Melky Cabrera Comps

There's a post up today on the baseball-reference.com blog about players who had a 124 OPS+ or higher in their age 26 season after never having one at 96 in a full season previously. The list appeared to be inspired by Melky Cabrera, though he shares very little in common with nearly all of them. The full season is an important qualifier because the vast majority of players mentioned were highly productive before turning 26 but had never received 502 plate appearances in a season. Andy Van Slyke, for instance, had 1732 PA's between 1983-1986 and had an OPS+ above 100 every year, but he's only on the list because Whitey Herzog didn't trust him versus left-handed pitching.

Cabrera, meanwhile, has been an everyday player since the age of 21. Whether he deserved to be or not is open to interpretation. Here's his yearly OPS+ numbers.

Year	Age	PA	OPS+
2005	20	19	14
2006	21	524	95
2007	22	612	88
2008	23	453	68
2009	24	540	93
2010	25	509	83
2011	26	563	123

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table

The writer never suggests these are Cabrera comps, but just guys who bloomed at age 26. Fair enough, but I want Cabrera comps. So here's what I did, I searched for players since 1950 who had received 2000+ PA's before their age 26 season and had a career OPS+ between 80-89 (notice that Cabrera is firmly in the middle). The goal was to find guys that were as similar to Cabrera as possible.

Besides Cabrera, there were only 25 other players.

Rk	Player	OPS+	PA	From	To	Age
1	Jose Lopez	89	2977	2004	2009	20-25
2	Jose Oquendo	89	2202	1983	1989	19-25
3	Steve Sax	89	2691	1981	1985	21-25
4	Ron Hansen	89	2038	1958	1963	20-25
5	Don Money	88	2097	1968	1972	21-25
6	Ed Kranepool	88	3217	1962	1970	17-25
7	Luis Castillo	87	2449	1996	2001	20-25
8	Rick Manning	87	3227	1975	1980	20-25
9	Bill Russell	87	2533	1969	1974	20-25
10	Kurt Stillwell	86	2342	1986	1990	21-25
11	Bill Mazeroski	86	3792	1956	1962	19-25
12	Melky Cabrera	85	2657	2005	2010	20-25
13	Leo Cardenas	85	2269	1960	1964	21-25
14	Glenn Hubbard	84	2633	1978	1983	20-25
15	Jerry Remy	84	2488	1975	1978	22-25
16	Juan Uribe	83	2337	2001	2005	21-25
17	Brian McRae	83	2122	1990	1993	22-25
18	Juan Pierre	82	2288	2000	2003	22-25
19	Aurelio Rodriguez	82	3521	1967	1973	19-25
20	Tony Taylor	82	2320	1958	1961	22-25
21	Corey Patterson	81	2335	2000	2005	20-25
22	Derrel Thomas	81	2514	1971	1976	20-25
23	Luis Rivas	80	2056	2000	2005	20-25
24	Bucky Dent	80	2512	1973	1977	21-25
25	Dalton Jones	80	2006	1964	1969	20-25
26	Mike Hershberger	80	2109	1961	1965	21-25

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used

Next I checked every player's age 26 OPS+ to see how many managed a 120 or higher. Only two players on the above list accomplished this - Ed Kranepool and Steve Sax.


Kranepool had a 124 OPS+ in 1971, this number would end up being a career high. He posted a 110 OPS+ at 27 and would later hit 120 twice more in his career. However none of these - including his 26 and 27 years -  were accomplished in a 500 PA season. So he's not the ideal Cabrera comp since he wasn't a full time player when he busted out or after.

Sax had a 137 OPS+ in 1986, like Kranepool this would be the best season of his career. He slipped back to his career numbers at 27 when he put up a 87 OPS+ in 1987, which is weird since 1987 saw an offensive explosion. He would have just two other seasons above 100 the remainder of his career. From age 27 to the end of his career he had a 92 OPS+, which is close to his pre-26 89. This is not a comp that inspires confidence that Cabrera's emergence can be repeated.

What I think we've learned here is that Cabrera is having an improbable season, though given his career numbers entering 2011 we probably already knew that. But still, I guess I was hoping for a more significant precedent.