You are the greatest hitter in MLB history…

The Game Room
1

Feels pretty good, don’t it? You’ve played for over twenty years, you’ve got a lifetime batting average a little higher than Cobb’s, and you’re closing in steadily on Rose’s lifetime hits mark.

But here’s your problem: while you can definitely still play at a major league level in your forties, batting around .300 even now, you also can see the day, if you keep playing at your current level or below (which is pretty likely considering your age) when your lifetime average will sink below Cobb’s lifetime average. Since you’ve been proud of keeping your average in the .370s for years, you’re certainly not going to play until it drops below .367, are you?

But you also need to keep playing, even at the .300 or below level, to accrue the hits you need to break Rose’s mark. If you quit while your average is the #1 all-time best, you’ll fall short of holding the record for most base hits. If you keep playing long enough to break Rose’s record, your average will decline to the mid-.360s. What’s your call? Which record will determine how long you keep playing?
Here’s your numbers, if you want numbers:
You’ve got 4130 h in 11222 ab = .368, as of today.
Your last three seasons’ average is .298, so if you need 127 hits to break Rose’s 4256, and you bat .298 or below, that means you’ll need 427 more at-bats at that rate to break Rose’s mark. Adding those figures to your record to date gives you a new lifetime record of 4257/11649, bringing you down to .365 lifetime. (And for you quibblers who say that “the greatest hitter in MLB history” ain’t no singles hitter, let’s assume you racked up 800-odd HRs along the way.) So, when do you hang ‘em up, before or after reaching 4257?

2

Eh, counting stats just aren’t that meaningful to most stat geeks. I’ll take the .370 average and count my millions.

3

I’m retiring. Fuck Pete Rose. I’ll beat him to the Hall of Fame, even if I don’t break his hits record.

In all seriousness, I think all-time records are broken these days by players who hang around the game longer than they should. Rose hit .261 over his last five years in the league, when the NL average was around .264. The only reason to keep playing is to get that number, and it’s an essentially meaningless thing. The rate stats are far more impressive, in my opinion.

4

Cobb’s career BA is more impressive than Rose’s hit record. Rose’s record is just a jerk-off longevity record. Somebody else will just come along and play for 25 years and break it eventually anyway. Cobb’s career BA has never been broken, would hold up for longer and would be a better argument for Best Hitter Ever staus.

5

Before losing the record for highest batting average, I would learn how to throw a knuckler and play for an American League team. This would give me the chance to add some amusing pitching stats to my impressive resume. I could DH at my leisure – if I was really feelin’ it that day, for instance. But I wouldn’t accrue enough times at bat to remotely endanger the batting average record.

6

Easy choice.

I juice like a mf’er, bet on all my games, and take both Rose and Cobb’s record.

Who needs the Hall?

:cool:

7

Well, it depends. Is my goal to get both of these or am I happy with what I’ve accomplished so far? Do I love the game more than anything else? If those two arent’ important, I’ll take the batting average and retire happily and peacefully.

8

I’d take the batting average.

Enginerd, is it your opinion that everyone with a batting average below .264 in that timespan should have retired? If not, then why Rose?

9

If I have 800 HRs and a .367 lifetime BA, nobody is going to care about the hits record.

Add me to the number of people that think BA is a better lifetime stat than # of hits.

10

Not to speak for Enginerd, here, but I’d wager it was the blatant way in which Rose kept himself in the lineup JUST to get the record when many MANY other free-to-have players could have hit better. Remember, now, Rose was playing first base, a traditional hitters position.

              AB          OPS     OPS+     On the Bench

1986 237 .586 61 Nick Esasky, Barry Larkin, Kal Daniels
1985 405 .714 99 Eric Davis, Tony Perez
1984 96 .888 147 Rose was not a starter

Note that '85 and’86 featured Rose as a player-manager and inserting himself in the lineup even when it was clear that there were better options available to the team.

