The Counting Categories
This category, worth another 30 percent of the final score in determining places on the Hitter’s Mt. Rushmore, represents each player’s average all-time rank in career hits, home runs, RBIs and runs scored.
It is Hank Aaron’s wheelhouse. With 3,771 hits, he ranks third all time behind only Pete Rose and Ty Cobb. His 755 home runs rank second behind only Barry Bonds. He drove in a record 2,297 runs, and scored 2.174 times, more than any player except Rickey Henderson, Cobb and Bonds.
His third, second, first and fourth place standings give Aaron an average score in the counting categories of 2.50, and nobody else can say that.
In fact Aaron is the only immortal who stands among the top 10 in all four categories…and he’s top five in all of them.
That means Aaron’s margin in the category is substantial. the No. 2 guy on the counting categories list, Willie Mays, placed 12th, sixth, 12th and seventh, for an average of 9.25. That’s nearly four times as high as Aaron.
For comparison, here is the composite top 10, showing each player’s rank in each of the four categories.
Rank Player Hits HRs RBIs Runs Score
1 Hank Aaron 3 2 1 4 2.50
2 Willie Mays 12 6 12 7 9.25
3 Alex Rodriguez 22 4 4 8 9.50
4 Albert Pujols 15 5 3 16 9.75
5 Barry Bonds 37 1 6 3 11.75
6 Babe Ruth 45 3 2 4 13.50
6 Stan Musial 4 32 8 10 13.50
8 Carl Yastrzemski 9 39 14 19 20.25
9 Frank Robinson 35 10 21 17 20.75
10 Eddie Murray 13 27 11 41 23.00
10 Rafael Palmeiro 29 13 17 33 23.00
This is a bad category for some of the game’s legends. Having lost several seasons to war service, Ted Williams ranks only 77th in career hits, dragging down his overall score. Ty Cobb is second in hits and runs, and ninth in RBIs. But he’s outside the top 200 in home runs, ruining his category average. The same is true of Honus Wagner and Tris Speaker.
Through three categories and 90 percent of the formula, the battle for spots on the Hitter’s Mt. Rushmore boils down to six names: Bonds, Ruth, Aaron, Mays, Musial, Williams and Cobb. The matter of sorting that group out will come down to the final two categories and the formula’s final 10 percent.