Placing Rickey Henderson, The Hitter, Into Proper Historical Context

Baseball lost another all-time great this past weekend when the greatest leadoff man and basestealer of them all, Rickey Henderson, passed away at age 65. It’s a cliche, but he certainly is gone way too soon. It just doesn’t feel right to see paragons of speed and athleticism like Henderson, Joe Morgan and Lou Brock, to name three, gone recently at relatively young ages.

Baseball as a sport has morphed in many ways over the generations, creating some truly unbreakable records. No one will ever strike out 5714 men like Nolan Ryan, or win 511 games like Cy Young. Guess what – despite the rules introduced recently with the specific intent of rekindling the speed game, no one is ever going to touch Henderson’s mark of 1406 stolen bases. The active career leader in that category? Starling Marte, with a mere 354.

But Rickey Henderson was about an awful lot more than stolen bases. Even if his speed and basestealing ability was in the league average range he would have been an exceptional offensive player and perhaps still a Hall of Famer.

Every now and then in this space I reference a method I use to evaluate excellence over periods ranging from a single season to an entire career. I calculate the number of combined standard deviations above league average in both on-base and slugging percentage. When measuring pure player value, it makes sense to use replacement level as a baseline. But when measuring excellence, whether for individual season awards or Hall of Fame worthiness, using league average as a baseline makes more sense. It weeds out the “accumulators”.

This method does have its drawbacks. It doesn’t adjust for home park, position or speed – only batting is taken into consideration. I’m merely seeking out a list of the best hitters of all time based on their actual performance relative to the league.

So take a moment for a thought exercise – imagine Henderson without his impact speed or basestealing ability. Where might he fit in on an alltime list of top hitters?Bear in mind that he wasn’t a huge infield hit guy – he didn’t poke the ball into play, he impacted it. The only other leadoff hitters who compared over the long haul were Pete Rose and Ichiro Suzuki, and Henderson had more power than both. Morgan was a comparable player, but didn’t hit leadoff all that much. Where might Rickey fit in among the redwoods who populate the top of alltime Best Hitter lists?

Well, going back to 1901, Henderson ranks #39 on this list, with 40.45 combined standard deviations above league average. That slots him in just behind Jeff Bagwell (41.55) and just ahead of Willie McCovey (40.24). Both played first base their entire career, and while Bagwell brought some speed and baserunning value to the table (McCovey brought none), it pales in comparison to Henderson’s complementary value.

But once you drill down a bit, Henderson’s excellence – purely as a batter, mind you – shines through even more.

Durability

Henderson qualified as an MLB regular in 23 individual seasons. Among the players ahead of him on this list, only #23 Carl Yastrzemski matches that total. Among the entire Top 100 on this list, only #83 Rose qualified 24 times. Only Rose (at 44) and Yaz (at 43) qualified as regulars at an older age than Henderson’s last qualifying season. Oh, and Rickey stole 25 bases and logged a .366 OBP at age 42 in that final qualifying campaign. He wasn’t just hanging around.

Solid Power Production

Hitting 297 homers in a career is a big deal, no matter how long your career. Only 164 hitters in the history of the game hit more. Hall of Famers Rogers Hornsby (301) and Chuck Klein (300) hit just a few more, and sluggers of about Henderson’s vintage like Robin Ventura (294) and Craig Biggio (291) hit just a few less.

For his career, Henderson had a slightly above league average SLG for a regular, 1.36 cumulative standard deviations above average, to be exact. That’s the lowest mark among the Top 10o players on this list, just below Rose’s 1.41 mark. In fact, the vast majority of the top 100 hitters had career power marks of over 10.00 standard deviations above average – only #87 Tim Raines (4.38), #41 Wade Boggs (5.01), #94 John Olerud (5.37), #91 Ken Singleton (6.39), #90 Bobby Abreu (6.43), #55 Morgan (6.63), #48 Rod Carew (7.10), #79 Keith Hernandez (7.97), #98 Brian Giles (8.34), #76 Arky Vaughan (9.70) and #68 Tony Gwynn (9.70) fell short of double digit power factors.

On-Base Ability Beyond The Elite Level

So if Henderson’s power production was just above the average level, and he ranks as the #39 offensive player of the modern era – taking only OBP and SLG into account – then he must have been legendary at getting on base. He racked up 39.09 career standard deviations above league average OBP. Among the 38 players ahead of him, exactly four players posted higher marks, and they are the top four players on the overall list. They’re named Barry Bonds, Ted Williams, Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb. You may have heard of them. Ruth, at 43.07 career standard deviations above league average OBP, is the closest to Henderson in that category. That’s some pretty legendary company.

So before you even get to Rickey’s speed, you have a top 40 batter of all time. Add in those very special extras, and you have a player who ranks 18th in the modern era in WAR at 111.1, right between inner circle Hall of Famers Lou Gehrig and Mel Ott. Honestly, you don’t come upon an all-around player clearly better than Rickey on my Top 100 hitter list until you reach #12 Willie Mays, who we also lost this year. You don’t even have any real serious discussions until you get to #22 Mike Schmidt and #20 Alex Rodriguez. Inner circle indeed.

So when you attempt to place Henderson somewhere on the list of all time greats, obviously the discussion begins with his standout speed-oriented talent that drives his immortality. But do not overlook the fact that he was – and would have been, wheels or no wheels – one of the greatest offensive players of his or any era. Among the Roses, Gwynns, Carews and Morgans there was a table-setting type player who stood out to an even greater extent, the immortal Rickey Henderson.