Average League Lines & Ages

Matt Eddy at BaseballAmerica published a very informative piece today dealing with the average slash lines, stats, and ages of each league in 2009. This stuff is very helpful when comparing players across leagues, so I really encourage you to read the whole piece, but here are the slash lines for each Rays-relevent league, along with the average age for each level:

Level - League                  BA    OBP   SLG   OPS     Age
AAA - International League     .262  .328  .395  .723    26.9
AA - Southern League           .255  .332  .380  .712    24.3
High-A - Florida State League  .252  .322  .363  .685    22.8
Low-A - South Atlantic League  .254  .324  .368  .692    21.6
SS-A - New York-Penn League    .245  .320  .351  .671    20.8
Rk - Appalachian League        .257  .328  .384  .712    20.8
Rk - Gulf Coast League         .238  .316  .335  .651    20.5

A few quick observations: In regards to the Gulf Coast League, the average GCL/AZL pitcher was more than a year older than the average hitter(weighted for playing time). The FSL's average OBP was the lowest of any full-season league at .322, and the Stone Crabs had the league leader in Shawn O'Malley, who got on base at a .388 clip. He also played the season roughly a year younger than the average hitter's age. He hit for virtually no power at all -- a well-below average .311 SLG -- but he's really worth keeping an eye on in the Arizona Fall League in a few weeks.

This information is really nice to have, and I hope I can play around with it some more. If you click the link to the actual BaseballAmerica piece, there's also information like walk and strikeout rates, so it's worth checking out.