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MLB
Needs to Abandon Post-Season Stats
and Adopt Play-Off and World Series Stats
It's interesting to think back in 1961 when Roger Maris'
home run record was asterisked because he played in just 8
more games than Babe Ruth. MLB made a separate record
book for
the
longer season. Why is it that today MLB is comparing the
World Series stats of baseball great Mickey Mantle to
post-season stats of current day players? Mantle never
played in a Divisional Series game nor a League Series
game. Yet, at multiple times during this years play-offs,
MLB has displayed post-season leader boards for home runs
which has listed the following top 5 players: Manny
Ramirez (29), Bernie Williams (22), Derek Jeter (19),
Reggie Jackson (18) and Mickey Mantle (18).
A more accurate representation would differentiate between between
Divisional Series (DS) homers, League Series (LS) homers
and World Series (WS) homers as shown below. PA =
Plate Appearances and DNE = Did Not Exist:
|
Player |
PA |
DS |
LS |
WS |
TOT HR |
|
Manny Ramirez |
485 |
12 |
13 |
4 |
29 |
|
Bernie Williams |
545 |
8 |
9 |
5 |
22 |
|
Derek Jeter |
587 |
10 |
6 |
3 |
19 |
|
Reggie Jackson |
318 |
2 |
6 |
10 |
18 |
|
Mickey Mantle |
273 |
DNE |
DNE |
18 |
18 |
The World Series is
the
pinnacle of the game of baseball. How can MLB logically
combine World Series stats with play-off stats into one
bucket called post-season stats when the level of play is
so distinctly different?
Also, due to the play-offs, today's players have almost
three times as many post-season games per year as those
players prior to 1969. If MLB insists on keeping post-season records,
they
should never include players (such as
Mantle, Berra and Ruth) in post-season stats, because they played prior to 1969
when play-offs did not exist.
Comparing stats of players who only played in World Series
to those players who also played in Divisional Series and
League Series is like comparing apples to oranges.
MLB could easily solve this
issue by keeping two sets of stats; one for play-off
records (combined DS and LS) and one for World Series.
One can only imagine how many homers Mantle would have hit
if the Yankees of his day would have played Divisional
Championship Series and League Championship Series along
with
the World Series. The Yankees played in 12 World
Series during Mantle’s career. That would have included a
minimum of 12 Divisional Series (best of 5 games) and 12
League Series (best of 7 games). This does not even
include the times that the Yankees would have made it to
he play-offs in addition to the 12 years. 50 homers? 60? More?
For
the
record, Mickey Mantle is the all-time World Series leader in Home Runs (18), RBIs (40),
Runs Scored (42), Total Bases (123) and Walks (43).
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