Torii Hunter Defying the Odds

The thread about Santana prompted me to see how our old friend Torii
Hunter is doing this year. I say old but I really mean that he'll be
34 just after the All Star break, supposedly an age where players are
on the decline. I believe a study has shown that most hitters peak at
about age 28 or 29.

Torii's hitting .305/.354/.524 this year. Then I glanced at his stats
since he was 28 years old. Have a look:

OPS at age

28 .762
29 .805
30 .788 (injured, only played in 98 games)
31 .826
32 .839
33 .878 so far this year

Notice the trend? He's not dropping off, he's improving. It will be
interesting to check in at the AS break at also at the end of the year
to see if Torii can keep it going.

On Thu, 1 May 2008, powrwrap wrote:

> Torii's hitting .305/.354/.524 this year. Then I glanced at his stats
> since he was 28 years old. Have a look:
>
> OPS at age
>
> 28 .762
> 29 .805
> 30 .788 (injured, only played in 98 games)
> 31 .826
> 32 .839
> 33 .878 so far this year
>
> Notice the trend? He's not dropping off, he's improving. It will be
> interesting to check in at the AS break at also at the end of the year
> to see if Torii can keep it going.

Torii was drafted in 1993 as an 18 year old. I was still living in
MN at the time, and I remember expectations being really high for him.
And then it seemed like it took foooorever for him to reach the majors,
and when he fiiiinally reached the majors to stay in 1999, the summer he
turned 24, he still didn't have a real big impact for a couple more years.
I suspect they would have liked to let him season in the minors in 1999
and 2000 but probably had run out of years they could keep doing that
without losing him to the rule-V draft.

And at long last, his power came in, and he has been a pretty fine major
leaguer. And yet, as you note, he still keeps getting better. Which,
I think maybe correlates with not flailing at as many ridiculous pitches?

So I think what is a little unusual about him, as a first-round
draftee, might be the rather lengthy development process he required.
I hate to say it, but was he considered in some sense a slow learner?

--
John Gregory ashbury at skypoint.com http://www.skypoint.com/ tilde ashbury
Thought for the moment:
I am not as think as you dumb I am.