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As we all know, the title of Major League Baseball’s all-time hit king belongs to Peter Edward Rose Sr., known as the iconic Pete Rose. “Charlie Hustle” broke the mold on September 11, 1985, with a single to left-center off of San Diego Padres pitcher Eric Show, making it his 4,1922 hit, presumably breaking the 57-year-old record of 4,191 set by the great Tyrus Raymond Cobb. It has since been discovered that one of Ty Cobb’s games was falsely recorded, meaning “The Georgia Peach” actually ended up with 4,189 base knocks and that Rose technically surpassed him on September 8 of 1985 with a single off of the Chicago Cub’s Reggie Patterson. And thus, the story goes. But does it belong? Society can go on and on about the subjectivity of the term “Hit King”. For the most part, it’s agreed that the “king” of each statistical category in baseball is the player with the most of it – Rickey Henderson is the runs scored and stolen base king, Hank Aaron the RBI king, and Barry Bonds the HR king - despite the wishes of most of baseball’s fans. This means that sitting on the throne of a statistical category is based more on the longevity and consistency of a player’s career than how good that player was at certain periods of time. One could argue that Ichiro Suzuki is the “Hit King” because, in 2004, he set the record of hits in a season with 262. During that season itself, Ichiro was the hit king of baseball. However, because of Ichiro’s ethnicity and the lack of MLB recruiting in Japan at the time, he wasn’t able to play in the big leagues until he was 27, putting him at a major disadvantage for the quest of “Hit King” (comparatively, Rose started playing at age 22 and Cobb at 18). We could go on and on about the lapses and holdbacks in different players’ careers that prevented them from being the best. Whether it be international status, an injury, early retirement, or simply the front office not calling up a player early enough, things happen that are simply unavoidable. For the most part, we can’t relish in the “what ifs?” of baseball and it is for that reason that we crown Pete Rose as our Hit King. With that all being said, I am writing today to present a “what if?” that isn’t rooted in an injury or lack of skill of a player at a young age, but rather in the basic setup of the MLB as a whole: games played. In 1961, the MLB underwent a change in both the NL and AL in which teams would begin playing 162 games a year, a schedule that is still in use today. Prior to that, starting in 1904, teams played only 154 games each, with the exception of the 1919 season which consisted of only 140 games. With Cobb playing from 1905-1928 and Rose from 1963-1986, you may be beginning to see the issue at hand. So let’s take a look. Though Cobb was supposed to play 154 games/year and Rose 162, both players had seasons where they actually exceeded this limit. Cobb played 156 games in 1909 due to tie games being called on May 31 and July 16 of that year. Though most games go into extra innings when it is tied, some games throughout history have been recorded as ties due to darkness (not so much an issue in the modern era), weather, passing curfew, or both teams running out of available pitchers. Similar instances took place in 1915 for Cobb and the Tigers on May 29 and 30, as well as in 1924 on July 10. Likewise, Pete Rose played in 163 games in 1974 when the Reds tied the Braves on September 11 (a day of the year that would become notable to him later on in his career). Though Cobb benefitted more from these “extra game” scenarios, Rose had the bigger advantage as he was seemingly able to play 8 more games than Cobb each year. Thus, for the purpose of this exercise, we will be manipulating the statistics of Ty Cobb’s hitting career to reflect if he had been given the opportunity to play 162 games each season. To begin, we aren’t simply going to calculate the stats as if Ty Cobb had literally played 162 games every year. For one reason or another, baseball players consistently miss games each year even though their teams play a full schedule. Thus we will take the percentage of the total games that Cobb actually played each year and multiply that by the new games per season of 162. Please see the table below: By adding up all of the New Games Played for each season, we get a New Career Games Played of 3,110for Ty Cobb; 76 more games than his actual career total of 3,034 thanks to the MLB rule change. From here, there are mainly two ways in which we can calculate how many additional hits Cobb would have recorded: by using his career batting average or by using his batting average for each individual season. Regardless of which way we do, however, we first must calculate how many additional at-bats Cobb would have had. For this next step, see the table below: Adding up the total of the New Total At Bats in Season gives us a New Total At Bats in Career of 12,085for Ty Cobb; an extra 651 at bats more than his actual career total of 11,434 thanks to the MLB rule change. Using the first method that we mentioned earlier, which is faster and easier albeit less accurate, we can take Cobb’s New Total At Bats in Career and multiply it by his career batting average to find his rough New Total Hits in Career (12,085 x .366 = 4423.11à4,423). This shows already that Cobb’s hit total would likely have been more than Rose’s had he had the luxury of 162 games per season (Rose finished his career with only 4,256 hits). However, since this is the less accurate way to calculate this new total (and thus less fun way), let’s try it again using Cobb’s batting average for each individual season. For this last step, take a look at the table below: For one last time, by adding up the total of the New Hits in Season, we get the more accurate New Total Hits in Career of 4,413for Ty Cobb; 224 more hits than his actual career total of 4,189 thanks to the MLB rule change. To summarize, since Cobb’s calculated total of 4,413 is larger than Rose’s career total of 4,256, we can surmise that Ty Cobb would still be the Hit King today had he been given the opportunity to play 162 games a year. As of now, we simply allow whatever player with the most of a statistic to be deemed the King of his statistical category without taking into consideration the massive implications that the 1961 increase in games per season has. Even with Cobb’s adjusted numbers, he would have still played in 452 less games than Rose (3,562-3,110) and had 1,968 less at bats (14,053-12,085), yet still had 157 more career base hits (4,413-4,256). Cobb also posted a much higher career batting average (.366) than Rose did (.303). When it comes down to the numbers, it becomes quite clear that the only reason “Charlie Hustle” ever eclipsed “The Georgia Peach” was because of his additional games per year advantage. It is with this evidence that I from now on believe that Ty Cobb, not Pete Rose, is the greatest hitter of all-time and thus should be crowned Major League Baseball’s Hit King. As with every statistical analysis, this exercise used some assumptions in its process, notably that Ty Cobb would have batted the same he was each year in all of the additional games for each year. Obviously, Cobb could have gone in a slump in his additional games or maybe even hit better than he was, but for the purpose of the exercise (and primarily due to the lack of skill/knowledge of the 2-week-in college freshman writing this), this assumption was made. I hope you all enjoyed reading this and consider adjusting your stance on the Hit King as well, although I’m sure most of you will be from Cincinnati and refuse to do so. I look forward to writing more about statistics and baseball in the future. Thanks for reading and sticking around, Aaron Springer
A final point that I forgot and would like to add: Ty Cobb would have needed just 68 more hits to pass Rose's mark of 4,256, yet would have had roughly 651 additional at bats had he been able to play 162 games each season. Thus Cobb would have only had to hit a dismal .105 in his "extra" games to break the record...
1 Comment
SCOTT SPRINGER
9/3/2018 01:05:25 pm
Outstanding numerical argument you should be proud of. However, each player can only play by the rules/schedule given to them at any point in their careers. Ty Cobb didn't have as many night games and fielders had inferior equipment. Putting Cobb, Rose and Suzuki in same era would be interesting. You should do a comparison of Babe Ruth's home run record had he not primarily pitched in his early seasons. He also hit a ball that was less lively. On the other hand, the prevalence of night games and superior pitching comes into play with Hank Aaron and Bonds. Good work. Send it to MLB Stats people.
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