Closing the Coffin on “Age-27 Breakouts”

Fantasy baseball has made great transformations thanks in large part to the internet. The mounds of excellent data that have made the game on the field have also improved this game we play off the field. We’ve learned better ways to analyze players and while we still can’t predict the future, we certainly have a better understanding of what is happening with players and why. One casualty of the increased information should’ve been the age-27 breakout theory, but unlike the poor animal that sacrificed its life to be Donald Trump’s hair, this theory won’t die.

It’s not that we don’t see anyone breakout at 27 years old. It’s that being 27 has virtually nothing to do with it. Derek Carty covered this is some detail several years ago at The Hardball Times. And yet it persists every spring with lists of upcoming 27-year olds primed for a breakout. I’m fine with lists of breakouts, those are fun to read. It’s the adherence to age-27 that bothers me. Or the fact that a lot of these lists include guys who have already broken out and thus a huge season at 27 wouldn’t be a surprise in the first place.

I found 11 players who were mentioned as age-27 breakouts on various lists and I’m not sure any of them really had breakouts this year. Some of them were great, but we already knew they were great (Goldschmidt). Some had big gains from last year, but it wasn’t really a breakout since they had been good in previous seasons (Kipnis). Some just flat out busted (Ramos). Here is the whole list:

Goldschmidt had a superstar campaign in 2013 and was en route to another before a HBP broken wrist stunted his 2014 season. In fairness, I don’t think he was necessarily propped up as an age-27 breakout, but the list is so bleak this year that they might retroactively try to claim him just to say it worked for someone.

Pollock is probably the one that age-27 truthers will cling to hardest. He’s been the #2 OF behind only Bryce Harper this year with an excellent five-category campaign, but it’s essentially a full season of what we saw last year in 75 games. In fact, his wRC+ is actually a couple ticks lower this year.

So sure, he’s breaking out and having his best season ever, but is it because he’s 27 or because he stayed healthy this year? Last year’s full season pace would’ve put him at 16 HR, 31 SB, 89 R, and 52 RBI. He’s been better in all four categories this year at 18-36-104-70, but I can’t imagine the calendar had anything to do with that.

Upton broke out years ago. If he had posted a career year with 45 HR and 120 RBI, would those who subscribe to this theory consider it a win?

It looks like Seager was an age-26 breakout (career high HR, RBI, AVG, and SLG). Maybe that’s the magic number?!

Calhoun has more HR and RBI than last year, but that seems to be more due to 104 extra PA over last year than anything else. All three components of his triple slash are down from last year at .260/.313/.427 in 641 PA. This isn’t as much on him as the team around him, but he’s also scored 15 fewer runs than he did last year despite the added playing time.

Belt is another one that the 27ers might try to prop up as a success because of the uptick from last year to this year, but this season is right in line with his 2013 so I can’t see it as some sort of breakout. He has hit one more HR with one more RBI, four more steals, and three fewer runs this year in 15 fewer PA than his 2013 season. His batting average is up 9 points, too. It’s been a good season for Belt, but not an age-27 breakout. Plus, it’s hard to be a breakout when you still only rank 14th at your position.

Kipnis is yet another one who looks like a breakout from a 2014 to 2015 comparison because he was terrible last year, but this year isn’t nearly as good as his 2013 season when he had 17 HR and 30 SB. He’s at 9 and 11, respectively, this year. I never should’ve apologize for Kinsler over Kipnis because guess what? I was right and Kipnis still doesn’t have a full season of top-flight production. He gets hot for a bit (usually May-June) and then it’s all downhill from there. His career OPS totals by month: .660, .963, .861, .698, .685, and .673. I’ll never doubt you again, Ian!

Gordon broke out last year.

Davis got hurt and has been limited to 403 PA, though he’s still hit one more homer than he did in 549 last year. Even if had made it through the season and maintained this power throughout, would it be a breakout? I mean, he’s still hitting .243 on the year. There’s no such thing as age-27 breakouts.

Ramos has been an utter disaster this year.

Considering how bad he was in his first four seasons as a big leaguer, Ackley could’ve been the posterboy for the age-27 truthers if he had somehow broken out because magic would’ve definitely been the only possible answer for it.

The age-27 breakouts are similar to batter-vs.-pitcher in DFS. Most of the time,  you’d have already selected this guy for reasons well beyond his age or his 14 PA against a certain pitcher, but those who follow these “strategies” are deriving meaning from him turning 27 or an 8-for-14 line vs. that pitcher. Oh after your intensive research, you uncovered that you should get Andrew McCutchen because he’s 5-for-17 w/3 HR against Dan Haren? It wasn’t because McCutchen is a superstar and Haren is a home run machine? Oh, cool. I guess BVP does work then. By the way, I don’t think BVP is entirely meaningless, but I think its importance cannot be derived from simply looking at a BVP page on Baseball-Reference. That’s for a different time, though.

For the last time, stop focusing on age-27 as something special and just listen to Aaliyah: