Top 10 Puerto Rican-born MLB players in honor of Roberto Clemente Day

In honor of Roberto Clemente Day, today we’re going to determine who the top Puerto Rican born MLB players are.

In many respects, Roberto Clemente Day is akin to Jakie Robinson Day. It’s a day that, for baseball fans such as myself and many MLB players, Latinos take the center stage.

As such, today, we’re going to list the top 10 Puerto Rican born players in honor of Clemente. Before we jump to our list, however, a few key stats to remember:

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• Clemente is the undisputed leader in bWAR (94.8) among Puerto Rican (PR) players. Carlos Beltran tails him with a 70.1 bWAR.
• Clemente leads all PR players in hits with exactly 3000 and batting average with a .317 AVG. Roberto Alomar trails him with a career .300 AVG.
• Mr. Alomar also leads all PR players with 474 career stolen bases.
• PR’s home run leader is Carlos Delgado (473) who is followed by, again, Mr. Beltran who has 435 career home runs.
• Delgado also leads all PR players with a .929 OPS. Trailing him is none other than Juan Gonzalez who has a .904 OPS.
• There are FOUR Puerto Rican-born MLB players in the National Baseball Hall of Fame:
  • Roberto Clemente
  • Ivan Rodriguez
  • Roberto Alomar
  • Orlando Cepeda

As I mentioned before, today I’m going to rank the top 10 PR-born players, and to make things easier, I’m going to use the all-encompassing WAR stat. More specifically, I’m going to use Baseball-Reference’s iteration of wins above replacement (bWAR).

In the meantime, as you watch baseball today, look to see if any players are wearing No. 21. If they are, it’s either because they are the Pittsburgh Pirates or they are of Puerto Rican descent.