Saturday, August 08, 2009
How old is your Double-A team?
Posted by Jeff SackmannIn my article earlier this week, I looked at the age distributions of 2009 Triple-A teams. It was easy enough to generate a similar report for 2009 Double-A teams, so here it is. I've included the average age of the organization's Triple-A affiliate in the rightmost column.
Org Team Average Median <23 23-24 25-26 27+ Avg Bat Avg Pit AAA Avg STL Springfield 23.1 23 16 20 4 1 22.7 23.4 25.4 CHC Tennessee 23.6 23 9 20 8 2 23.7 23.5 26.9 ATL Mississippi 23.7 23 11 12 7 3 23.5 23.9 27.4 MIN New Britain 23.8 24 6 17 11 1 23.9 23.7 25.6 ARI Mobile 24.0 24 5 17 13 1 24.3 23.8 26.9 DET Erie 24.0 24 5 20 8 2 24.3 23.7 26.8 LAA Arkansas 24.0 23 11 10 7 6 25.2 22.9 26.8 TEX Frisco 24.0 24 14 9 13 7 24.0 24.1 26.7 BOS Portland 24.2 24 10 10 9 6 23.7 24.7 27.3 CIN Carolina 24.3 24 7 20 11 5 24.4 24.2 26.5 OAK Midland 24.3 25 8 12 18 4 23.6 24.8 25.5 COL Tulsa 24.3 24 6 14 11 4 24.9 23.9 28.2 CHW Birmingham 24.4 24 7 12 10 5 24.4 24.3 27.5 SDP San Antonio 24.4 24 5 17 10 6 23.6 25.0 26.6 SFG Connecticut 24.4 24 5 14 11 5 24.6 24.2 27.4 CLE Akron 24.4 24 7 19 9 6 24.3 24.5 27.3 NYM Binghamton 24.6 25 7 13 13 8 24.2 24.8 28.6 PIT Altoona 24.6 25 5 15 18 4 24.5 24.7 27.0 NYY Trenton 24.9 25 8 11 17 6 24.3 25.3 27.0 WAS Harrisburg 25.0 24 0 20 13 6 25.1 24.9 27.0 TOR New Hampshire 25.0 24 3 17 12 7 24.8 25.2 27.0 TAM Montgomery 25.0 25 5 8 15 7 25.5 24.4 28.0 BAL Bowie 25.1 25 3 13 14 8 26.0 24.4 26.8 KC NW Arkansas 25.1 25 3 14 17 6 25.3 24.9 28.1 LAD Chattanooga 25.2 25 4 16 11 10 25.4 25.0 28.7 SEA West Tenn 25.2 25 7 10 12 15 25.6 24.7 26.8 MIL Huntsville 25.2 25 3 14 11 9 25.9 24.7 26.4 HOU Corpus Christi 25.4 25 1 13 14 8 24.7 25.9 27.2 PHI Reading 25.6 25 4 9 11 11 26.5 24.9 28.8 FLO Jacksonville 26.1 26 5 4 10 16 26.2 26.0 26.7 MLB AVERAGE 24.6 24.3 6.3 14.0 11.6 6.2 24.6 24.5 27.1
The Cardinals are youngest and the Phillies are second-oldest, but overall, the correlation between AAA and AA team age is not very strong.
Conventional wisdom, or some variation thereof, probably does a good job of explaining why this is. Triple-A teams are, more than anything else, extended benches. Thus, if a team wants veterans to plug in at a moment's notice, their AAA squad will skew older. That preference will probably not affect the age of the Double-A affiliate very much, if at all. Perhaps such a team would be more likely to stash a veteran catcher (think Max St. Pierre, maybe) at Double-A, or maybe a veteran signed out of the indy leagues would spend time in Double-A because the AAA roster is full. But that's about as far as it goes.
But Double-A teams are generally built around prospects, and the makeup of the roster is more dependent on who happens to be in the system. While a lot of free-agent signings go into the formation of a Triple-A roster, most Double-A non-prospects are organizational soldiers (often with their original org) who have survived. If a team has a lot of prospects at a particular level, that affiliate will skew younger. If the club's prospects are mostly younger and/or graduated, Double-A will be unusually full of filler, including some free agents and minor league Rule 5 picks. The Brewers, whose AAA team is young and whose AA team is (relatively) old, are a good example of this.
Jeff Sackmann is the creator of MinorLeagueSplits.com. With Kent Bonham, he founded CollegeSplits.com. Jeff and Kent blog about college baseball and the draft, and you can follow them on Twitter for bite-sized snacks of minor league and college stats. Jeff also has an email address.
Jeff,
If you are willing to guess, how would your numbers change according to when you compile them - Opening Day or June 1st for example?
Also, do these numbers reflect the movement of players at the trade deadline?