Madfish Willie's Greatest Hitter Ever - #8 Jimmie Foxx
Awards:
• 1932: American League Triple Crown
• 1932: American League Most Valuable Player
• 1933: American League Most Valuable Player
• 1933: American League Triple Crown
• 1938: American League Most Valuable Player
A fearsome power hitter whose strength earned him the moniker "The Beast," Jimmie Foxx was the anchor of an intimidating Philadelphia Athletics lineup that produced pennant winners from 1929 to 1931. The second batter in history to top 500 home runs, Foxx belted 30 or more homers in a record 12 consecutive seasons and drove in more than 100 runs 13 consecutive years, including a career-best 175 with Boston in 1938. He won back-to-back MVP awards in 1932 and 1933, capturing the Triple Crown the latter year.
Did you know... that Jimmie Foxx holds the record for most walks in a big league game with six on June 16, 1938?
Here are his complete career statistics.
Here are his top 15 productive seasons according to the Madfish Willie Index:
I realized after I posted this that Mr Foxx won the Triple Crown in back-to-back seasons! Is that a fine example of hitting or what?
Yeah, but yer definately weighing SOs and BBs too much. I just looked at the Mickey Mantle rankings and 1956 is absolutely his best season, not 1957.
The difficulty with finding a formula for offensive rankings is that there are so many ways for a hitter to be productive. A pitcher, IMO, is easy to rank 'cause all you really need is one stat: ERA. But, for a hitter, you can could HRs, RBIs, runs scored, on-base percentage and baserunning (SBs especially), etc etc etc.
The Slugging Percentage is an attempt to balance different kinds of production, but it ends up putting superpower hitters like McGwire and Dave Kingman above more obvious producers like Rod Carew and Derek Jeter.
But, the numbers sure are fun to play with!!!!
Posted by: Tuning Spork on April 2, 2004 09:31 PMThat would McGwire in the '80s, btw, back when he was hitting 49 HRs while batting .239.
Posted by: Tuning Spork on April 2, 2004 09:41 PMI agree that different specificaltions will yield much different results. I just wanted to do something really simple that everyone could understand... and not have to be a friggin rocket surgeon to understand it.
I think that sluggers who strike out too much are not good HITTERS - Sosa, A-Rod, Reggie Jackson (asshole! - from a personal experience).
Likewise, if they accumulate BB, whether intentional or not, then I don't think they have a good "eye" for the strike zone ala Ted Williams.
I'd really like to discuss Ted Williams and his three missing seasons... when we get to his ranking. The season before he left he won the Triple Crown and the second season after he returned, he won it again! So you have to figure he cumulative stats would have been astronomical had he the benefit of the lost seasons.
Didn't you do a series of posts during the World Series or was that Rocket Jones or someone else?
I think I'll have a baseball comment party under the last call comment party. That way everyone that wants to can follow a long thread and add thei opinions... what do you think>
Posted by: Madfish Willie on April 2, 2004 09:43 PMYeah, that was me with the "all-decade teams" (or whatever I called 'em), though Rocket Jones was a regular commenter and knows alot about this stuff!!
Posted by: Tuning Spork on April 2, 2004 10:02 PMANd Ted Williams actually missed FIVE seasons; 3 for WW2 and 2 for Korea. Five seasons in his prime! Just imagine what his lifetime stats might have been if the world wasn't periodically full of a**hole tyrants!!!
Posted by: Tuning Spork on April 2, 2004 10:07 PM