Luis Aparicio's exceptional last season

Luis Aparicio turned 91 on April 29th and he is the oldest living Hall of Famer. His last season was in 1973 at age 39 with the Red Sox.

Let's start with fielding. He played 2,581 games in his career, all at SS. His defensive WAR in his last season was 2.2 in 132 games.

He is one of only 6 players with 2.0+ defensive WAR at age 38 or 39. Click here to see the list from Stathead. This table also shows them:

Rk	Player	dWAR	Season	Age
1	Bill Dahlen	3.6	1908	38
2	Honus Wagner	3.0	1912	38
3	Bob Boone	2.7	1986	38
4	Brooks Robinson	2.5	1975	38
5	Luke Appling	2.4	1946	39
6	Luis Aparicio	2.2	1973	39

This table shows the top 5 in defensive WAR in the AL in 1973 for guys who played 50%+ of their games at SS:

Rk	Player	dWAR	Age
1	Mark Belanger	4.0	29
2	Bert Campaneris	3.3	31
3	Luis Aparicio	2.2	39
4	Frank Duffy	2.1	26
5	Freddie Patek	2.1	28

The other guys on the list are much younger than Aparacio was that year. Click here for the Stathead table. Aparicio was 4th in fielding Win Shares for AL shortstops that year (from the Bill James electronic Win Shares data base).

He did not hit well that year, but his numbers are good compared to other AL shortstops. Although his OPS+ was only 75, it was still tied for 3rd in the AL among shortstops who had 400+ PAs. Here are the leaders:

Rk	Player	OPS+	Age
1	Toby Harrah	100	24
2	Bert Campaneris	81	31
3	Luis Aparicio	75	39
4	Freddie Patek	75	28
5	Jerry Terrell	70	26

Again, the other guys are much younger. Click here to see this data from Stathead. Among these players, Aparicio was 2nd in OBP with .324. Harrah was first with .328 (which was the league average). So Aparicio got on base at just about as often as the average player. Not bad for a 39 year old SS.

He also stole 13 bases and was only thrown out once, for a 92.9% success rate (the league average was 62%). 13 SBs tied him for 19th in the AL that year and the highest SB% of anyone who had more SBs than he did was 82% (Cookie Rojas).

He was the first 38 or 39 year old player to have 10+ SBs and under 5 CS since 1928 (Max Carey with 18-3 and Sam Rice with 16-3). Click here to see the Stathead search results on that one.

Finally, he had an XBT% of 47.1%. XBT% is the percentage of times a runner advanced more than one base on a single or more than two bases on a double. The AL average that year was 47%. Pretty good for a 39 year-old to run just as well as the average player in the league.

With excellent fielding and baserunning and holding his own hitting wise compared to the other shortstops in the league, Aparacio finished his career with a strong season.