Quote:
Originally Posted by rats60
Sure you can. Willie Mays said Clemente was the best player he ever saw (outside of himself). That covers everyone but Cobb on your list. Orlando Cepeda who was a teammate of both Mays and Aaron said Clemente was better. My team
RF Clemente
CF Mays
LF Ruth
SS Wagner
3b Schmidt
2b Hornsby
1b Gehrig
C Josh Gibson
DH Williams
RHP Johnson
LHP Koufax
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I'll take the numbers over two anecdotes. And they aren't even close, if you look at for example Baseball Reference.
Here is Roberto.
Black Ink
Batting - 23 (90), Average HOFer ≈ 27
Gray Ink
Batting - 154 (82), Average HOFer ≈ 144
Hall of Fame Monitor
Batting - 231 (32), Likely HOFer ≈ 100
Hall of Fame Standards
Batting - 51 (83), Average HOFer ≈ 50
And here is Hank.
Black Ink
Batting - 76 (8), Average HOFer ≈ 27
Gray Ink
Batting - 408 (2), Average HOFer ≈ 144
Hall of Fame Monitor
Batting - 421 (3), Likely HOFer ≈ 100
Hall of Fame Standards
Batting - 75 (9), Average HOFer ≈ 50
There's a great deal of, what's the word, romance around Clemente, perhaps because of his flair and charisma, perhaps because of his early death. But the numbers just aren't there. In 2003 Bill James ranked him something like 70th on his all time list. I would put him a lot higher than that, but he isn't anywhere close to Aaron IMO.