Note, also that OPS+ in this case refers to the league as a whole. So, compared to other players, in 1985 Rose was 1% worse than all hitters. Well and good. But that’s not characterized against all other starting first basemen against which Rose would fair considerably worse given that other starter first basemen in the National league were:

Bob Horner OPS .832
Leon Durham .823
Glenn Davis .805
Greg Brock .770
Keith Hernandez .814
Mike Schmidt .907
Jason Thompson .747
Steve Garvey .748
David Green .648
Jack Clark .895

And that does even include such AL first basemen as Mattingly, Murray, Evans, Balboni, Carew, Hrbek, Davis, O’Brien, and Upshaw.

By any measure Rose, for those few years of the chase, was one of the worst first basemen in the majors.

Really, is there ANYONE left who doesn’t think Rose is about Rose first and everything else a distant second?

11

I have a different take on it. Forget the records, if I am still enjoying what I am doing and still raking in the millions, I would keep playing.

Once you retire, that is it, you are done. There is no going back. If I break the Rose hit record that is great, but I care more about playing the game I love and it earns me unbelievable amounts of money through salary and endorsements.

Now if I was tired of playing or even considered it a job, I would go out on top and retire will the unbelievable batting average. Beating Cobb for batting average would mean more to me than beating Rose for hits.

As a fan I believe the most hits is just barely believable to be broken. I cannot conceive of someone today challenging Cobb for the lifetime batting average .

Jim

12

I’m really surprised that Wade Boggs didn’t take this route, as his knuckler, which he used on a few occasions during blowouts near the end of his career, was apparently pretty good. But he retired and went into the Hall in 5 years instead.

13

Jonathon Chance pretty much said exactly what I would have. First base is generally a hitting position - it’s a good spot to hide someone who’s not a great fielder but can hit the ball a ton. If you waste that opportunity on a guy with an OPS+ of 90, you’re hurting the team. Those teams he played on had better options, and they should have gone with them.

It must have been really tough for him some days, trying to decide between winning his bet and inching closer to Cobb’s record. I really feel for the guy. :rolleyes:

14

It’s not just Rose, either. Mickey Mantle played too hurt, too long, and saw his lifetime average drop to .298. Willie Mays stumbled around the outfield with the Mets and said “growing old is just a helpless hurt.” Even Stan Musial was able to come back from three years of decline, but he went one season too long.

Once you keep playing just to pile up records, you’re playing too long.

15

Except these guys are humans and love the sports and especially back then were not sure how they would be earning a living after retirement. Mickey was paid a lot of money for the time to hobble out there and keep trying. Like Ruth with the Braves, long before, but at least he had the additional excuse of thinking he could break into managing.

You must love Joe DiMaggio. He retired and left a $100,000 contract offer on the table as to not play at a diminished level.

Jim

16

Playing too long for whom? I agree with What Exit. I’d play for as long as I was still enjoying it. Plus, it might seem like much comparatively, but an extra 10 million is still an extra 10 million.

Of the two records I think I’d prefer the hits record, since it is more famous, but I would enjoy knocking Cobb or Rose from the top perch.

17

In keeping with the OP and adding to What Exit?'s comments, however, if you’re still batting between, say, .290 and .300 – even if that is a tremendous decline from the level of play you’d been at during the height of your career – you’re likely still helping your team.

The OP’s scenario mentions not playing as well as you had been, but doesn’t suggest you’re a detriment to your team. If you love the game and you’re still producing at the plate, why not keep playing? Especially if your team’s got a shot at the title and you can still help them get there.

18

I would pursue blood doping and growth hormone to hang on at a high level until I was 46. They can not test for it.

19

Cash it in my last decent season, go out on top and replace Ron Santo as the color guy for WGN Radio in Chicago.

20

Without reading any other responses, I’ll say “before”. Plenty of “raw number” records have being broken during my lifetime (Aaron and then Bonds for career homers; Ripken for consecutive games; Maris, then McGwire, then Bonds for single-season HR). However, Cobb retired after the 1928 campaign, and his career batting average has stood the test of time, as has the single-season mark (held by either Tip O’Neill, Hugh Duffy, Nap Lajoie, or Rogers Hornsby, depending on how far back you consider marks to be comparable to today’s).

Thus, I’d figure that the batting average standard would last longer, and so (assuming I hadn’t made a bunch of bad investments which required me to keep playing for the income) I’d “hang 'em up” before I let my BA dip below Cobb’s .36636.