{"id":1276,"date":"2011-05-06T12:06:02","date_gmt":"2011-05-06T16:06:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=1276"},"modified":"2011-05-06T12:07:39","modified_gmt":"2011-05-06T16:07:39","slug":"how-old-is-too-old-for-pitchers-in-the-minor-leagues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=1276","title":{"rendered":"How old is “too old” for pitchers in the minor leagues?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Cameron Selik dominated in Hagerstown before his Promotion, but was he "too old" for the level? Photo Eastcountysports.com<\/p><\/div>\n

When looking at minor league teams and trying to assess talent, the notion of age and experience becomes important.\u00a0 Quite simply, an older more experienced player will have the advantage over younger counterparts.\u00a0 Even if the relative skill levels are the same, with age and with professional playing experience comes baseball wisdom that gives the older player the advantage.<\/p>\n

So, when looking at prospects at various levels one has to take into account the players age, their number of years of professional experience, and their injury history along with performance to properly judge a player.<\/p>\n

So the question really is, “How old is ‘too old’ for a player at a particular level.<\/p>\n

I have always used a rule-of-thumb measurement advocated by John Sickels<\/strong> at minorleagueball.com<\/a> for looking at player ages (I cannot find the original Sickels posting but have seen it attributed to him in several forums).\u00a0 That rule-of-thumb is as follows:<\/p>\n