The Great Game

As the baseball playoffs approached and I was gearing up, I first read Josh Hamilton’s book, and then I downloaded the new biography of Stan the Man Musial (fitting since the Cards ended up in the WS). While reading the story of the most undervalued great player of the 20th century (more on that in another post), I once again got interested in one of my favorite pastimes, diving into baseball stats. I always enjoy refreshing my memory on the great players and taking a hard look at some of the great arguments of the past. Here are a few things I discovered or re-learned:


Ted Williams is certainly the greatest “modern” hitter if you consider modern to be basically WWII and forward. In his prime, Teddy was good for .353/36/142 per 162 games, plus over 40 doubles, and astounding OBP and OPS of .486 and 1.128. No one since can touch those figures. As much as I love Musial, he was just a tad short of Teddy Ballgame. Interesting that those 2 both averaged 87 extra base hits and 371 total bases per year in their prime. Williams had a little more power and more walks (Musial was selective but not compared to Williams).

Joe DiMaggio was better than I have wanted to allow. My Yankee anti-bias. During his prime, Joltin’ Joe was going for 85 extra base hits, 147 RBI and a .330 average per 162 games. His total bases per year (381) was higher than Williams and Musial. He did not walk a lot, but given that by all accounts he was a great center fielder, he does rank as an all-timer. He got old fast and did not pile up the numbers in the latter part of his career. Missed 3 full war-years also.

Like Musial was just barely behind Williams, likewise Teddy was not quite as good as the Babe. The question is how much did the game change in the decade between the end of Ruth and the start of Williams? Lest we forget, Ruth transitioned from ace pitcher to full-time hitter and only averaged .357/54/158 during his prime years. His OBP and OPS were .487 and 1.222. Far from the fatso that most people think he was, he was lean and mean in the 20’s churning out 36 doubles and 9 triples in addition to the 54 dingers. Yes, that’s 99 extra base hits per year!

I just had to revisit the Mantle/Mays discussion. Similar to DiMaggio, I’ve downplayed Mays and considered myself a Mantle guy. I still do, realizing that Mantle was injury prone. But, Mays was incredible. Surprising is that Mays had a higher slugging % than Mantle during their primes. He had a higher average, actually hit more homers and had more extra base hits than Mantle per 162 games. Also stole significant bases. Mantle was more selective, making his OPS higher, but this is a tough argument. Mays was just a little better than Aaron, who was just a little better than Robinson.

Is Albert Pujols the greatest right-handed hitter ever? Close and certainly in the modern era. But he doesn’t quite match up to the forgotten Rogers Hornsby. One of the great overlooked accomplishments in baseball is the fact that from 1921-1925 in over 3,000 plate appearances covering 5 full seasons, Hornsby averaged .402. And he did it with power, averaging over 80 extra base hits. In fact, for the entire decade of the 20’s, Hornsby averaged .382 and 28 homers. Pujols is close, in fact his first 10 years are by a wide margin the greatest by a right-handed hitter since WWII. He is the only player ever to average over 40 homers + 40 doubles for an entire decade.

I looked at Ty Cobb and Honus Wagner. Cobb as expected was just a little better. An amazing stat to me about those 2 is that in the dead ball era, hitting few homers, they both had a slugging % over .500.

I took a good look at Rickey Henderson. Henderson carved a very marketable niche for himself and it worked both for him and his teams. In his prime (the 80’s) he was hitting almost .300, with a .405 OBP, stealing 96 bases, scoring 132 runs, and hitting 18 homers per 162 games. One of the most unique players in ML history, and one of the most memorable for me.

In the 90’s the argument was Bonds vs. Griffey. What a moron Barry Bonds is. Before the steroids he was putting up a .305/40/121 per 162 games, with an OBP of .432 and a slugging % of .600. Also stealing 40 bases. Yes he averaged a 40-40 in his prime per 162 games! Griffey could not match most of Bonds’ numbers, but he was the greatest home run hitter of everyone I looked at. Per 162, he hit 47 homers and hit .302.

Finally for some reason I looked at Joe Morgan. Much of the 70’s and 80’s were devoid of all-time great players. Morgan had a memorable career and is visible to modern fans. How good was he? Talk about a strange career. Morgan was not very good when he was young, and not very good when he was old. He had this 6-year window where he was actually maybe the best player in the game. Otherwise he really sucked. But for 6 years he avg’d .301 with a .430 OBP, stole 65 bases, hit 24 homers, and scored 123 runs. After those 6 years, sucked again. Really bizarre.

Here are the “prime” years that I used to evaluate the players:

Ruth 1920-1931
Williams 1939-1949
Musial 1943-1954
DiMaggio 1936-1948
Mantle 1952-1962
Mays 1954-1965
Aaron 1955-1965
Robinson 1956-1966
Bonds 1990-1998
Griffey 1991-1999
Pujols 2001-2010
Hornsby 1920-1929
Cobb 1907-1917
Wagner 1900-1909
Henderson 1980-1990
Morgan 1972-1977

S