All-time Tigers Hitting Leaders

Last week, I listed the all-time Tigers pitching leaders in terms of longevity and quality. Today, I will take a look at the batters. Table 1 below lists the top 20 lifetime Runs Created (RC) leaders. There are many different runs created formulas including the one I used to rank current Tigers this winter. There are even different algorithms for different eras but all of them are based on the simple formula:

OBP X TB

Runs Created is not a rate stat and thus it is more a measure of longevity than excellence. One problem with runs created is that it favors those who played in better hitting environments. However, this Didn't bother Ty Cobb (2,590 runs created). Even though he played most of his best years in the dead ball era, Cobb is still 760 RC above any other Tiger. Al Kaline (1,830) and Charlie Gehringer (1,828) are second and third.

One way to measure quality as opposed to longevity is Offensive Winning Percentage (OWP) . OWP projects what a team's winning percentage would be if every offensive player on the team was the same player and the team had an average pitching staff. OWP is adjusted for league average runs scored so it can be used to compare across eras. It is calculated as follows:

(RC/G)^2
--------------------------------
(RC/G)^2 + (Lg avg runs/G)^2

where ^2 means squared.

The career Tigers OWP leaders with at least 1,500 PA are listed in Table 2. Cobb had a lifetime OWP of .789 meaning that an entire team of Cobbs on offense and an average pitching staff would finish with a .789 winning percentage. Cobb is .060 ahead of second place Hank Greenberg (.729). This list differs from the list in Table 1 in that it includes many short Tiger career players like Roy Cullenbine (a .675 OWP in 1,951 PA) and Carlos Guillen (a .655 OWP in 1,566 PA).

As I did with pitchers, next time I'll present two stats which can be used to combine longevity and quality: runs created above average and runs created above position.

The data for this analysis were extracted from the Lee Sinnis Complete Baseball Encyclopedia.


Table 1: Tigers Lifetime Runs Created Leaders

Player	PA	RC
Ty Cobb	12106	2590
Al Kaline	11597	1830
Charlie Gehringer	10237	1828
Harry Heilmann	8390	1613
Sam Crawford	8871	1438
Lou Whitaker	9967	1379
Hank Greenberg	5586	1263
Alan Trammell	9375	1246
Norm Cash	7772	1243
Bobby Veach	6785	1022
Donie Bush	8451	890
Rudy York	5349	889
Dick McAuliffe	6829	858
Bill Freehan	6899	855
Bobby Higginson	5660	827
Willie Horton	5978	824
Kirk Gibson	4773	742
Harvey Kuenn	4750	665
Billy Rogell	5092	652
Travis Fryman	4792	634

Table 2: Tigers Lifetime OWP Leaders

Player	PA	OWP
Ty Cobb	12106	0.789
Hank Greenberg	5586	0.729
Harry Heilmann	8390	0.708
Sam Crawford	8871	0.689
Roy Cullenbine	1951	0.675
Norm Cash	7772	0.673
Dick Wakefield	2499	0.655
Carlos Guillen	1566	0.655
Al Kaline	11597	0.651
Mickey Tettleton	2343	0.646
Kirk Gibson	4773	0.627
Jim Delahanty	1579	0.627
Ray Boone	2856	0.626
Bobby Veach	6785	0.625
Charlie Gehringer	10237	0.624
Dale Alexander	1965	0.617
Vic Wertz	3218	0.614
Steve Kemp	2930	0.614
Rocky Colavito	2723	0.614
Jimmy Barrett	2628	0.614