Alex Rodriguez is 25 years old. He's also a baseball player, and so intelligent men think they can forecast his future. It's simple, right? Just look at all the other baseball players, find those with similar statistics at the same age, get the average of those players' career stats, and -- voila -- there's Alex Rodriguez at 40!
Unfortunately, there are a couple of problems with this methodology. One, while averages are certainly instructive, they're not particularly precise. And two, there simply haven't been many (any?) players with similar statistics at the same age as Alex Rodriguez, at least not shortstops with similar statistics.
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The best now vs. the best ever
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It truly is a golden age for baseball superstars. Alex Rodriguez is on his way to becoming one of the greatest players ever, but he's not the only one on that track. ESPN.com makes the argument that at every position on the diamond, one of baseball's all-time greats is currently active. We look at the best of the current players and compare them to the best ever at their position.
Catcher
First base
Second base
Third base
Shortstop
Left field
Center field
Right field
Pitcher
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Case in point: Many years ago, Bill James concocted something called Similarity Scores, which essentially measures the overall similarity between the statistics of one player and another, with an adjustment for positional difference. Two players with identical statistics have a 1000 similarity score. James classified scores above 950 as "unusually similar," any score above 900 as "truly similar," any score above 850 as "essentially similar," and any score above 800 as "somewhat similar."
Alex Rodriguez played most of last season at 24. Statistically, the five most similar players to Rodriguez through age 24 are:
Junior Griffey (830)
Mickey Mantle (825)
Cal Ripken (815)
Eddie Mathews (805)
Mel Ott (804)
You see the problem? In all of baseball's long, long history, not even a single player rates as "unusually similar" to Rodriguez at the same age. Or even "truly similar." Nobody. And only five players rate as "somewhat similar." It is, however, worth noting that the five players listed above are all Hall of Famers or future Hall of Famers.
So we might surmise, from our look at Similarity Scores, that Alex Rodriguez will one day take his place in Cooperstown ... but then, we already knew that, didn't we? What we really want to know is, what sort of Hall of Famer will he be? Will he be Willie Mays or Mickey Mantle? Stan Musial or Tony Gwynn? Honus Wagner or Cal Ripken?
In each of those pairs, the first player listed ranks among the greatest dozen or so non-pitchers ever, while the second ranks somewhere just a bit below (at least in terms of career value).
Of course, what distinguishes Rodriguez is both how much he's done, and how soon. Rodriguez turned 25 last July, which means that he played more than half of the season at 24, which we consider his "seasonal age."
The latest edition of Total Baseball has just been published, and one feature is Total Player Rating (TPR), which sums a player's hitting, baserunning and fielding contributions, and arrives at a number representing that player's value, in wins, above an average player at the same position. And according to this method, Rodriguez has been worth 25.9 victories more than an average major-league shortstop since he arrived in the majors.
What sort of players rack up a 25.9 TPR before they turn (seasonal age) 25? Checking a number of Hall of Famers and likely Hall of Famers, these are the highest TPR's through age 24 that I could find:
Rogers Hornsby 36.0
Ty Cobb 29.9
Mickey Mantle 26.1
Alex Rodriguez 25.3
Junior Griffey 22.8
Joe Jackson 22.2
Tris Speaker 21.4
Mel Ott 21.3
Rickey Henderson 20.4
Hornsby, of course, is regarded as perhaps the greatest second baseman in history (I rate him just a notch below Joe Morgan, but that's something of an idiosyncratic position, based on the higher level of play in Morgan's era). And there are certainly some parallels between Hornsby and Rodriguez. Both came up when they were very young, facing major-league pitching at the tender age of 19. And both began their careers as shortstops, as Hornsby didn't permanently shift to second base until he was 24.
Mantle and Griffey both popped up in the earlier list, which shouldn't be too surprising. Cobb, Speaker, Henderson, Jackson ... all of them rank among not only the best players at their positions, but among the best players, period.
Taking these hard, cold looks at the numbers, it's apparent that Rodriguez has a great future. But again, the question at hand is "How great?"
Baseball players are human. They are not -- as I'm so often reminded, both by the players in their actions and by readers in their e-mail messages -- simply rows of numbers in Total Baseball. Over the next 15 or so years, things will happen to Alex Rodriguez, and it's how Alex Rodriguez responds to those things that will determine his place in history.
Now that he's financially set for life, will his competitive spirit continue to thrive? If he moves to third base, will he work hard to become a great defensive third baseman? Or will he settle for adequate? If he tears an ACL, will he endure the maximum amount of endurable pain to ensure a full and speedy recovery? Or will he cut those workouts short, and perhaps cost himself a few-score hits and a dozen home runs? Most important of all, will he generally stay healthy? Rodriguez has been in the majors for five full seasons, and he's spent time on the DL in four of them. If Rodriguez's career were The Riddler's costume, the big ? in the middle would represent his durability.
We cannot, in April of 2001, know the answers to these questions. Yet it's these answers that will determine whether or not Alex Rodriguez becomes "merely" a Hall of Famer, or perhaps the greatest player that we've ever seen.
Rob Neyer is a Senior Writer for ESPN.com. His column runs Monday through Thursday. You can e-mail Rob at rob.neyer@dig.com.
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