THAT'S right, we're shifting the terms in our study of top-level home run hitters. (Given what tends to happen around here, you probably aren't all that surprised...)
After all, we know now that it's Babe Ruth who hit the most HRs against a single opponent (123 vs. the Detroit Tigers). And we know now that a very few hitters in our post-postmodern age have hit at least one homer against every franchise (Sammy Sosa, for one--maybe we'll provide you with a list one of these days).
Now we should really dig in and draw a conclusion--make a value judgment as opposed to merely slinging data. And so we have a nice diagram for you that will summarize the data presented for fourteen of the top home run hitters of all time, and from that we'll boldly follow in the footsteps of those who live to make sweeping pronouncements...
SO what have we done here? We've brought over the "good vs. bad" (GvB) data for these fourteen sluggers ("bad" shown shaded in orange, "good" shaded in yellow) and shown some differential data to boot.
The HR/G differential is geared to show better performance against bad teams as a negative outcome, so when you see a HR/G differential that's less than one (for example, Albert Pujols' .827) that reminds you that he, along with eight other top sluggers, took advantage of bad opponents in terms of hitting the long ball.
The same is the case for the HR/PA data.
Then we show the differential for how many PAs each slugger had in the GvB data. Babe Ruth had the most extra PAs against sub-.500 ("bad") teams, upwards of 20% more; on the other hand, Frank Robinson had 16% more PAs against good teams.
We use those data points to due a crude hypothetical adjustment of each slugger's HR/PA. The "GvB PA diff" is applied to the actual HR/PA to recalibrate the HR/PA percentage based on each slugger having an equal number of PAs vs. good and bad teams.
When we do that, Babe Ruth's 6.7% drops to 6.0%; Barry Bonds, whose GvB PAs were roughly equal, moves up from 6.0% to 6.1%.
Mark McGwire's adjusted HR/PA also takes a hit, but note that his actual HR/PA is so much higher than all the others (even Ruth's) that he still has a massive lead.
There is no doubt--McGwire is the greatest homer hitter of all time. Of course, he didn't hit the most HRs ever, but he hit by far the most per 100 PAs. Quibble or cavil about steroids and cheating if you must, but the numbers are incontrovertible.
The bottom row just shows the number of HRs each man would be expected to hit in 9000 plate appearances. Many of these sluggers had more than 9000 PA, in some cases (Pujols. Bonds, Hank Aaron) man* more than 9000 PA. That's one reason why they hit 700+ HRs.
McGwire, however, was injured a good bit in the middle part of his career, and his total career PAs are actually less than 8000. Again, we can quibble about pro-rating him to 9000 PAs because (of course) he didn't actually get that many PAs. We could have used his actual total as the benchmark, but 9000 PA seemed like a reasonable middle ground. (The results would be the same, only the numbers would be somewhat different.)
At 9000 PAs, McGwire is projected to hit 80 more homers than Ruth. He's projected to hit 131 more HRs than Sammy Sosa. At 9000 PAs, many of these sluggers don't quite get to the magic 500 number. Exactly half of them (seven of fourteen), in fact.
That's how much more frequent Big Mac's blasts really were.
Thus he is without question the greatest home run hitter of all time.
Of the four greatest home run hitters of all time (based on HR/PA and HR/9000, only one of them is currently in the Hall of Fame.
It's a sick situation, kiddies...and it's not going to change anytime soon. What an utter travesty.
