Who really is the greatest power hitter in Cleveland Indians history?
By Chad Porto
Adjusting the numbers
Here are all the numbers we’re looking at for each player. We’re going to level out the at-bats to the closet possible number possible to get 8,422. Then we’re going to adjust the hits, home runs (HR), run’s batted in (RBI), doubles (2B) and triples (3B). We’ll use the difference between Thome’s at-bats, and player B. For instance, Thome had 8,422 at-bats, and Hafner had 4,058. That gives us 2.075406604238541. We’re going to round that to 2.0754.
We’ll round up at any number that’s .5 or higher on all the adjusted stats. So if a player is at 99.59, we’re going to just say give them the benefit of doubt and say it’s 100. So with that said, let’s look at Jim Thome’s stats.
Jim Thome
AB – 8422
Hits – 2328
HR – 612
RBI – 1699
2B – 451
3B – 26
Thome is the baseline because he played the most seasons (13) for the Indians, played the longest in the Majors and does hold the Indians career and single-season record for home runs for the club. With regard to slugging, you can’t do better. Next up though, Travis ‘Pronk’ Hafner
Travis Hafner
Original
AB – 4058
Hits – 1107
HR – 213
RBI – 731
2B – 250
3B – 13
Adjustment rate, x 2.0754
AB – 8421.9
Hits – 2,297
HR – 442
RBI – 1,517
2B – 519
3B – 27
Had Hafner never been plagued by injuries, he easily could’ve been a Hall of Fame player but that’s the problem with actually playing the game, sometimes injuries do happen. Just looking at the adjusted stats, Hafner was a better gap hitter, but just barely. It shows how good Hafner was as a hitter, but just how much better Thome was as well. Let’s now take a look at everyone’s least favorite Halloween host.
Albert Belle
AB – 5853
Hits – 1726
HR – 381
RBI – 1239
2B – 389
3B – 21
x 1.4389
AB – 8,421
Hits – 2,483
HR – 548
RBI – 1,783
2B – 560
3B -30
Belle didn’t have the same deep distance power, but he was a more consistent hitter across the board. This isn’t surprising, as Belle had 19-odd points on Thome’s batting average, so there’s a decent rationale to the idea that Belle was the better contact hitter. That means more gap hits, and overall just more extra-base hits. Now to Mr. Juicey himself.
Manny Ramirez
AB – 8422
Hits – 2574
HR – 555
RBI – 1831
2B – 547
3B – 20
x 1.0215
AB – 8,422
Hits – 2,628
HR – 567
RBI – 1,870
2B – 559
3B – 20
You can see that Ramirez and Belle are neck and neck in everything. Ramirez though was the one player of the three with near similar at-bats to Thome before the adjustment. So it was already pretty easy to grade him out, yet, he’s a known juicer. While some in the baseball community wanna proclaim that “everyone” was on steroids during that era, that’s just not true. So many players never tested positive or were even linked to steroids. When you cheat, you cheat. You don’t get a pass just because you were one of a lot. So Ramirez is already disqualified from consideration because his numbers are juiced. If you can give me a mathematical equation to determine what Ramirez’s numbers were like without cheating, I’ll re-add him.
Manny being Manny is nothing but a euphemism for those who cheat.