Welcome to my league leadership rankings. This ranking scheme was devised in an attempt to evaluate players who played in different eras. While the game has changed over the years, the statistics used to measure performance have not. So while a 20 win season in 1910 was not as hard to achieve as a 20 win season today, you can still appreciate that leading the league in wins is an impressive accomplishment, regardless of what year it occurred.
Hall of Fame credentials often boil down to accumulated career stats. And while those are nice, they don't tell the whole story. I am much more impressed by a player who had excellent numbers for several years than I am with a guy who built up lofty career numbers simply by hanging around for 20 years or so. A good measuring stick for this is where did the player rank in comparison with his peers. More simply, was he among the league leaders in key statistical categories? The League Leadership Rankings attempts to answer this
For both offense and pitching, I developed a 100 point system using six statistical categories. By 100 points, I mean that if a player led the league in all six, he would earn 100 points. Points are earned as follows: if a player led the league in a certain category, that is worth 10 points. Second place is worth 9, third place is 8, and so on down to tenth place which is worth 1. Categories that are more important (my own opinion) are worth double points (i.e. - 20 points for first, 18 for second, etc). Both hitting and pitching have four 20 point categories and two ten point categories.
The categories I have chosen are as follows: Hitters have four 20 point stats: On-Base percentage, Slugging average, Runs Scored, and RBI. Two traditional triple crown categories are worth 10 points each: Batting average and home runs.
Turning to pitching, the four 20 point categories are: Wins, winning percentage, earned run average, and HWI (Hits plus walks divided by innings). My 10 point categories are strikeouts and innings pitched.
While this is by no means a perfect ranking criteria, it does give valuable insight into how good a particular player was throughout his career. Having introduced the ranking scheme, here are the top hitters and pitchers of all time based on these rankings.Updated through the 2006 season!
If you would like to comment, drop us a line:
