Hank Aaron’s place on the Hitter’s Mt. Rushmore
If Cooperstown ever gets around to chiseling out a Hitter’s Mt. Rushmore, Hank Aaron’s face deserves a spot.
Aaron, who died Friday, was legitimately one of the game’s great offensive threats. In the hours since his passing, a lot of people have said that. But people always say nice things when somebody dies.
Does the data support the claim? Does Hank Aaron truly deserve to be rated among the game’s four greatest bats? Does he merit a spot on a Hitter’s Mt. Rushmore?
To properly and objectively fit Aaron within the context of baseball’s best hitters, an objective methodology is required. The one described below has five parts to it: five-season peak OPS+, cumulative OPS+ over the course of a player’s career; average all-time rank in the significant counting categories (hits, runs, RBIs, home runs); MVP Shares; and baserunning runs.
The formula is weighted, with 30 percent weight going to each of the first three criteria and five percent to the final two.
Every player who met one of two criteria – 500 home runs or 3,000 hits – has been comparatively assessed in each criterion. There are 53 such players, ranging chronologically from Cap Anson to Albert Pujols. In each category, players receive a score based on the weighted value of their ordinal rank. The players with the lowest average score are the best.
Hank Aaron? I’ll spoil the surprise to this extent: He’ll wind up among the all-time top five.
Alphabetically, the 53 players who qualified for consideration are:
Hank Aaron, Cap Anson, Ernie Banks, Adrian Beltre, Craig Biggio, Wade Boggs, Barry Bonds, George Brett, Lou Brock, Rod Carew, Roberto Clemente, Ty Cobb, Eddie Collins, Jimmie Foxx, Ken Griffey Jr., Tony Gwynn, Rickey Henderson, Reggie Jackson, Derek Jeter, Harmon Killebrew, Nap Lajoie, Mickey Mantle, Eddie Mathews, Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Mark McGwire.
Also Paul Molitor, Eddie Mur ray, Stan Musial, David Ortiz, Mel Ott, Rafael Palmeiro, Albert Pujols, Manny Ramirez, Cal Ripken, Frank Robinson, Alex Rodriguez, Pete Rose, Babe Ruth, Mike Schmidt, Gary Sheffield, Sammy Sosa, Tris Speaker, Ichiro Suzuki, Frank Thomas, Jim Thome, Honus Wagner, Paul Waner, Ted Williams, Dave Winfield, Carl Yastrzemski, and Robin Yount.
Five-season Peak OPS+
In determining who belongs on the Hitter’s Mt. Rushmore, superiority at the peak of one’s game is an obvious plus.
Aaron, whose career was marked by its consistency, is at a relative disadvantage in peak-period categories such as this one. His most productive seasons were between 1959 and 1963. His average OPS+ for that period was 170.2.
As strong as that sounds, it only places Aaron 18th among these all-timers. Three – Barry Bonds, Babe Ruth and Ted Williams – had five-season peak OPS+ averages surpassing 200, while three others peaked above 190.
Here is the category top 10.
Rank Player Score
1 Barry Bonds 241.8
2 Babe Ruth 227.0
3 Ted Williams 224.6
4 Ty Cobb 197.4
5 Mark McGwire 192.4
6 Mickey Mantle 191.4
7 Jimmie Foxx 186.2
8 Frank Thomas 185.4
9 Honus Wagner 184.6
10 Stan Musial 178.4
Others finishing ahead of Aaron in this category were Albert Pujols (177.8), Willie McCovey (177.6), Tris Speaker (177.4), Nap Lajoie (177.4), Manny Ramirez (173.2), Willie Mays (171.4) and Frank Robinson (170.8). Mike Schmidt (168.2) and Mel Ott (167.2) followed Aaron to complete the top 20.
Although not relevant to the rating, it speaks to the quality of the candidates that their average score for five-season peak performance was 163.44.
Your view of this category obviously depends on how much you value peak performance as an indicator of exceptionality. Since our overall formula for evaluating hitters gives it equal weight with career performance, we are essentially allowing both the peak and career advocates an equal voice.
Cumulative career OPS+
This category, which is simply the sum of each player’s OPS+ values, is different from the standard career OPS+, which is the player’s average over the course of his career. Cumulative career OPS+ is designed to reward longevity since it advantages a player who is better over a longer period of time. It is a counter-balance to the first, peak-performance oriented, category, and – counting for 30 percent of the final score – weighted equally with it.
In assessing a player’s fitness for a place on the Hitter’s Mt. Rushmore, performance over time is vital.
During his career, Aaron was known for the steadiness of his productivity. Although never hitting 50 home runs in any season, he set the major league record because he eight times topped 40 home runs.
A look at his OPS+ numbers leads to the same conclusion. Fourteen times in a 16-season stretch, Aaron’s OPS+ topped 150. His two ‘failures’ were 142 in 1966 and 149 in 1970. That ran his cumulative OPS+ count to 3,512, sixth best in baseball history.
