Every year when we get to Memorial Day, MLB teams evaluate where they stand and come away with a pretty good idea of what they need to do between that point and the trade deadline, which this year is Aug. 3. One of the more difficult aspects of the evaluation is when veteran players are performing well below their accustomed level. That’s when teams have to figure out if the underperformance is just an early-season slump or due to injury, mechanical issues or the harsh reality that the player is another year older and perhaps their decline in performance is here to stay.
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Predicting when a veteran player is in permanent decline is difficult because some players, like David Ortiz or Adrian Beltré, can continue to perform at a high level into their 40s. Some players start their decline in their early 30s, like Carl Crawford or Hall of Famer Andruw Jones.
Bottom line, how a player will age is not something that’s predictable. When a player loses some hand-eye coordination and bat speed, it doesn’t come back. During the performance enhancing drug era, players were able to perform well into their late 30s at a high rate, but those days are now behind us.
There is a recent group of Hall of Fame caliber players who declined earlier than expected, including Miguel Cabrera, who after hitting over .300 with more than 30 homers almost every year, declined immediately after age 33. He still played seven more seasons but never hit 20 home runs or .300 again.
Joey Votto led the National League in on-base percentage seven times, and through age 33, he averaged nearly 30 home runs per season. After his age-34 season, where he led the NL in OBP, he declined as a hitter, never reaching base at a .400 clip again and hitting more than 15 home runs just one time over his final five seasons.
Star veteran players who begin their decline phase can still be useful major leaguers but expectations about what they can contribute have to be adjusted.
This season, we’ve already seen several star veteran players get off to extremely slow starts. Their teams must now decide if these players can bounce back or if their stars are in a decline phase that is permanent. I took a look at some of those underperforming star players and made my best assessment as to whether these players are just in a slump or on the downslope of their careers.
(Note: Stats as of Tues., May 19.)
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Manny Machado, 3B, San Diego Padres
My best guess: He’ll rebound
Machado, 33, has been one of the best third basemen in the league since he arrived as a teenager in 2012. Since 2019, he’s also been the face of the Padres’ organization. He’s been extremely consistent at the plate, hitting at least 32 home runs a season from 2015-19 and at least 27 home runs in every season since 2015, save for the shortened pandemic year. He’s also driven in at least 85 runs in each of those seasons.
This year, he’s off to the worst start of his career, slashing an ugly .182/.277/.339 with an OPS+ of 73. According to Statcast, his bat speed has declined from 74.5 mph to 74.1 mph from last year to this season. It was 76.7 mph in 2023, the first year for tracking that metric publicly. His bat speed is still above-average for the league, but his attack angle has dropped from 8 degrees last season to 6 degrees this year (the ideal attack angle for hitting line drives and home runs is between 5 and 20 degrees) and he’s hitting the ball more to the opposite field than he has in any of the past four seasons.
Perhaps a change in mechanics or approach can get that attack angle back up at least to last year’s levels and get him to hit the ball more up the middle or to the pull-side again.
Ortiz’s age-33 season was in 2009, and he got off to a slow start, hitting just .230 that April and an ugly .143 that May. He looked like he was declining. He then hit .320 in June and went on to perform at a high level through age 40. Hopefully, that’s going to be the case with Machado, considering he’s signed through 2033 (when he will be 40) at over $39 million per year.
Marcus Semien, 2B, New York Mets
My best guess: In decline phase
Semien, 35, is a true leader and a future MLB manager if he wants to be. He’s still a strong defender at second base and occasionally can come up with a big hit. However, age-related decline has gotten him and there is no going back.
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The Mets should have seen Semien’s decline last year with the Texas Rangers and not traded outfielder Brandon Nimmo for him. Semien’s SLG has gone from .478 to .391 to .364 to .322 over the last four years while the on-base percentage — which was .348 four years ago — is now .283. His average exit velocity has also dropped to 86, which is in the 9th percentile for the league. The three-time All-Star still plays Gold Glove defense, but the offense is not coming back.
Salvador Perez, C, Kansas City Royals
My best guess: Decline is starting
Perez, 36, is a future Hall of Famer, team leader and the face of the Royals franchise. He was a star during this spring’s World Baseball Classic, but he’s showing signs that age is catching up to him. His early-season slump could be due to playing in the WBC and not having a normal spring training because last year he hit 30 homers and drove in 100 runs and he played like an All-Star. However, he’s slashing just .199/.249/.343 — the worst slashline of his career.
Like Machado, Perez has seen his bat speed decline some this season, though Perez’s attack angle remains solid (12 degrees). He’s chasing pitches at a very high rate (46.4 percent, in the 1st percentile for the league), which could be a sign he’s trying to swing early to make up for the slower bat, or could just be an approach issue.
He can still contribute, but the Royals probably need to give him more days off, especially with rookie catcher Carter Jensen on the roster. Keep in mind decline can be gradual or sudden, there is no consistent pattern across the league.
