...I can think of. I'd bet a lot of other post-war players would fit the bill as well. Edgar Martinez didn't get 200 ABs till he was 27. There's also probably a few minor league stars from before the minors were organized that never got a real shot. Buzz Arlett, who you might remember from the first Bill James historical abstract, played one year at 32 where he hit .313 and never played again in the majors.

I screwed around at B-R.com for a bit and found Smead Jolley, who OPS+'d 112 in the 30's and didn't play till he was 28. Ernie Koy, whose name I feel as though I should recognize(and who was played at UT apparently), also didn't play till 28 and had 3 good years for the Dodgers. Ken Williams was 29 in 1919 and put up some pretty good numbers after that. For an Astros connection, Melvin Mora didn't get started till he was 28, and didn't hit that well till he was 31.

So yeah, there's not much of them, and many probably had special circumstances preventing them from reaching the majors till they were older. But I think that might apply to Luke somewhat as well--he was drafted at 24 I believe, and I think he got injured in Cleveland. There's almost no HOFer's with late starts, but that makes sense since the HOF loves counting stats so much. And anyway, we don't need Luke and Lane to be HOFers. But in general, starting your players at age 28+ isn't a huge recipe for success. :)

Luke is 28.  He'll turn 29 in June.  He entered the major leagues when he was 26, which is a little late for superstar caliber players, but he entered professional baseball at 22 and missed an entire year with TJS (that's a fairly rapid ascent) and as MG indicated, he doesn't need to be a superstar, just a solid run producer.

What's more important than what Pence did in 28 ST ABs is what Scott did in 214 ML ABs last year, and that's post an OPS over 1.000.  Only nine other players with as many at bats posted an OPS over 1.000: Chipper Jones, Jermaine Dye, Jim Thome, Lance Berkman, David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez, Ryan Howard, Travis Hafner, and Albert Pujols.  That's pretty good company.  I'm not saying that Scott will be the next Ryan Howard, but he doesn't have to be.  Edgar Martinez numbers would be pretty sweet.

As for Lane... well, if it weren't for the playing time argument, I'd put Pence on the team before Lane.  Hopefully Lane can at least be an effective bat off the bench for us.  I'd much rather they let Scott struggle a little in the starting role than jump into a straight platoon situation.  We'll see.

Spent 9 years in the minors and is now an extremely valuable player. Not quite an all-star but he could put together an all-star season together. He was 28 before he got 200 abs.

Also, Ryan Howard will be 28 right after the season in November. He was held back till he was closer to 26 than 25.

who began their careers late.  Not very many superstar types, though.  Some examples: Art Howe was called up by the Astros at age 29 (I'm old enough to remember it).  The next year at age 30  he posted a OPS+ of 108, and then a OPS+ of 124 at 31; Howe had OPS+ of 129 and 124 at ages 33 and 34.  Scott Posednik was called up by the Brewers at age 27 and posted an OPS+ of 112, and was 2d in ROY voting.  Looking at Posednik's comps, I see that Dave Roberts was called up at 27, and he has had a fine career in CF.  Marcus Thames with the Tigers has been compared to Scott as a "late bloomer." Raul Ibanez didn't make it to the majors for good until about age 27.  One of his comps, Kevin Millar, started in the majors at age 27. Also, recall that Lane has been in the majors since age 25, which isn't really a late debut date. He just sat on the bench for a few years.

I don't think the earliness in bringing players up determines whether they will be stars. I think we may have a tendency to confuse cause with effect. If a player is good enough to be a star, it becomes evident early on, and they are called up.  Later call ups took longer to develop, for whatever reason, and can be useful players, but generally were never talented enough to be stars. IMO.

So long as we realize that their ceilings may be limited, there is nothing wrong with late bloomers.  I think many guys in this category get classified as AAAA players, because of their age, and never get a chance to play.  Bill James suggested that most of these older AAAA players really could be valuable ML players, but got labeled and never really were given the chance.

I also think it is fair to say that drafting college players has become more in vogue in recent  years, and that this practice tends to extend the debut ages for players nowadays compared to 20 or 30 years ago.