Those of you who have been long time followers of MillersTime/GoSox (all three of you) no doubt know that I am a big fan of Wash. Post sports writer Thomas Boswell. I always feel I learn something from his columns.

He wrote another one the other day entitled A Different Kind of Moneyball, wherein he looked at the recent deals with Pujols (and to a lesser degree the ones with Reyes, Wilson, Buehrle, and Bell) and asks, “How much is too  much?”

The article is worth reading, in part because of the chart below, where Boswell takes a look at ‘how 15 of baseballs greatest hitters fared after turning 32.’

For those of you who love ‘inside baseball,’ Here’s more grist for the mill.

(Note for the table below – Williams (5) DiMaggio (3), Musial (1), and Mays (1) lost a total of 10 full seasons in their primes for WWII and/or Korea. Average games through age 31 should be 1700)

	OPS+ Before	OPS+ After	Games Before	Games After
	Age 32	Age 32	Age 32	Age 32
Babe Ruth	212	199	1,350	1,153
Ted Williams	193	187	1,273	828
Ty Cobb	185	145	1,805	1,229
Lou Gehrig	183	166	1,538	626
Rogers Hornsby	177	168	1,689	570
Stan Musial	172	144	1,524	1,502
Jimmie Foxx	170	129	1,834	483
Frank Thomas	169	136	1,371	951
Willie Mays	159	151	1,534	1,453
Hank Aaron	157	151	1,806	1,492
Joe DiMaggio	157	152	1,111	625
Mel Ott	157	150	2,015	715
Frank Robinson	156	149	1,786	1,022
Manny Ramirez	156	150	1,383	919
Average of 16	170	154	1,612
Albert Pujols	170		1,705