[the 'stache]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

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.

Your posts are usually spot on, Peter. But the numbers comparison is a bit of a stretch. Come on. Comparing Hall of Fame metrics for the two players is silly. Clemente played in 2,433 games. Aaron played in 3,298. Aaron's career was a third longer than Clemente's. Of course his metrics dwarf Clemente's. And you can't make the argument that Clemente wouldn't have added to his own metrics tremendously had he continued playing. His last five years, Roberto was actually getting better. He was a little dinged up in 1972, so he played in only 102 games. But he still hit .312, and OPS +'d 138. The year prior, at age 36, he hit .341 with a 143 OPS +. He had a 7.3 WAR at age 36. At age 35 in 1970, he hit .352 with a 160 OPS +. Clemente was a .334 hitter with a 157 OPS + his last five seasons. At the end of the 1966 season, he was a career .310 hitter in over 7,000 career PAs. He raised his average 7 points from age 32 on, and would have continued raising it even further had he lived. From 1966 to 1972, age 31 to 37, he averaged 8.9 WAR per 162 games played. He'd made no plans to retire. His game was built to play into his early 40s. He was in absolutely ridiculous shape.

There's no romanticism involved. The guy was a fantastic player. He didn't hit home runs by choice. He felt that he helped his team more by hitting for average that going for home runs. He put the success of the team first. To suggest that he couldn't hit home runs like Aaron is silly. He tailored his game for the park he played most of his games in. But his power is legendary.