Let’s debate the biggest question facing every fan of the Cleveland Indians; who is the greatest slugger in Tribe history?
The Cleveland Indians have had a lot of great power hitters in the history of the club. From Juan Gonzales to Francisco Lindor to Brian Giles and Richie Sexton. Yet, no one would debate who the four greatest sluggers of all time are; Jim Thome, Manny Rameriz, Albert Belle, and Travis Hafner.
Now, you’ll sit there and go “BUT, CHAD…WHAT ABOUT HAL TROSKY” and to that I say; shut up, nerd. Then I’d say this, modern pitching is definitively better than it was back in the ’30s and ’40s. Trying to argue what those players did then, against what players are doing now, is simply unsustainable. Conditioning, dieting, training, overall improvements to our day-to-day health are wildly different. Who knows what those old-era players could do against modern skillsets. They could be scrubs, or they could be hugely successful. It is impossible to know. So we’re not going to even bring them into this debate.
So let’s talk about how we’re deciding this debate. Firstly, simple math. Simple math that I double-checked with an engineer because I wanted to be right. Then let’s find that common denominator. What and who are we going to do use as our baseline? Well, we’re going to use Jim Thome’s career at-bats. Thome was the player of the four to play the longest, so we’re going to modify all stats against his career at-bats, which were 8,422.
Using that as our baseline, we can erase things like injuries, suspensions, and other unforeseen instances. Would Belle have hit more home runs than Thome? What would Hafner look better career-wise if he had never been hurt? We’ll be adjusting each player stats against the idea that each player had 8,422 at-bats. The only player who won’t have the adjusted stats will be Thome because he’s what we’re measuring everyone against.
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.
Ranking the best
Manny Ramirez fans are going to be pissed, but oh well. He did it to himself by tainting his legacy and distorting the stats. Before anyone says “but performance-enhancing drugs don’t improve hand-eye coordination”, stop, because you’re right. It does, however, improve endurance, stamina, speed, and strength. Since hitting for power is as much about bat speed as it is about brute force, you can’t deny that having a drug that allows you to hit faster, hit harder and sustain that type of production into your later years isn’t cheating. A ball that may be a weakly hit soft hopper out to first without HGH (or whatever Ramirez was on), may have been a double with the juice.
There’s just too much discrepancy in this. His numbers are too tainted to be valued. How long was he cheating for? When did he start cheating? Was it only after he started gaining weight? Would he have been the same player without steroids and the added weight? Keep in mind that Ramirez tested positive not once, but three times that we know of.
The first was in 2003, the second was 2009 and the last was in 2011. Ramirez spent nearly a decade on the juice. To argue him over any of the others is to argue cheating above integrity and that won’t fly here.
Not in this dojo.
As for Belle, Mr. Corked-bat himself, he will not be scrutinized. Bell is involved in what’s actually a hilarious story that involved Jason Grimsley climbing through the air vents to get a shattered bat that was corked. Go read Omar Vizquel’s book for the whole story. The difference here is that corked bats don’t work as well as regular bats. The rule is simply in place so that everyone uses the same equipment. If the steroids to corked bat argument is a hill you’re going to die on, go for it. Penn State and MIT aren’t exactly filled with drunken nobodies. So I’ll take their research to heart. Plus, it’s super easy to find out when a player is using it, as they tend to break after two or three strikes. Thus negating the conversation around “well how often was he using it”. Likely not often.
So with that said, who really lands where?
Disqualified – Manny Ramirez (steroids)
3. Travis Hafner
What would have been if Hafner didn’t get hurt. He was having some great seasons with his huge bat. Patient and smart, Hafner wasn’t someone who could get caught off guard too often. When you think of the fact that guys like Adam Dunn were playing at the same time as Hafner, you really get respect for Hafner’s plate presence. He was a really great hitter, cut down in the prime of his career.
2. Jim Thome
This shouldn’t be surprising. I mean, the list was inspired by him. Every hitter was measured against him. In regards to deep ball shots, no Indians player did it better than Thome. Yet, he wasn’t as consistent of a hitter as Albert Belle. His high strikeout rate comparatively hurt him more than Belle’s stats.
1. Albert Belle
For a violent lunatic with anger and substance control issues, Belle was a patient man at the plate. He was in regular contention for the post-season awards, which requires a percentage of games played and which makes the fact that he only broke 100 strikeouts twice in his career truly impressive. Belle was a better gap hitter and had better vision than most realize. His use of the corked bat hurts his perception but not his actual legacy. Too many stats exist that say corked bats ‘may help’ or ‘could provide an advantage’ or flat out says ‘it doesn’t help’. So no, Belle doesn’t get to be labeled a cheater. He’s simply the best slugger in Indians history.
And no, he’s not outside my house in his Ford Explorer waiting for this to be posted….