Matt Chapman, 3B, San Francisco Giants
My best guess: Decline is starting
Chapman is a five-time Gold Glove and two-time Platinum Glove winner and has hit 20 or more homers in a season six different times. This year, he’s homered just once in 48 games and he’s slugging just .308. Chapman has never had a SLG lower than .403 in any full season. His bat speed is still elite (92nd percentile at 75.6 mph) and his chase rate is solid (25.8 percent / 72nd percentile), but his Hard Hit rate has gone from the 100th percentile in 2023 to 88th in 2024, 78th last year and a dismal 16th this year.
He’s still an elite defender but not at the level he was a couple of years ago. The Giants have him signed through 2030 on a $151 million deal, so they’re obviously hoping it’s just a slow start. If he can get hot, however, they might want to consider dealing him at the trade deadline to take that future decline risk away, especially with Casey Schmitt — a natural third baseman — coming into his own as a big leaguer this season.
Corey Seager, SS, Texas Rangers
My best guess: He’ll rebound
Seager, 32, is on the injured list with a back ailment but before he went on the IL he was really struggling, slashing just .179/.286/.353, albeit with seven home runs. He also had a staggering 50 strikeouts in 182 plate appearances (27.5 percent K-rate), a huge uptick in strikeouts for a player who has only struck out more than 100 times once in a season since 2018 and hasn’t had a full-season K-rate above 20 percent since 2017. On the plus side, he’s still hitting the ball hard, with a 91.1 mph average exit velocity (78th percentile).
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His career has been filled with injuries and he hasn’t played in more than 125 games since 2022. Given he’s on the IL with a back injury, it’s entirely possible the slow start has more to do with that injury (which may have been lingering before it was an IL issue) than age-related decline. Seager is signed through 2031 on a 10-year, $325 million deal. A move to third base or designated hitter could be in his future. It will be worth watching his return from the back injury closely. If his play picks up after his return, that will be a good sign that this slow start was more injury-related than anything to be concerned about age-wise.
Marcell Ozuna, DH, Pittsburgh Pirates
My best guess: He’s done
Ozuna, 35, has had a solid 14-year career, with 301 home runs and an .800 OPS. However, his decline over the past three years is real, as his SLG has gone from .546 to .400 to .311. He’s batting just .179 this year and has a -0.7 bWAR. His Hard Hit rate has gone from 96th percentile in 2024 to the 38th percentile this year. Given his age and the decline in his production over the past two years, he looks like a release candidate at some point this season.
George Springer, DH, Toronto Blue Jays
My best guess: Injury is the issue
Springer, 36, had arguably the best year of his career in 2025, helping the Blue Jays win the American League pennant by slashing .309/.399/.560 with 32 home runs and 84 RBIs. Even at age 35, he was the best version of himself offensively. This year, he fractured his left big toe on April 11. He returned after two weeks but had dealt with several setbacks since then. He’s also still managing the pain as the toe heals. His power numbers have suffered as a result, as he’s seen a significant drop in his average exit velocity and Barrel rate, among other metrics, from last year to this year (though it should be noted those metrics are more inline with what he was producing in 2024 and 2023).
Even though he’s now 36 and age-related data says he should be declining, I think when the toe heals he’ll see his numbers improve significantly. That said, we should expect some regression after last year’s banner season and it is possible that even though Springer performed at a high level last season, he could be headed for a decline given his age and the accumulation of his many injuries.
Cedric Mullins, CF, Tampa Bay Rays
My best guess: Decline is real
Players whose best tool is the “run” tool over the “hit” tool normally decline in their early 30s. We saw it with Crawford, who declined dramatically at age 30, we saw it with Michael Bourn at age 32 and with Jacoby Ellsbury at age 33, which was his final season. Mullins, 31, has seen his OBP decline from .305 to .299 to .247 the last three years, and for a player who has stolen 22 or more bases four different times to have been caught five times in 15 chances shows he’s also lost a step. His sprint speed is in the 58th percentile this season.
His defense is still solid, but his offense has declined significantly with age. He likely isn’t getting back to the level of performance that made him such a valuable player for the Orioles.
I am personally rooting for all eight of these players and am a fan of all them. When I was a GM, one of the hardest parts of the job was having to make decisions on aging players who were declining because most of them don’t want to accept the reality that they aren’t at their physical peaks anymore. It’s hard to tell great people that their skills and performance are diminishing and even harder to tell them they’re going to have a reduced role, be traded or even released.
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In the front office, we always hope that the players realize when to retire, but that hardly ever happens, so the end of their career is usually determined by the executives and not themselves.
Let’s hope these players all rebound, but at the same time, we have to remember, most players reach a period in their careers where decline becomes real and the end of their time on the field looks closer than they anticipated.
