The following comparison of Pete Rose to his long-time teammates: Bench,
Morgan, Foster and Perez, shows that he was not in the top 3 hitters on his
own team. He did out hit fellow Hall of Fame teammates Dave Concepcion and
Tom Seaver.
To illustrate the point, batting records of their best single season, top
5 seasons, top 10 seasons and careers were compared. Their seasons were sorted
by the following criteria to determine which is their "best." And,
with exception of the "career" totals, no season with fewer than 400 plate
appearances was included. The players were sorted by OPS (on base avg
+ slugging avg) and by Total Avg (TA=batting avg + slugging avg). Then,
the rankings were averaged to determine the total combined ranking.
After studying the table below, also consider the intangibles. While
I don't consider Pete Rose a superior fielder, to his credit, he won 2 Gold
Gloves as an outfielder. His teammates winning Gold Gloves, Bench who
won 10 and Morgan who won 5, are in the Hall of Fame, Foster and Perez didn't
win any and are not. As far as base running, if you use stolen bases
as a measure, Rose was adequate, but not superior. To me, while he
was fun to watch (I admit I was a big Reds fan) and longevity is a big factor,
by most fundamental and widely accepted statistical measures, he just wasn't
as obvious a choice for the Hall of Fame as some make it seem. Sorry
Pete!
Comparison of 5 Cincinnati
Reds During the 1970's and 80's
Best Season
HR
RBI
SB
AVG
OBA
SLG
TA
RANK
OPS
RANK
COMB
FOSTER, GEORGE
52
149
6
.320
.382
.631
.951
1
1.013
2
1.5
MORGAN, JOE
27
111
60
.320
.452
.576
.896
3
1.028
1
2
PEREZ, TONY
40
129
8
.317
.401
.589
.906
2
.991
3
2.5
ROSE, PETE
16
82
7
.348
.428
.512
.860
4
.940
4
4
BENCH, JOHNNY
40
125
6
.270
.384
.541
.810
5
.925
5
5
Top 5 Seasons
HR
RBI
SB
AVG
OBA
SLG
TA
RANK
OPS
RANK
COMB
FOSTER, GEORGE
173
578
31
.301
.371
.561
.862
1
.932
2
1.5
MORGAN, JOE
114
432
301
.303
.433
.508
.811
4
.942
1
2.5
BENCH, JOHNNY
177
621
29
.280
.362
.539
.820
3
.901
3
3
PEREZ, TONY
144
533
23
.299
.373
.522
.820
2
.895
4
3
ROSE, PETE
55
305
51
.331
.405
.466
.797
5
.871
5
5
Top 10 Seasons
HR
RBI
SB
AVG
OBA
SLG
TA
RANK
OPS
RANK
COMB
FOSTER, GEORGE
294
1002
37
.285
.350
.511
.796
1
.861
3
2
BENCH, JOHNNY
297
1036
51
.275
.356
.506
.781
3
.862
2
2.5
MORGAN, JOE
173
719
454
.289
.415
.463
.752
5
.878
1
3
PEREZ, TONY
257
1028
28
.289
.354
.494
.784
2
.848
5
3.5
ROSE, PETE
99
664
96
.323
.393
.452
.775
4
.845
4
4
Career
HR
RBI
SB
AVG
OBA
SLG
TA
RANK
OPS
RANK
COMB
BENCH, JOHNNY, 17
389
1376
68
.267
.344
.476
.743
2
.820
1
1.5
FOSTER, GEORGE, 18
348
1239
51
.274
.337
.480
.754
1
.817
2
1.5
PEREZ, TONY, 23
379
1652
49
.279
.342
.463
.743
3
.805
4
3.5
MORGAN, JOE, 22
270
1143
689
.270
.391
.424
.694
5
.815
3
4
ROSE, PETE, 24
160
1314
198
.303
.373
.409
.712
4
.782
5
4.5
One last word...a VERY honorable mention goes to another teammate
who should not be forgotten KEN GRIFFEY, SR.,
whose career stats matchup favorably to Pete Rose too.
His rankings if we had included him in the above "career" table: