Hank Aaron was one of the best MLB players in history

Much of Henry Aaron’s baseball legacy is attached to three numbers – 715, 755 and whatever the total end of Barry Bonds’ career – so that we too often overlook his brilliance on the field. Say it like this: If you turned 755 from home, he yet finished with over 3,000 hits. Or else: he played 23 seasons in the major leagues and was an All-Star 25 times (there were several All-Star Games at the beginning of Aaron’s career).

Even though he is widely regarded as one of the top five players in MLB history, Aaron has remained underrated among the greats of all time. He played most of his career in the shadow of Willie Mays, his contemporary, who was most stunning visually due to Mays’ defense in midfield. Many still consider Babe Ruth the greatest player of the right. So, Aaron ranks second best player of his generation and the second best right player of all time.

When experts and fans talk about the best hitters in the game’s history, they usually talk about Ruth and Ted Williams and Bonds, or even single hitters like Tony Gwynn, before Aaron’s name appears. However, no player has played with such sustained and consistent excellence as long as Aaron.

The appearance every day is not full of charm, but it is a way of overturning Ruth and you hit 755 runs from home. As a debutant with the Milwaukee Braves in 1954, Henry Aaron fractured his ankle in early September, ending his season in 122 games. He may not have been Cal Ripken like Ironman, but Aaron hasn’t missed many games since. From 1955 to 1968, he played 2,157 of the possible 2,214 games, missing an average of only 4.1 games per season. In 1969 and 1970, then 35 and 36 years old, fell to 147 and 150 games.

Along the way, he didn’t have a single bad season. His only MVP award came in 1957, but Aaron finished in the top 10 of the MVP by voting 13 times during an era when the National League was full of the future Hall of Famers fighting for the award and finished in the top three in three. different decades. Here’s a way to look at his high level of play for nearly two decades:

Most seasons of 6 WAR
Aaron 16
Obligations 16
May 15
Ruth 14
Tris Speaker 14

Most of the 7 WAR seasons
Obligations 14
Aaron 13
May 13
Ruth 12
11. Lou Gehrig

Mays is right up there with Aaron, but even Mays disappeared in the late 1930s. Mays’ last 30-homer season came at the age of 35 in 1966. From the age of 36, he hit 118 rounds at home. Aaron hit 47 home runs at the age of 37, and since the age of 36 he has hit 201 home runs.

This is another testament to Aaron’s consistency. Forty-seven other players have managed at least 47 rounds from home in a season – 15 of them several times – but Aaron is still second in all time at home. Since ending his career in 1976, four players have managed to earn more at home up to the age of 30 than Aaron. None of them could continue this in the 1930s:

Until the age of 30
Alex Rodriguez: 464 HR, 85.0 WAR
Ken Griffey Jr .: 438 HR, 76.2 WAR
Albert Pujols: 408 HR, 81.4 WAR
Andruw Jones: 368 HR, 61.0 WAR
Henry Aaron: 366 HR, 80.7 WAR

After the age of 30
Rodriguez: 232 HR, 32.5 WAR
Griffey: 192 HR, 7.6 WAR
Hills: 254 HR, 19.4 WAR
Jones: 66 HR, 1.7 WAR
Aaron: 389 HR, 62.4 WAR

In 1955, in his second major season, at just 21 years old, Aaron managed .314 with 27 homers, 105 runs and 106 RBIs, his first season. In 1973, at the age of 39, he hit .301 with 40 home runs – in just 120 games. But Aaron wasn’t just a slugger. He finished with a career average of .305, hitting .300 14 times, even though many of his peak seasons came in the 1960s, in the most difficult hitting conditions since his death. In an interview with the MLB network last month, Aaron said that the thing he was most proud of was that “I didn’t break out.”

Indeed, he never hit 100 times in a season and finished with more walks than shots. Keep in mind that Ruth, playing in an era with far fewer hits than even Aaron’s, led her league five times in hits. Ruth blew in 12.5% ​​of her set appearances, and Aaron in only 9.9% of her appearances. Maybe that’s why Aaron was such a good guy who hit the clutch and an RBI guy. He hit .324 in his career with runners in the scoring position, and in “late and close” situations when the game is most on the line, he hit .318 / .407 / .576 – better than his overall line of. 305 /.374/.555.

Bonds may have put Aaron on the home run list, but Aaron is still the all-time leader in RBI and total bases. Using the unofficial list on Baseball-Reference.com (RBIs are only considered official since 1920), Aaron’s 2,297 outnumbers Ruth’s 2,214. Pujols is at 2,100, but 2021 will probably be his last season.

Years ago, Aaron stepped into the ESPN Sunday Night baseball stand. At one point, there was a runner on the second base with no exits. Joe Morgan asked Aaron how often he tried to move the runner to third place – probably expecting Aaron to say he played the game “the right way” and hit the ball to the right. Aaron let out a big, hearty laugh. “Never,” he said. “I’ve always tried to beat the guy.”

The registration of total bases could be even more unbreakable. Aaron has 6,856 – well ahead of the 6,134 Stan Musial. If another player came and replicated Musial’s numbers, he would still have to hit 181 home runs to break Aaron’s record.

More tributes: eternal connection with black baseball BBTN podcast

Aaron was not only a dominant player, but also a remarkable player and baserunner. He won three gold gloves and, while the indicators of his time are knowledgeable estimates, Baseball-Reference ranks him ninth among right-handed players in the races saved at plus-98 for his career. He stole 240 bases with an excellent success rate, and when he hit 44 home runs and stole 31 bases in 1963, he became only the third player to go 30-30 in the same season (after Ken Williams and Mays). Joe Torre, his longtime teammate with the Braves, said he had never seen Aaron make a mistake on the field. In addition, while appearing in just three postseason seasons (1957 and 1958 World Series and 1969 National Championship League series), he hit .362 / .405 / .710 with six home runs in 17 games. .

He is the fifth of all time among the position players in the WAR career:

Bonds: 162.8
Ruth: 162.1
May: 156.2
Ty Cobb: 151.0
Aaron: 143.1

You can add Ted Williams to the conversation (121.9 WAR, despite missing a few years of prime importance due to World War II and the Korean War) – although Williams was not the player or founder who were Bonds , Mays and Aaron. So, yes, the first five are correct, probably before Cobb once you’ve made a timeline adjustment and you can judge what you want to do with Bonds.

But the game at the same time as Mays? OK Sure. Mays’ greatness seemed to make Aaron a little underrated, even in their playing days. However, not everyone then necessarily agreed. Here is a quote from Pie Traynor, the third member of the Hall of Fame, in 1964: “I will take Hank Aaron over Mays every day. he won’t faint … You don’t hear much about Hank, yet he’s just as good a field player, a runner, and a more stable and better player. “