Let's put it this way: in the previous 5 seasons, there have been exactly 5 player seasons where a player (a) was 35 or older, (b) had 600 plate appearances, and (c) played 75% of his games at 1B.
3 of those players had good seasons - Carlos Delgado at age 36 in 2008, Paul Konerko at age 35 in 2011, and Todd Helton at age 35 in 2009. Kevin Millar was terrible for Baltimore in 2008, and we know what happened to Carlos Lee this year.
So not only are you arguing that we should project Adam LaRoche to do something that not very many people ever do, but also that we project him to be valuable, similar to 3 much better hitters.
I'm sticking with my position that a 1B should not expect any money as a FA in his mid-30s. In all likelihood, even if Adam LaRoche can still put up a mid-700s OPS (which is a question in itself) there will likely be a minor league hitter who can do the same thing for $500,000 in 2015, no matter what team you're talking about.
This first baseman died a couple of years ago, but he certainly hit some after he turned 32:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/v/vernomi01.shtmlThat's our own Mickey Vernon, who had quite a career just for the eight seasons that start when he turned 33. Not shabby before that, either: AL batting champ in 1946 with a .353 average.
Why not keep both LaRoche and Morse? Depth helped last season.
