Or so it seems with the performances to start this season of two grizzled veterans and presumptive HOFers. I’m speaking, of course, of David Ortiz and Ichiro Suzuki who are reminding us why we won’t soon see their likes again.

More after the jump.

Ortiz is reportedly playing his final season though I imagine that, as a free agent after this year, more than one team may try to persuade him to rethink his future plans. The reason, plainly enough, is off-the-chart numbers that project Big Papi to post a career best WAR total. Already, his 3.4 WAR as of this writing is higher than the total for either of his last two seasons and puts him in easy reach of his best total of the past eight years, a 4.4 mark in 2013. His career best 6.4 in 2007 may be a stretch, but not if he posts a second half anything like what he has done so far this season.

Here are Ortiz’s numbers through Boston’s first 75 games, what they project to for 162 games, and a second projection based on half of the first projection for the rest of the season. Barring injury, Ortiz is likely to play much more than shown in the second projection, so his counting stats should surpass most of those still impressive totals. In fact, were Ortiz to compile those second projection totals while playing as much as in the first projection, his rate stats would end up as the still respectable numbers in the third projection. Most likely, Ortiz will surpass those third projection totals as, for example, he would have to bat .170 the rest of the season to finish with the .247 BA of projection #3.

To provide some context for Ortiz’s season, the table above shows the season records since 1901 for players aged 40 or older (rate records are for qualified seasons). Clearly, Ortiz is poised to surpass (or smash) many of those marks, starting with the the doubles record which could possibly fall as early as the All-Star break. In six of the seven categories (bolded above) in which Ortiz was leading his league after 75 games, he is on pace to become the oldest league leader since 1901, as shown in the last row of the table (the age 40+ record holders and oldest league leaders are shown at the end of the post).

As the season began, there was some doubt as to whether Ichiro Suzuki would play often enough or well enough to record the 65 hits he needed to reach 3000 for his career. That skepticism was understandable for a 42 year-old who posted a .229/.282/.279 slash last season, as players with a .561 OPS are scarcely in demand, most particularly after age 40 (only Rabbit Maranville‘s .539 OPS in 1933 ranks lower in 400 PA seasons aged 40+). Ichiro has answered his critics with a renaissance year that has removed any doubt (barring injury) of reaching 3000 hits, a milestone that could possibly come even before the All-Star Game.

There are few, if any parallels to Ichiro’s resurgence this year. His 2015 season of 56 OPS+ is the worst ever in 300+ PA by a player aged 40+ and one of just 10 such seasons below 80 OPS+. Of those players, none posted even 100 OPS+ in any 300 PA aged 40+ season, so Ichiro, with a 119 OPS+ as of this writing, could well be the first with such a turnaround. In fact, at an age at which most players are winding down their careers with (usually) indifferent results in (very) limited playing time, Ichiro has become just the 20th player since 1913 to amass 150 PA over his team’s first 75 games in his age 42 or older season.

Ichiro is last in PA on the list above but first in BA and OBP. While some leveling off of his performance to date is to be expected over the rest of the season, he certainly seems likely to post one of the best batting average seasons for players aged 42+, with only the eleven seasons below showing a .275 BA in 300 PA at that age.

Part of the reason for Ichiro’s success this season is a career-best walk rate of 11.2% of PAs through Miami’s first 75 games. Only once before has Ichiro posted a 9% walk rate, that coming in his sophomore 2002 season when he led the AL with a career high 27 intentional passes. While players do tend to draw more walks as they get older, Ichiro is exceptional in that regard as the only player, among 23 with a 7% walk rate in 1000+ PA aged 40+, to post a walk rate below 6% before age 40.

I started this post by describing this pair as presumptive HOFers and, as likable players with elite career milestones (and, in Ortiz’s case, elite post-season results), they do seem like safe bets. That said, on a strict WAR basis, these two are borderline HOFers at best, with Ichiro likely to just nudge past 60 WAR this year and Ortiz cresting above only the 55 WAR threshold. Still, hard to see either of these players not getting a Cooperstown ticket that should come, if not on their first ballot opportunity, soon thereafter.

As promised, here is the table of age 40+ record holders, and the oldest league leaders, both since 1901.

[table id=293 /]