Alex Rodriguez & Manny Ramirez: How Productive Will They Be Into Their 40's?

With Scott Boras trying to get Manny Ramirez a 5 year deal that would take him to age 41, I was thinking about whether or not it is a good idea to sign a player to a contract through such an old age. A-Rod already has a similar situation where he is signed with the Yankees for another 9 years, which would take him to the age of 42 when his contract is over. Now it's pretty obvious that Manny and A-Rod will not be putting up the same numbers they are today when they get into their 40's, but I wanted to take a look into the history of how well other players performed after the age of 38. I did this because I wanted to see if the Yankees were wise to sign A-Rod through age 42, which means they will have him for 5 seasons in which he would be age 38 or older. It's possible that Manny could also receive a deal that would take him into his 40's and would have him playing 4 seasons past the age of 38.

So let's take a look at the list of players with more than 100 HRS from age 38 on:
The reason why I chose 100 home runs as the benchmark was because A-Rod and Manny are power hitters and usually when power hitters start to lose their power then their overall offensive production declines as well(OBP, SLG, OPS). I figured that anyone who hit more than 100 home runs after age 38 would have probably had to average at least 20-25 HR's or more per season and would most likely be one of the better power hitter of their day, which is what Manny and A-Rod are. It doesn't make sense to compare them to contact hitters like Pete Rose and Paul Molitor because they are not contact type hitters themselves. So by choosing players who have hit more than 100 HR's, I am trying to find the best case scenarios we can expect from Manny and A-Rod once they hit age 38.

As you can see from the list, it includes 4 Hall of Famers(Aaron, Fisk, Winfield, Williams), 1 future Hall of Famer(Bonds), and 1 solid player who hit over 400 HR in his career(Evans).

You can probably throw out Barry Bonds for any comparison purposes to Manny and A-Rod, because he was probably on the juice in 2003 and 2004 at ages 38 & 39 when he hit a combined 90 HR's. After that he played well, but certainly not at that level and finished his career hitting 26 and 28 home runs in his final two seasons. Also, I would argue that Bonds is better than both Manny and A-Rod, so he may not be a fair comparison in that sense either regardless of age. It's also worth nothing that Manny hasn't topped 40 home runs in the past three seasons and his career high was 45, which makes it even more unlikely that he will hit 40+ at age 38 or older.

Ted Williams has the second highest OPS of all the players on this list, but the fewest home runs. At that point in his career, Williams was only averaging about 25 home runs per season. However, he was still walking a ton and hitting for a high average, which is why his OPS was so high. I don't see A-Rod being able to hit over .300 that late in his career, so I find it hard that he would match the OPS Williams put up, however he could definitely match the home runs. Again though we are only talking 25 HR's per year for someone who will be making about $25 million a season. Since I don't expect A-Rod to match Williams' OPS, I would say he is not a good example of what to expect from A-Rod after age 38. It is possible that Manny might be able to put up numbers similar to Williams in the OPS department though. I would argue that Manny would probably have a hard time matching Williams in average and walks that late in his career, but is not 100% out of the question after the way Manny hit the ball with Dodgers this season.

I do not believe that Carlton Fisk or Darrell Evans are good comparisons to Manny or A-Rod for a few simple reasons. The first is that Fisk and Evans are not even close to being as good of hitters as Manny and A-Rod, so I would expect them to put up better numbers than both Fisk and Evans. Also, Fisk played 8 seasons after age 38 or else he would most likely not be on this list, because he only averaged about 13 home runs per season.

Now we get to what I feel are the most likely comparisons: Hank Aaron and Dave Winfield. Since Aaron was better after age 38, we’ll go with his 116 HR and .837 OPS and say at worst A-Rod and Manny would put up numbers similar to that. Aaron's post-age 38 stats, work out to around an average season of 20-25 HR/60-80 RBI/with a .260-.270 batting average. This is probably what you are going to get from A-Rod and Manny on average from ages 38-42 and while it is still solid it is definitely not worth the $25 million per season that A-Rod and possibly Manny will be getting at that point.

Remember, this is also the average for all 5 of those seasons, in almost all the cases above, each player's best stats came at age 38 and 39 and after that their numbers fall off the map considerably. It's very likely that A-Rod and Manny will also still put up very big numbers at ages 38 and 39, but then it's just as likely they will fall off big time once they hit the ages of 40-42. This is why I believe it would have made more sense for the Yankees to offer A-Rod a 7 or 8 year contract, which would have brought him to age 39 or 40 instead of age 42 and why I think it makes sense to only sign Manny to a 3 year deal since he will be age 37 starting next season. The Yankees seem like they will be stuck with a highly overpaid A-Rod for at least 3 seasons, but there is still a chance the team that signs Manny does the smart thing and only signs him through age 39 and perhaps gives him an option for a 4th year.

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