these days. Austin Martin too. And then we have Aaron Sabato, who I think like 35 years old now, if memory serves. 

Twins "prospects" are typically pretty late to arrive at the majors, compared to other teams. Other teams get guys like Harper and Acuna playing in The Show at 19 years old, meanwhile the Twins "youth movement" is a bunch of 26 year-olds who are almost out of options. 

And before you say "HARPER AND ACUNA ARE ONCE IN A LIFETIME TALENTS" - I was just using them as an example. My point is that the Twins tend to promote late. This either means that the young talent in the farm system isn't talented enough to force their hands, or they prefer to wait so they can feast of the player's most productive years without having to pay them big contract money. Or both. 

 

[ashbury]

The average age for major league batters in 2023 was 28. For pitchers it was 29.  This is from b-r.com and I assume they do it by weighting playing time.  If Prime was really 26-32 and Middle Age was 33-35, as stated by the OP, you might expect a higher average than seen.

Past these ages, front offices can see the handwriting on the wall and will be looking to have a younger replacement ready to go if there is the slightest indication Father Time is about to have his say.  Someone at age 30 could still be in his prime, and remain so (Mookie Betts, J.D. Martinez and Freddie Freeman say hello), but for every such instance of longevity there are examples to the contrary.  Joey Gallo and Eddie Rosario would be examples for me of someone who was "an old 30" just when old-fashioned benchmarks would say they're in their prime.

What is young? It really depends on the player.  But for a long time now the smart money has been on moving on, once a player hits 30 - let some bottom feeder team take the chance on wringing out the last bit of quality performance from a player.

That said, the Dodgers have all the money they wish to spend and can choose their rosters at will. While their pitching staff checked in slightly below league average for age, at 28, their position players (as alluded to above) were on average the oldest in the majors at an aggregate 30.  Baseball remains interesting because there's no one set formula.

[sweetmusicviola16]

I'm 55 and still young.

My sage wisdom to the "younger" guys on here, the "older" you get the more good looking women there are. Take that one to the bank.

[FilthyMogwai]

Many times young gets thrown around in place of experience. Sometimes it seems like people assume that everyone's big league career begins at 20 or 21. 

28, 29 are not young players in baseball terms, in my opinion. Those are players in their primes.

I figure 25 and under are young.

26 to 31 are prime.

32-plus are seasoned veterans.

Arbitrary definitions, of course. And for individuals only. If you had a team whose average age is 26, that's a young team in my mind.

Can't believe I'm thinking this hard about this.