Wasn’t one of the big findings of sabremetrics that on-base percentage is one of the most important statistics?
Yes, in fact it’s the most important statistic for a hitter.
On-Base Percentage (OBP) measures the most important thing a batter can do at the plate: not make an out. Since a team only gets 27 outs per game, making outs at a high rate isn’t a good thing — that is, if a team wants to win.
From the Sabermetrics Library.
On the other hand, power is also a very important measure, as a guy who hits for power (HRs and doubles) is more likely to drive in runs than a guy who hits mostly singles. OPS+ is a normalized way to address how a batter performs on both measures.
As far as OBP goes, Rose wasn’t terribly great at that. He hit a lot (he was a career .303 batter), but he didn’t walk particularly often – which may have been another manifestation of his aggressive playing style, and his laser focus on getting hits. His OBP was only .375, which places him at 228th all-time.
Sure. Ideally you’ll have guys who get on base and also sluggers to send them home.
Well, ideally, you’d have nine guys who can do both, and play solid defense as well.
And they can pitch!
I’ll just note that OBP is the more important component of the two. Bill James did a study using extreme players, and showed a lineup of .400 OBP/.300 slugging outscored one with .300 OBP/.400 slugging.
Rose was NOT slow, guys, not for most of his career. He ran just fine, even if he wasn’t a speed demon.
A 57% success rate was not uncommon for players in that era if they only attempted 10-30 steals a year. The idea that a basestealer should have at least a 70-75 percent success expectation is a recent revelation.
I mean, Pete Rose was a GREAT player. Clearly he’d have been a first ballot induction had he not loved gambling more than he loved baseball.
I mean.. .375 is really high. That’s very impressive indeed. That’s better than George Brett. Many, many of the players ahead of him on that list did it in way shorter careers (well, all of them were in shorter careers, but many WAY shorter) or posted them in era of extremely high offense, a thing Rose never played in. Does anyone here really, honestly think Rose’s ability to reach base was less impressive than that of Cupid Childs or Kevin Youkilis?
I’m okay with it. Especially for Shoeless Joe since the permanent exclusion was applied ex post facto. Won’t feel sorry for Rose if he doesn’t get voted in.
Apologies if my posts were coming across as saying otherwise.
I was mostly responding to a post upthread which shared a couple of qualitative lists of “top 50 baseball players of all time,” which had Rose on their lists. He was a great player, but IMO, not top 50, and maybe not even top 100.
Hitting .300 over the course of a career – especially a long career – is really really hard, regardless of era, and he was able to do that. Hell, the guy hit .325 when he was 40 years old. He was primarily a one-tool guy: hitting for average; he wasn’t particularly fast, nor did he hit for power, and though he did win two Gold Gloves, early in his career, I never had the sense that he was known for his fielding or his arm (but I may be mistaken). That said, he was really really good at hitting for average, for a very long time.
I do agree he would absolutely have been in the Hall had it not been for his gambling. The 1991 ballot (which would have been his first year on the ballot) was absolutely loaded, with Rod Carew (first year on the ballot), Gaylord Perry, and Fergie Jenkins being elected, and Rollie Fingers and Jim Bunning coming up a bit short, but just looking at Rose’s numbers, and having achieved the all-time hit record, I suspect that you’re right, he would have been a first-ballot guy.
“Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?”
Well, yes, but that’s the self-inflicted tragedy that was Pete Rose. The guy had a guaranteed ticket to Cooperstown, pissed it away because he not only loved to gamble, but was dumb enough to gamble on his own games, and then spent the rest of his life pining for the Hall, and bemoaning the poor treatment he had received.
Rose wasn’t the worst base stealer of all time, far from it. Heck, Babe Ruth was worse. ( 110 SB and 117 CS.)
But Rose never got the memo that he wasn’t good at and just kept going. He’s the only player to have been caught 135 times without making it to 200 successful stolen bases. Who knows? It might have been the only way to beat the spread.
I know there are newer baserunning stats but I’ve never accessed them.
As someone noted (maybe in another thread), one gets credited with a stolen base (or a caught stealing) on a failed hit-and-run play (a play which is rarely used today); it’d probably be very difficult to determine it today, but a fair number of Rose’s steal attempts may well have been on hit-and-runs.
Wouldn’t that apply to every other players’ numbers? Or are you saying that Rose was involved in more hit-and-runs?
It would. The point is that Rose’s overall stats indicate that he didn’t steal many bases, didn’t attempt to steal many bases, and had a mediocre steal rate; hit-and-runs might explain a fair proportion of what, purely looking at his stats, now appear to be steal attempts.
A guy who actually attempted steals regularly – and was fast enough to be good at it – would have had some hit-and-runs baked into his numbers, too, but his overall numbers and rate would have been better.
Willie Randolph was a player ahead of his time. While only batting .276 over his career he had a .373 OBP. Managed a 65.9WAR and had 271 steals and only 94 caught for a 74% success when the average was far lower. That was a career that was 1975 to 1992.
He often led off as a Yankee as he took a lot of pitches and got on base.
He probably was, yes.
In all likelihood MANY players were caught stealing that many times with fewer than 200 steals, but prior to 1920 caught stealing wasn’t a consistently counted thing.
There are currently 192 position players in the HOF. I would opine that Pete Rose belongs in the top 192.
And, of course, the commissioner considered Trump’s opinion in making his decision.