3000 Is Not Important
Posted at 10:19 am on Wednesday, July 1, 2009, in Sports, and tagged baseball.
Baseball is funny. It elevates its statistics and creates thresholds that are so unrealistic, however sporadically attained, it precludes many of the greatest ballplayers from being considered elite. Unless you discount the numbers altogether, and without numbers, you do not have baseball.
The most oft-mentioned statistic as categorically “unfair” is the 300 wins for starting pitchers as a requirement to be considered a hall-of-famer. In today’s age of middle relief specialists and five-man rotations, it is simply becoming a matter of calculus — or more accurately, simple algebra (a related form in the language of mathematics) — that doing such is nearly impossible. For a pitcher to win 300 games, he must register 15 wins for 20 seasons or 20 wins for 15 seasons. That is becoming more and more of an anomaly and doesn’t represent “greatness,” by any measure, in the sport today.
A lesser mentioned statistic that is equally unfair is the 3000 hit threshold. Using the same math as above, a hitter would require 15 seasons of 200 hits or 20 seasons of 150 hits. Surely any player that would meet such criteria would be hall-of-fame worthy — besides Pete Rose and Rafael Palmeiro maybe — or if they had some inordinate number of home runs to complement their hit totals (which may or may not be a function of natural or unnatural strength), like Babe Ruth (2873 career hits) and Lou Gehrig (2721), they would have a key to Cooperstown.
But establishing 3000 hits (or 300 wins) as any sort of threshold of representing greatness is a misnomer. Careers are cut short by injury or death, players can be a part of winning or losing teams (and statistics in playoffs do not count), and who precedes and follows a hitter’s place in the batting order has a great effect on pitching decisions (more so today). Having 3200 hits does not necessarily make you a better player than if you had 2800 (unless you also had 540 home runs and 420 steals; then you’d be a god)
Here are some great ballplayers that have not hit 3000, and are either Hall of Famers or should be…
- Frank Robinson 2943
- Barry Bonds 2935
- Mel Ott 2876
- Babe Ruth 2873
- Brooks Robinson 2848
- Andre Dawson 2774
- Roberto Alomar 2724
- Lou Gehrig 2721
- Bill Buckner 2715
- Ted Williams 2654
- Jimmie Foxx 2646
- Tim Raines 2605
- Steve Garvey 2599
- Reggie Jackson 2584
- Ernie Banks 2583
- Joe Morgan 2517
- Fred McGriff 2490
- Frank Thomas 2468
- Ozzie Smith 2460
- Jim Rice 2452
Not every hit is equally important either. A slap single in the ninth when you are down (or up) by six means nothing. The most underrated batting statistic in all of baseball is runs scored. I’d follow that with a statistic that measures all players almost equally, the most normalized batting statistic: doubles. Not every player can belt 50 home runs, nor can every player run-out bunts or infield singles (or stretch doubles into triples). But a double is equally attainable by every player in the league, or it should be, and I’ll assume that it is. This is why when you look at the career leaders list for doubles, you immediately recognize not only the greatest players in history, but the best all-around, athletic players; true ballplayers.
When measuring a player’s absolute value, assigning an arbitrary number for a given statistic, literally based on nothing (aside from it being a round number), is an unrealistic and inappropriate method. A player’s worth should be measured by his contribution to his team (runs, runs batted-in, etc.) and his team’s success, not to mention defensive skills1 and overall gamesmanship.
Notes- Defensive skills are nearly impossible to statistically evaluate (and always will be; no two ground balls or fly balls are the same). ↩
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