Slugging ain't hitting singles.

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Posted By: identify7

Slugging to me, is hitting extra base hits. So - who has hit the most?

I would have thought it was Cobb or Speaker, but it is not. I think it is Ruth. Actually, Cobb, Speaker, Hornsby, Williams and Gehrig have 1000 - 1200 extra base hits, Ruth has 1300+.

This was just a quick look/see, so maybe someone else actually has the most extra base hits.

But what interested me was that all of these guys have most of their hits being singles. That ain't slugging. More than half of your hits are singles?

Ive only found one guy who has more than half of his hits for extra bases. I wonder if there are more. That guy is McGwire. But the only others I looked at were Kiner and Schmidt.

Any ideas?

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Posted By: Al Crisafulli

Interesting concept. Had some time to kill at lunch, so I just looked at everyone in the 500 HR club. Only one had more than half of his hits for extra bases - McGwire.

Bonds came very close, with 49.2% of his hits for extra bases.

Notably, only 39.2% of Hank Aaron's hits were for extra bases. Others under 40% - Rafael Palmeiro, Mickey Mantle, Ernie Banks, Mel Ott, and Eddie Murray.

So I'm not sure this is really indicative of anything. Just for comparison purposes, here are some players who (with a minimum of 1000 hits) had a higher percentage of extra base hits than Mel Ott:

Dave Kingman
Cliff Johnson
Gene Tenace
Gorman Thomas
Greg Luzinski

Actually, Kingman and Thomas ranked higher than Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Frank Robinson, Sammy Sosa, Harmon Killebrew, Reggie Jackson, Mickey Mantle, Jimmie Foxx, Willie McCovey, Ted Williams, Ernie Banks, Eddie Mathews, Mel Ott, Eddie Murray, and Ken Griffey - big-time sluggers all.

Interesting factoid - Mark McGwire's career triples total: 6.

-Al

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Al beat me to it.

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/XBH_career.shtml

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Posted By: identify7

Yes, I found a lot of this exercise interesting, But the six triples does seem unusually low (for anyone with 1500+ hits).

Although Cobb has finished fourth lifetime in doubles and second in triples, with 117 lifetime HRs; he only has a little better than 1 of 4 hits going for extra bases.

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Al beat me to it again.

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

I'm an idiot...

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

And YES... I just went back and read Al's post and saw that he had already done all of this work!!!

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Posted By: identify7

McGwire is the only one we have found with most of his hits for extra bases (52%).

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Posted By: Al Crisafulli

Sorry, Hal.

Hope you had something good for lunch, at least. I had soup.

-Al

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

Singles.....1517

Doubles......506

Triples........136

Homers.......714

Total Hits..2873

It doesn't get much better than this.

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Posted By: identify7

It sure don't Ted. A .342 average + 47% of his hits are for extra bases.

Id sure take that over McGwire's .263 ave with 52% extra bases.

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

GIL

Ruth was walked 2056 times during his career. How many were
intentional ? I don't think we know. How many were because he
was a disciplined batsman; well, we don't know that either.

Consider this, though, had he had a chance to swing the bat
those 2056 times(instead of walking) we can then extrapolate
that he would have gotten 727 more hits.

A Grand Total = 3600 hits

WOW!

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Posted By: identify7

And those hits, given his ratio, would yield 900 HRs for his career.

So Bonds still has a way to go. That is, in what if land.

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Posted By: jay behrens

Mac's slugging becomes even less impressive when you break down the number. He was essentially a fly ball hitter. He was going to get a HR or nothing. He hit few doubles and I am sure that just about every triple was a fluke. I'm sure that like tim Wallach, Mac legged out a lot triples into doubles.

Mac is one of the single most unimpressive hitters I've ever seen play the game. Basically he is Kingman on steroids. HRs are boring and anticlimatic. To me, the most exciting hits in baseball are the triple and inside the park HR.

Jay

My place is full of valuable, worthless junk.

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Posted By: jay behrens

but then you have to play the "what if..." game Bonds' numbers too. So he isn't that far away and maybe surpasses him. I don't know for sure. Too lazy to run the numbers.

Jay

My place is full of valuable, worthless junk.

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Posted By: David Smith

But, then again, you also have to run Bonds numbers back the other way; i.e. if he DIDN'T use steroids. If he didn't, then some of those HR's would turn into doubles or outs. Not as fearsome a hitter, some of those intentional walks then become at bats and so on and so on.

Sure, Bonds would have less intentional walks and maybe less unintentional walks and more doubles but he wouldn't have as many Home Runs. And a lot of fans (and ESPN) wouldn't think he is the Second Coming or the best thing since sliced bread (or any other cliche or metaphor you want to use).

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Posted By: jay behrens

Nice to see some people believe in guilty until proven innocent. What about Roger Clemens? He has shown a lot of classic signs of steroid use, yet you don't hear a peep from anyone about what he is doing.

The players of the "steroid era" all played under the same conditions, pitchers took them as well as hitters and we don't hear any outcry about pitchers taking steroids. Ruth never had to face relif specialtists and other pitcher beefed up steroids throwing 100mph fastballs in late innings of games.

What Bonds has done is far beyond what anyone else has done and it doesn't really matter if he took them or not. He is putting up numbers that no one is even getting close to. And if you look at the history of steroid use, those that ahve admitted to using them have had precipitous drop offs in their career in their mid 30s.

Jay

My place is full of valuable, worthless junk.

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Posted By: BlackSoxFan

I find it ironic how people treat Aaron. Many many "best of all time" lists don't mention him in the top 5-10. That alone is a shame. What is even more surprising is this: Most people say Aaron was good...but look how long it took him, or what if he played in candlestick like mays, ... or blah blah blah... BUT Ripken and Gehrig are revered for their longevity and what about that porch otherwise known as RF in Yankee Stadium. Why is Aaron's a burden and the rest a blessing. Aaron was spectacular player, he could hit for average, hit for power, he could run, he could field, he could throw...he could do just about anything on the field. Anyone ever look at his WS performances? How about the 69 NLCS ....

His ranks all-time:
Games - 3
AB - 2
R - 3 (T)
H - 3
TB - 1 - BY 700!!!
1B - 12
2B - 9
HR - 1
RBI - 1
Runs Created - 2
X-BH - 1
Times on Base - 6
Sac Flies - 4
IBB - 2
F%- .982 (better than mays 981)

Regards,
Black Sox Fan

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Posted By: Al Crisafulli

FWIW, I'd rank Aaron in the top 4-5 all-time.

At the risk of being ostracized from a board I just began contributing to, I also agree with Jay on Bonds.

-Al

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Posted By: Nick

He's nowhere near 1000 hits yet, but 285 of Adam Dunn's 553 hits have been for extra bases. That's 51.5%.

Carlos Delgado is almost there. 763 of his 1561 hits have been for extra bases. That's 48.9%.

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Posted By: BlackSoxFan

Just b/c a player get more x-base hits than singles doesn't make him good....

Regards,
Black Sox Fan

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Posted By: cmoking

I think the stats you guys may be interested in is "Isolated Power". I believe ISO = SLG - AVG

So basically, it counts extra base hits less singles. I don't know if any of the all-time lists that are easy to find on-line have this stat though....and I'm not sure exactly how useful it is as a stat to tell us who is better than another player, even when comparing two players in the same season.

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Posted By: BlackSoxFan

CMOKING:
Try this


Regards,
Black Sox Fan

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