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What to expect from Manny Ramirez

Posted by Andy
Manny Ramirez has reportedly filed for reinstatement and faces only a 50-game ban should he sign with a team.

He'll be in his Age 40 season in 2012, though...what sort of production might we see?
Let's take a look at players similar to Manny in the later years of his career. I'm going to ignore 2011 since he played only 5 games.

From 2006 to 2010 (Manny's Age 34 to 38 seasons) he put up a 151 OPS+ over 610 games.

Here are some comps for the same age range:

Player OPS+ G From To PA HR RBI
Honus Wagner 161 713 1908 1912 3064 35 481
Edgar Martinez 158 736 1997 2001 3204 141 557
Tris Speaker 158 684 1922 1926 2963 56 439
Nap Lajoie 157 631 1909 1913 2576 8 341
Gavvy Cravath 153 631 1915 1919 2487 67 367
Manny Ramirez 151 610 2006 2010 2532 120 416
Ty Cobb 151 686 1921 1925 3056 38 469
Willie Mays 150 715 1965 1969 2843 147 422
Willie Stargell 149 566 1974 1978 2290 108 383
Chipper Jones 148 610 2006 2010 2588 105 380
Stan Musial 147 694 1955 1959 2870 120 425
Jack Fournier 147 508 1924 1927 2031 70 347
Frank Robinson 146 659 1970 1974 2712 124 401
Tony Gwynn 145 637 1994 1998 2706 57 392
Larry Walker 144 603 2001 2005 2401 112 405
Mike Schmidt 144 724 1984 1988 2998 153 493
Ellis Burks 142 559 1999 2003 2240 121 385
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 12/4/2011.

These guys all had at least 500 games over their Age 34-38 seasons and an OPS+ of 141 to 161.

Now here is what these guys did in their Age 40 seasons:

Rk Player Year OPS+ Tm G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS Pos
1 Edgar Martinez 2003 141 SEA 145 603 497 72 146 25 0 24 98 92 95 .294 .406 .489 .895 *D
2 Tony Gwynn 2000 110 SDP 36 140 127 17 41 12 0 1 17 9 4 .323 .364 .441 .805 *9/D
3 Willie Stargell 1980 129 PIT 67 231 202 28 53 10 1 11 38 26 52 .262 .351 .485 .836 *3
4 Frank Robinson 1976 104 CLE 36 79 67 5 15 0 0 3 10 11 12 .224 .329 .358 .687 *D/37
5 Willie Mays 1971 158 SFG 136 537 417 82 113 24 5 18 61 112 123 .271 .425 .482 .907 *83
6 Stan Musial 1961 118 STL 123 431 372 46 107 22 4 15 70 52 35 .288 .371 .489 .860 *7
7 Tris Speaker 1928 95 PHA 64 212 191 28 51 22 2 3 30 10 5 .267 .310 .450 .761 *8/79
8 Ty Cobb 1927 134 PHA 133 574 490 104 175 32 7 5 93 67 12 .357 .440 .482 .921 *98
9 Nap Lajoie 1915 100 PHA 129 520 490 40 137 24 5 1 61 11 16 .280 .301 .355 .656 *46/35
10 Honus Wagner 1914 92 PIT 150 616 552 60 139 15 9 1 50 51 51 .252 .317 .317 .634 *65/3
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 12/4/2011.

If a guy from the first list doesn't appear on the second list, it means he didn't play in MLB in his Age 40 season (except for Chipper Jones, who is coming up on his Age 40 season now.) A lot of the guys immediately above were quite good in their Age 40 season--Mays, Edgar, and Cobb put up awesome seasons. But if you factor in all the guys above who weren't good enough to stick around until 40, our expectations for Manny shouldn't be all that high. Maybe he's good enough to post a season like Willie Mays, but the odds are good that he'll be at best league-average.