Carl Yastrzemski's odd career

[filihok]

If you look at his yearly wOBA
http://www.fangraphs.com/graphs/1014...8_20121003.png
it's pretty consistent.

There's just 3 years (out of 4) where it really spikes. Those are his outlier years. Other than that he was consistently good, for consistently long

[Honus Wagner Rules]

He's never really that bad, all the way to age 43. He doesn't really have any clunker seasons. His career has a pretty common path of a great player.

After 1970 Yaz was still a good productive ballplayer just a far cry from where he was in the 1960's. It's common for many great ballplayers decline in their early 30 as they struggle to be as consistent. But many did and do still have a few elite seasons in their 30's. Yaz never really did. It seems injures were a major culprit. I started following baseball in 1976 (age 7-8) and Yaz was still viewed as a major star. At least that's how I remember it.

[Jackaroo Dave]

Yaz is right about the strikeouts. They start out in the sixties, go up to the 90s, then in 1970, his last great year, they go down to the 60s and he keeps them there.

Reading his comments in the article gave me a lot more respect for his mental game. It is so hard to know your own strengths when they are fading. A player in his situation with less intelligence and mental toughness might have turned into Dave Kingman.

[JR Hart]

He's never really that bad, all the way to age 43. He doesn't really have any clunker seasons. His career has a pretty common path of a great player.

[chicagowhitesox1173]

His homeruns really dropped after the 1970 season.

[dgarza]

From age 31-40, Yaz's Sac. Flies pretty much doubled and his IBBs went up.

[Ben Grimm]

Certainly looks like an injury or two. Looking at his game logs from '71, he had a steady decline across the board starting early June.

            G   XBH   RBI    AVG   OBP   SLG

Thru 5/31   47   19    28   .297  .451  .525
Aftr 5/31  101   19    42   .234  .346  .331

Looks alot like somebody playing through an injury. Not sure if he had a surgery during the offseason or whatever it was didn't get to 100% by Spring, but he started out brutally in 1972 while missing a week early on and finally hitting the DL for a month from what looks to be the mentioned leg issue in the article above. I don't see a mention of what the hand issue was, but we've seen players lose power for over a year after a hamate injury. Even with the leg, as I'm sure we can all attest to, recovery time post-30 takes longer as each year passes. But whatever it was, it must have done some damage since he pretty much was forced to 1B right afterwards.

[filihok]

Carl Yastrzemski had somewhat of odd career. From 1992-70 Yastrzemski was an elite player. Then from 1971-83 he was just ho-hum.. So what happened after 1970? Any theories?

Don't see why this is so weird.

He developed until his late 20's, had a few years of peak performance and fell off in his 30's.

The decline was pretty sharp, easily explained by the injury, but he had some good years after 1970; 1973 and 1977

[Honus Wagner Rules]

http://www.baseball-fever.com/archiv.../t-109379.html

Dgarza has a link to a SI article mentioning Yaz's hand injury here.

The full article.

Yaz SI 07-10-1972.JPG

[Jackaroo Dave]

http://www.baseball-fever.com/archiv.../t-109379.html

Dgarza has a link to a SI article mentioning Yaz's hand injury here.

[chicagowhitesox1173]

Old age would be my guess. Maybe he got a injury somewhere along the way.

[Honus Wagner Rules]

Carl Yastrzemski had somewhat of odd career. From 1963-70 Yastrzemski was an elite player. Then from 1971-83 he was just ho-hum.

1963-70 (1,236 G, 5,314 PA): .301/.402/.513, 153 OPS+, 56.4 WAR
1971-83 (1,764 G, 7,316 PA): .275/.370/.430, 118 OPS+, 30.2 WAR

During the 1963-70 seasons, Yaz has lots of Blank Ink. He led in:

OBP 5X
OPS+ 4X
OPS 4X
BA 3X
SLG 3X
2B 3x
Runs 2X
Hits 2X
TB 2X
BB 2X
HR 1X
RBI 1X

He also won 5 Gold Glove and of course won the Triple Crown and the 1967 AL MVP Award. After 1970 he led in runs scored one time in 1974. And that's it. So what happened after 1970? Any theories?