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Interesting read. Like most, I always thought (not having actually done research myself) that players tend to peak at 27 or 28.
One thing about the speed-average correlation - guys who hit a lot of groundballs would obviously fall into that category more than a guy who hits line drives or an uppercutting slugger. So I think that the correlation is there, but the degree of its effect will certainly vary from hitter to hitter.
Interestingly, Gehrig, though not particularly fast, always had a decent number of triples because he hit the ball so hard it would sprint into the enormous gaps at Yankee Stadium and he'd be on third by the time the outfielders got the ball back - if Cobb had hit the ball as hard as Gehrig he would have had 15 inside the park homers each year.
And Ruth, though by no means a speedster actually was fairly quick in his younger years and stole a fair amount of bases.
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