[Ben E Lou]

Found it. It is in this thread. (NOTE: Most of the links mentioned below no longer work, since I don't have infinite server space to post my careers. ) Here are the key points:

OK. I just took a look at some of the top hitters in the history of the game. I looked at batters with over 3,500 hits and/or over 500 homers who are retired. I looked at their careers and (subjectively) determined what was the first year that they were "in decline," meaning after that year they never put up numbers that were at or near "star-quality." (As I said, I know this is somewhat subjective, but in most cases the year was pretty obvious...) Here's what I found:

AVERAGE AGE OF FIRST "SEASON OF DECLINE": 37.65
AVERAGE AGE OF RETIREMENT: 39.95

Keep in mind, these are the EXTREMELY ELITE of baseball history. (There were exactly 20 guys in over 100 years of baseball history who fit the criteria I used...very convenient number.) It seems that it would follow naturally that these guys have better physical skills and are able to perform at a major league level longer than the thousands of below-average-to-above-average players. So, we should therefore see the "average OOTP superstar" have his first "bad" season at age 37 or 38, and be out of the game at 40. Take that for what it is worth.

I just ran the same experiment with my 50ish season fictional league, adn actually things look a lot better than I would have thought. I realized that since the league was about 1/2 of the lenght of time of real baseball, there should be 10 "elite" players to match the 20 "elite" players of the 100+ years of real baseball. Here are the numbers I found, again for the elite battters:

AVERAGE AGE AT FIRST "DECLINE" SEASON IN REAL LIFE: 37.65
AVERAGE AGE IN OOTP 5.01: 36.8

AVERAGE AGE OF RETIREMENT IN REAL LIFE: 39.95
AVERAGE AGE IN OOTP 5.01: 39.1

Both are about .8 years below the "real" numbers, but the spreads between "decline year" and retirement are identical: 2.3 years.

Alright boyz. My 100-season 5.10 sim finished during the night. I've looked around a little, and ran the numbers on 20 of the greatest in that universe. A few comments before I give the hard numbers....

1. Definitely there's a more varied development curve. There are guys who drop off the table, (Example: Abram Feemster) which definitely happens to some superstars in real life. (Now that I've done a little research, I can show you that some of the game's elite had OOTP5-like declines, and trust me when I say that this was NOT my intuition on the matter at all. Ted Williams is the only one who really "retired in his prime" numbers-wise. The rest quit because they were done.) There are also guys who slowly decline over several years. Example:Michael "Bleeder" Arline

2. I actually had difficulty determing a "year of decline" for several guys this time, because a handful had "spike seasons" in their late 30's. (In other words, a 40-45 homer guy might have had 2 or 3 seasons in their mid 30's of 25-30 homers, but then hit 42 at age 37 or something like that...) Example: Gil "The Bull" Martinez

3. While the overall averages got even closer to reality, something still seems amiss. I'll explain in my next point.

4. It seems to me that the stars don't know when to quit. Too many 38-42 year old former superstars are playing until they get released, rather than hangin' 'em up after a subpar season or two.

5. Sixfour may have a bit of a point about youngsters having solid seasons. While it is VERY rare for a 19-21-year-old to have a solid year, it does happen once in a blue moon. (Aaron, Mantle, Gooden, Williams, Ruth). Looking through the career leader board, I'm not seeing anyone have a solid season before age 22 or 23. RETRACTION!!! I didn't look hard enough. Check out Fred "Snake Eyes" Acuna. He had a very nice season at age 19. If there is one, I'll guarantee that there are others...

OK. Here are the numbers, for the stars:

REAL LIFE AVERAGE AGE OF FIRST YEAR OF DECLINE: 37.65
OOTP5.01 AVERAGE AGE OF FIRST YEAR OF DECLINE: 36.80
OOTP5.10 AVERAGE AGE OF FIRST YEAR OF DECLINE: 37.45

REAL LIFE AVERAGE AGE AT RETIREMENT: 39.95
OOTP5.01 AVERAGE AGE AT RETIREMENT: 39.10
OOTP5.10 AVERAGE AGE AT RETIREMENT: 39.65

REAL LIFE # OF YEARS OF DECLINE BEFORE RETIREMENT: 2.30
OOTP5.01 # OF YEARS OF DECLINE BEFORE RETIREMENT: 2.30
OOTP5.10 # OF YEARS OF DECLINE BEFORE RETIREMENT: 2.20

The average numbers with 5.10 are obviously INCREDIBLY close to the way things have happened in baseball history. I'm uploading this universe to a web site if anyone wants to take a look. There are a few freaks of nature on the leader board worth looking at. This universe can be found at: www.younglifenorthdekalb.com/dynasty

I wish I had posted the specifics of how poorly the game's stars performed in their last season or two. I remember that it was shocking to see that it has happened with regularity.

--Ben