Do you know how many hitters are going to be active in 2009 in their age-40 season? Take a guess. Give a range if you want to, that is okay, I will not consider it cheating. I guessed there would be five-to-eight hitters who will have 40 under their age column at Baseball-Reference.com in the 2009 season.

Turns out there is one. Gary Sheffield turned 40 this past September. We could have had two but Jeff Kent announced his retirement. So, what are the chances that Sheffield turns in not only a draft-eligible season, but one that makes us really glad he is on our team?

With that idea in mind, here are the Top 10 Fantasy Seasons By Hitters 40 and Older.

9. 2007 Kenny Lofton (40) - .296-7-38-86-23

  It is hard to believe that Lofton could not have helped a club in 2008. A free agent following this year, no team offered a contract that Lofton found suitable and he did not play last year. I guess it is easy to stand on a principle when you have made over $60 million in your career. Please do not get me wrong, I do not begrudge Lofton one penny that he earned. But I do think that it is silly that he turned down the chance to play and add to his legacy not because no one offered him a contract but due to the fact that no one met his salary demands. According to this Indians Mailbag on MLB.com both the Rays and Reds wanted Lofton, and he turned down a “deal in the neighborhood of $1 million” from Tampa Bay.

8. 1971 Willie Mays (40) - .271-18-61-82-23

7. 1987 Darrell Evans (40) - .257-34-99-90-6

It is hard to rank Evans as his batting average is significantly lower than anyone on this list. Also, 1987 was a very good offensive year, although Evans finished third in the American League in HR that season. I will not complain if anyone thinks he should be lower in this ranking. Regardless, in the pre-Moneyball days Evans was one of the most underrated players around. No one quoted you his OBP; instead they would acknowledge his power and scoff at his average. He was a very good player for a long time and he missed by one season becoming one of the few guys to perform in MLB for four decades.

6. 1962 Stan Musial (41) - .330-19-82-57-3 

Obviously, Musial did not get the memo that you were supposed to be 40 in order to make this list. In fact, Musial had (for him) three sub-par years prior to 1962, failing to clear a .300 average or a .400 OBP or a .500 SLG mark in any of them before this season. He finished 10^th in the NL MVP race this season, third in average and second in OBP (.416). I think Musial’s 73 points of AVG trumps the advantages Evans had in other categories but it is probably close.

5. 1992 Dave Winfield (40) - .290-26-108-92-2

In one of the more underappreciated feats in recent history, the 37-year-old Winfield sat out the entire 1989 season with a back injury yet came back to play six more seasons in the majors. In his last year before the injury, Winfield put up an MVP-caliber season and finished fourth in the AL race. Four years later at age 40, Winfield finished fifth for the World Series champion Blue Jays.

4. 1999 Harold Baines (40) - .312-25-103-62-1

Wow, all of these are razor-thin margins at this point. Baines was enjoying a fantastic season for the Orioles this year, with a .322/.395/.583 line before he was dealt to the playoff-bound Indians in late August. Baines went into the tank with his new club, hitting just one HR in 85 at-bats for Cleveland. He had a 150 OPS+ in Baltimore. After the trade to Cleveland it was just 74. He did well in the post-season for the Indians, but returned to the Orioles as a free agent for 2000.

It should come as no surprise that Henderson holds the record for most SB in a season for players 40 and above. The big surprise with this season is his average. Henderson batted .236 the year before and .233 the year after. This just goes to show what a .366 BABIP can do for a fellow. It was the second-highest mark of his 25-year career in the category, trailing just the .370 mark he put up in the strike-shortened 1981 season.

2. 1930 Sam Rice (40) - .349-1-73-121-13

This season in the middle of the Live Ball Era saw Rice finish 10^th in the AL in average and ninth in runs scored. He finished just outside the leader board in SB, two bags behind the 10^th-place finisher. If Sam Rice played today, he would have come back for a 21^st season at age 45 because he was 13 hits shy of 3,000 for his career. He made the Hall of Fame anyway, imagine that.

Cobb finished fifth in average, sixth in runs, 10^th in RBIs and sixth in steals in this season of the Murder’s Row Yankees. This was the first of his two years with the Philadelphia Athletics after the Detroit Tigers released him following a season in which he put up an OPS+ of 133. It was a tumultuous off-season for Cobb following the 1926 season, as former Tigers pitcher Dutch Leonard accused him of betting on baseball. Cobb, who served as Detroit’s player/manger for a half-dozen seasons, had released Leonard and perhaps blackballed him, too. Leonard swore revenge and levied the gambling charges against Cobb, Tris Speaker and Joe Wood. The players were exonerated when Leonard refused to testify. Tigers owner Frank Navin already planned to release Cobb, due in large part to the team’s failure to win a pennant in the six seasons Cobb was at the helm.



Should fantasy owners draft 40-year-old Gary Sheffield this year?  What numbers do you project for him in 2009?

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written by Wayne Provost, March 09, 2009

I think Musial stuck around for one more year in '62 after xamining the xpansion Mets pitching staff...

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written by Brian Joura, March 08, 2009

Good addition with Carlton Fisk. And I'm sure I put Alou's 2007 out of my mind because it made the Mets sign him for the following season, and well that didn't turn out too good.

Thanks for the kinds words Ackshawn!

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written by ChaseUA, March 08, 2009

I know you aren't dealing with pro-ration, but what Moises Alou did in 2007 at the age of 40 was impressive. In 87 games he hit .347 with 13-51-49-3.

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written by ChaseUA, March 08, 2009

Great list! I really enjoy reading articles like this. Here are a couple of others that I feel are worthy of consideration(or at least an horable mention).

Paul Molitor's 1999 (40): .305 10-63-89-11

Carlton Fisk's 1990 (At the age of 42 and from a C no less):
.285 18-65-65-7

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written by Ackshawn, March 08, 2009

Wow, real nice article. I really appreciated the historical perspective on best fantasy seasons for vets. This is the sort of statistical culling that I like from fantasy writers, not just espousing retreaded views on not paying for closers, although I do agree with that. Great work.

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