LaHairs

Bryan LaHair continues to mash on the north side of Chicago. He hit his 8th home run of the young season last night, and has accrued so far an impressive 16 wRAA (per Fangraphs) with a slash line of .388/ .479/ .800.

This is all very impressive on its own, but what really makes LaHair's scorching start to the season so notable is that this is his first full season and he's already 29 years old.

I was curious about the best seasons from similar late-bloomers and set up a query that only included players who also saw less than 150 PA before their age 28 season. This is the top 10.

Best Late Bloomer Seasons  -->

First	Last	Year	Age	Team	wRAA	wOBA	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
Lefty	O'Doul	1929	32	PHI	78.8	0.493	0.398	0.465	0.622	1.087
Lefty	O'Doul	1930	33	PHI	57.9	0.473	0.383	0.453	0.604	1.057
Lefty	O'Doul	1932	35	BRO	55.4	0.444	0.368	0.423	0.555	0.978
Melvin	Mora	2004	32	BAL	48.4	0.424	0.34	0.419	0.562	0.981
Earl	Webb	1931	33	BOS	43.3	0.422	0.333	0.404	0.528	0.932
Bob	Cerv	1958	32	KC1	41.2	0.413	0.305	0.371	0.592	0.963
Hank	Sauer	1954	37	CHN	39.7	0.42	0.288	0.375	0.563	0.938
Mike	Easler	1984	33	BOS	39.4	0.395	0.313	0.376	0.516	0.892
Hank	Sauer	1952	35	CHN	38.8	0.407	0.27	0.361	0.531	0.892
Davey	Lopes	1979	34	LAN	33.3	0.39	0.265	0.372	0.464	0.836

....

Here is the top 100 (google doc).

Lefty O'Doul, as you may or may not know, began his career as a pitcher, but was forced to reconsider his job description after developing 'sore arm' early on in his career. Lefty re-emerged with the New York Giants as a 31 year-old and hit for a .388 wOBA in limited Playing Time. In 1929, his first full-season, posted one of the better offensive seasons in baseball history (my wRAA has his age-32 season at 48th best in the live-ball era).

Melvin Mora stands out as the most recent of all the top 10 late-bloomers. He is trailed by onetime teammate Luke Scott, who's recent 2010 season was 20th overall with 27.8 wRAA.

I'll admit to having no idea who Mike Easler was, and a quick glimpse of his player page suggests his 1984 season was an outlier. 

Davey Lopes I certainly do remember, however, I don't necessarily remember him as a late-bloomer. Especially since so much of Lopes's value was in his speed. In his age-34 season, which qualifies here, Davey stole 44 bases. It was this sort of invincible quality Lopes displayed on the field that led him to a fine career (46 WAR), despite receiving his first full season at the late age of 28.

In fact Lopes is 3rd overall amongst all the Lahairs in Career wRAA right behind O'Doul and Hank Sauer.

LaHAIRS, MOST CAREER wRAA -->

First	Last	Debut	wRAA_C
Lefty	O'Doul	04/29/19	254.5
Hank	Sauer	09/09/41	199
Davey	Lopes	09/22/72	165.4
George	McQuinn	04/14/36	147.8
George	Stone	04/20/03	146.7
Matt	Stairs	05/29/92	143.8
Mike	Easler	09/05/73	105.2
Solly	Hemus	04/27/49	103.2
Ken	Phelps	09/20/80	102.2
Bobby	Estalella	09/07/35	94.9

 ...