Baseball Nerdery

The Debate:

A typical bar debate will begin with phrases like, "Jessica Alba is the hottest woman alive," or "Look asshole, the Packers are WAY better than the Vikings and always will be." (Incidentally, these first two statements happen to be true.) Typical night-out-drinking debates generally do not delve into the specifics of, "Manny Ramirez is quite possibly the greatest right-handed hitter in the history of baseball," and, even if they do, they rarely get past the shouting match of a couple drunk guys naming their favorite baseball players.

When my friends and I begin such a debate, however, something radically different happens. Standard conversation ceases, at least among the few actively involved in the discussion. All talk and action becomes centered in getting to the statistical core of the matter. This is how a night out at the bar turned into a complete statistical breakdown of some of baseball's finest hitters, with a napkin serving to store complete 162-game averages for BA/OBP/SLG/HR/and RBIs for 17 of history's best hitters.

Of course, there was no utterly conclusive answer, but the fun is in the chase. I can, however, make an educated case now for the fact that Manny Ramirez certainly may be the greatest right hand hitter of all-time. A very good case could also be made for Alex Rodriguez, and it is possible that by the end of his career, the consistency of Albert Pujols may prove him best. Historically, Joe DiMaggio could certainly be a threat to these men of our era. Mike Schmidt. Hank Aaron. Jimmy Foxx. Willie Mays. A case could be made for any of them. For funsies, lets just take a look at some stats for these men and others and compare some of the exceptional right-handed hitters of all-time.

Modern (My Lifetime) Players: BA/OBP/SLG/HR/RBI (per 162 games)
(*Bold indicates highest in group*)

Albert Pujols .332/.423/.620/40/123

Manny Ramirez .313/.410/.594/41/133

Vladimir Guerrero .324/.391/.578/36/118

Alex Rodriguez .306/.388/.577/44/127

Frank Thomas .302/.420/.558/37/120

Albert Belle .295/.369/.564/40/130

Mike Piazza .308/.377/.545/36/113

Nomar Garciaparra .315/.364/.525/27/110

Kirby Puckett .318/.360/.477/19/99

Gary Sheffield .294/.396/.520/33/107

Magglio Ordonez .312/.371/.522/29/115

Moises Alou .303/.369/.516/28/107

Edgar Martinez .312/.418/.515/24/99

Historical Players: BA/OBP/SLG/HR/RBI (per 162 games)


Jimmy Foxx .325/.428/.609/37/134

Joe DiMaggio .325/.398/.579/34/143

Rogers Hornsby .358/.434/.577/22/114

Willie Mays .302/.384/.557/36/103

Hank Aaron .305/.374/.555/37/113

Mike Schmidt .267/.380/.527/37/107

Frank Robinson .294/.389/.537/34/105

Ernie Banks .274/.330/.500/33/105

Roberto Clemente .317/.359/.475/16/87

Hank Greenberg .313/.412/.605/38/148

Honus Wagner .327/.391/.466/6/100

Cap Anson .333/.393/.445/6/133

Hack Wilson .307/.395/.545/29/128

Nap Lajoie .338/.380/.467/5/104

Lefties (For Comparison): BA/OBP/SLG/HR/RBI (per 162 games)


Ted Williams .344/.482/.634/37/130

Babe Ruth .342/.474/.690/46/143

Lou Gehrig .340/.447./632/37/149

Barry Bonds .298/.444/.607/41/108

Stacking Them Up:

Even some of these names, great ballplayers as they were, do not really belong in this conversation. To determine the greatest "hitter" I think that we need to establish what I consider the consummate hitter to be--A man who hits for power and average, getting on base and and driving in runs. The man who will get my nod for greatest right-hand hitter will be the greatest combination of all the categories listed. Rogers Hornsby led all of our listed righties in batting average at .358. Hank Greenberg led the righties in RBIs, averaging 148 per 162 games played. Alex Rodriguez is averaging 44 HRs/162 to lead all righties and Albert Pujols' .620 slugging percentage takes that crown. So how do we determine a clear #1? Manny Ramirez, historically, does not lead any of the categories but has very respectable numbers all the way across the board. Let's list out each category's top twelve.

Batting Average

1. Rogers Hornsby .358
   
2. Nap Lajoie .338
   
3. Cap Anson .333
   
4. Albert Pujols .332
5. Honus Wagner .327
   
6. Jimmie Fox/Joe DiMaggio .325
7. Vladimir Guerrero .324
8. Kirby Puckett .318
9. Roberto Clemente .317
10. Nomar Garciaparra .315
    
11. Manny Ramirez/Hank Greenberg .313

On-Base Percentage

1. Rogers Hornsby .434
2. Jimmy Foxx .428
3. Albert Pujols .423
4. Frank Thomas .420
5. Edgar Martinez .418
6. Hank Greenberg .412
7. Manny Ramirez .410
8. Joe DiMaggio .398
9. Gary Sheffield .396
10. Hack Wilson .395
11. Cap Anson .393
12. Honus Wagner .391

Slugging Percentage

1. Albert Pujols .620
   
2. Jimmy Foxx .609
3. Hank Greenberg .605
4. Manny Ramirez .594
5. Joe DiMaggio .579
6. Vladimir Guerrero .578
7. Alex Rodriguez/Rogers Hornsby .577
8. Albert Belle .564
9. Frank Thomas .558
10. Willie Mays .557
11. Hank Aaron .555

Home Runs

1. Alex Rodriguez 44
2. Manny Ramirez 41
3. Albert Pujols/Albert Belle 40
4. Hank Greenberg 38
5. Frank Thomas/Jimmie Foxx/Hank Aaron/Mike Schmidt 37
6. Willie Mays/Mike Piazza/Vladimir Guerrero 36

Runs Batted In

1. Hank Greenberg 148
2. Joe DiMaggio 143
3. Jimmie Foxx 134
4. Cap Anson/Manny Ramirez 133
5. Albert Belle 130
6. Hack Wilson 128
7. Alex Rodriguez 127
8. Albert Pujols 123
9. Frank Thomas 120
10. Vladimir Guerrero 118
11. Magglio Ordonez 115

So now, we have the top 12 in each listed category. From here, I feel like the only way to go is to assign each person in each list a score, from 12 points for first place to 1 point for twelfth place, and then add up the scores. This will give us a quantifiable measure of how they rank, statistically, against one another.

If you do this, you come out with a very interesting list. Now, by no means is this 100% foolproof, obviously, but I think it is a valid means for comparison. Is this a complete list? Absolutely not. You could find a guy not included here that will score similar in points to some of the low-scorers simply because they dominated one or two categories. Sammy Sosa or Mark McGwire, for instance, would score relatively high based on HRs and RBIs alone, but nobody would put them in this kind of company (unless they were a moron).

I give you history's greatest right-handed hitters...

10. Vladimir Guerrero (17 points)
9. Albert Belle and Cap Anson (21 point tie)
8. Frank Thomas (22 points)
7. Alex Rodriguez (23 points)
6. Rogers Hornsby (30 points)
5. Joe DiMaggio (31 points)
4. Manny Ramirez (36 points)
3. Hank Greenberg (38 points)
2. Albert Pujols (45 points)

and #1:

Jimmie "Double X" Foxx (46 points)















*if you know of a player not included here, please do not hesitate to let me know so that I can recalculate.