rickey henderson

on baseball tonight last night, Tim Kerkjen (I know that's spelled wrong, so fuck off) referred to Rickey Henderson as one of the top 15 baseball players of all time. anyone agree with that? I guess I find it hard to believe, but that may be because I just didn't like him.

what 15 rank higher? I'm assuming Kurkgin meant non-pitchers. Off the top of my head, I'd have to put these guys ahead of him:

Definitely better

Ruth
Gehrig
Aaron
Mays
Musial
Williams
Clemente
Robinson
Banks
Bonds

Up for debate
Cobb
Kaline
Ott
Foxx
Eddie Murray
Cal Ripken
Mike Schmidt
George Brett
Dimaggio
Mantle
Rose
Yaz


FYI:henderson won one gold glove in 25 seasons. he holds records for runs and stolen bases and had over 3000 hits and 1115 rbis. He was a career .279 hitter. he was a 10-time all-star and was MVP in 1990. He pretty much sucked ass his last six seasons, struggling to hit .225 while he pursued 3000 hits and the runs records and his .979 fielding percentage is pretty pedestrian for an outfielder.

Henderson stole a lot of bases and scored a lot of runs. he was average at best on defense.

 

No. Kshead does not agree with that.

 

I'd say he is the best lead off batter ever. Not sure about top 15 player.

PS Cy Young didn't make your list? His all time win record will never be broken.

PSS Doh!, Non pitchers

PSS Ruth pitched

 

I don't know about top 15, but he is certainly top 25. Hanging on much too long dragged down his career averages, but he was a good contact hitter (100+ ks only once at age 39) with power (most leadoff home runs ever), exceptional speed, and great plate discipline (90+ walks most years).

 

He had 297 homers, but played the prime of his career before the steroid era. He played forever though and I think his hits are inflated a lot because of that. Best base stealer ever, but i wouldn't even put him in the top 25. Cobb is probably the best contact hitter ever with a 366 lifetime batting average

 

Ted Williams was the best hitter ever. I'd love to see some of the records he could have put up if not for combat.

 

I'd take him over Yaz, Rose, Brett, Schmidt and Murray and Ott for sure, and I might even put him ahead of Kaline. I'd also disqualify Bonds from the discussion since I'm sure he spent a good part of his career juiced, so I think Henderson is very close to the top 15 all time.

He definitely was the greatest lead off hitter of all time.

 

Yastrzemski should be in the list of those definitely better than Henderson.

Yaz had 3,419 hits to Henderson's 3,055 and played two fewer seasons. RBIs: Yaz 1,844, Rickey 1,115. Homeruns: Yaz 452, Rickey 297. Career BA: Yaz .285, Rickey .279 (Yaz was more than 40 percentage points higher in the last five years, when Henderson was trying to pad his stats). Slugging: Yaz .462, Rickey .419. Each had one league MVP, with Yaz winning the triple crown in his MVP year (1967). All-star selections: Yaz 18, Rickey 10. Gold Gloves: Yaz seven, Rickey one. Batting titles: Yaz 4, Rickey zero. Rickey blows Yaz away in stolen bases and had more runs (2,295 to 1,816) and walks (2,190 to 1,845) and has the edge in on base percentage (.401 to .379). As an all-around player, there's really no comparison. Rickey was faster and that's just about it.

 

Yaz had 1027 more at-bats than Henderson, and I already mentioned how Ricky hanging on too long brought down his career batting average. If he would have retired at age 40 when he probably should have, his career average would have been .286. And obviously Ricky isn't going to have nearly as many RBI when he's leading off.

I think the reason that Yaz isn't considered one of the all-time greats outside of Boston is that he played a really long time (23 seasons) with only a few great seasons. During his peak he was awesome, but that peak didn't last for very long at all. Compare that with Hank Aaron, who also played 23 seasons. While he never had any unbelievable seasons, Aaron was really good year after year. So in my mind there's no way that Yastrezemski would be considered one of the top 25 players of all-time. I don't think I'd even put him in the top 50.