Here’s the top 10
Rank Player Score
1 Barry Bonds 3,984
2 Ty Cobb 3,947
3 Babe Ruth 3,900
4 Cap Anson 3,894
5 Ted Williams 3,744
6 Hank Aaron 3,512
7 Willie Mays 3,291
8 Stan Musial 3,248
9 Tris Speaker 3,205
10 Frank Robinson 3,182
Through two categories and six-tenths of the overall formula, Aaron ranks only 10th. Granted the men he trails – Bonds, Ruth, Cobb, Williams, Musial, Wagner, Mantle, Mays and Speaker – represent the game’s elite.
We are, however, about to get to Aaron’s greatest strength, the counting categories. It is in that sphere that Aaron’s true genius will show.
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.
MVP Shares
MVP Shares counts for only five percent of the overall score in ascertaining whose visages should be carved into a Hitter’s Mt. Rushmore. That’s in part due to the subjectivity of the voting process and also in part due to the off-and-on nature of MVP voting. It did not exist at all for the entirety of Cap Anson’s career, nor was it around for significant blocks of the careers of such greats as Ruth and Cobb.
Still, peer recognition deserves some role in the formula.
Aaron won the 1959 National League MVP, and six times finished third. That adds up to 5.45 MVP Shares. But that’s only good for seventh place overall. Here is the category top 10.
Rank Player Score
1 Barry Bonds 9.30
2 Stan Musial 6.96
3 Albert Pujols 6.91
4 Ted Williams 6.43
5 Willie Mays 5.94
6 Mickey Mantle 5.79
7 Hank Aaron 5.45
8 Alex Rodriguez 5.23
9 Mike Schmidt 4.96
10 Frank Robinson 4.84
The data for this category illustrates why its weight in the overall formula is diminished. With 1.83 MVP Shares, Babe Ruth ranks only 37th among the 53 candidates. Ty Cobb (1.43 shares) is even further down at 44th. Honus Wagner (1.2 shares) is 48th, and poor Nap Lajoie and Cap Anson prop up the list’s bottom with 0.19 and 0.00 Shares.
Of the leaders entering the category, Bonds – the all-time leader – and Musial fare best. And even though the category doesn’t count for much, the candidacies of Ruth and Cobb take a potentially costly hit.
Baserunning runs
This most overlooked aspect of offensive production also weights at just five per cent of the total score. But in a closely fought battle over who to carve into a Hitter’s Mt. Rushmore, it could be a pivotal five percent.
And that may benefit Aaron, who while not a great baserunner was a solid one. He accumulated 44 career baserunning runs due both to his ability to steal bases and also to his awareness of how and when to take an extra base.
On the base-stealing side, Aaron was surprisingly good for a slugger. He stole 240 bases in 313 attempts, a .767 percentage.
Here’s the category top 10
Rank Player Score
1 Rickey Henderson 144
2 Willie Mays 78
2 Lou Brock 78
2 Paul Molitor 78
5 Ichiro Suzuki 62
6 Alex Rodriguez 56
6 Derek Jeter 56
6 Robin Yount 56
9 Ty Cobb 55
10 Craig Biggio 54
With 44 baserunning runs, Aaron ranked 12th, behind Mickey Mantle (51).
Most of the leaders in this category – Henderson, Brock, Molitor, Jeter – have not fared well enough in the more heavily weighted categories to significantly improve their overall standing.
Among the overall contenders, Aaron’s finish in this category ranked behind Mays and Cobb, but marginally ahead of Bonds – in 13th place at 43 runs – and farther in front of Musial (25th), Williams (28th) and Ruth (38th).
The final order
With victories in five-season peak OPS+, cumulative career OPS+ and MVP Shares, Bonds wound up leading three of the five categories. Aaron led in the counting stats, while Henderson won the final category, baserunning.
Aaron’s overall placements were 18th in five-season peak OPS+, sixth in cumulative career OPS+, first in counting stats, seventh in MVP Shares and 12th in baserunning. He was one of only 10 players to rank among the top 10 in at least two categories. Five of those 10, however – Bonds, Mays, Williams, Musial and Cobb — ranked among the top 10 in three categories. Unless their weakest categories dragged down their averages, there may not be room for Aaron on the Hitting Mt. Rushmore.
Having noted that, here’s the final top 10
Rank Player Score
1 Barry Bonds 2.80
2 Babe Ruth 7.05
3 Willie Mays 7.85
4 Hank Aaron 8.45
5 Stan Musial 8.85
6 Ted Williams 9.10
7 Ty Cobb 11.35
8 Frank Robinson 12.15
9 Albert Pujols 12.90
10 Mickey Mantle 14.95
The close contest between Aaron, Musial and Williams went to Aaron due to his superiority in the counting stats. He ranked first in that category; Musial stood seventh and Williams only 17th.
The inclusion of Bonds alongside Ruth, Mays and Aaron on this Hitter’s Mt. Rushmore obviously presents a moral dilemma. How does one factor in the steroid suspicions? Feel free to be your own judge on that one.
If you disqualify Bonds, then Musial or Williams stands as an entirely credible substitute.
Either way, Hank Aaron’s spot on the game’s Hitter’s Mt. Rushmore is secure. Depending on your view of the validity of Bonds’ accomplishments, Aaron is either the third or fourth greatest hitter in the game’s history.
Next. Remembering Hank Aaron. dark
And nobody’s raising any questions about the legitimacy of his accomplishments.