Ok, exclude those last three years. Lajoie is then a career .350 hitter with a career OPS of .883, and a 160 OPS +.
Hornsby was a career .358 hitter. 8 points might not seem significant, but when you consider Hornsby's power, he blows Lajoie out of the water. And, that's saying something, because Lajoie was a fantastic, elite hitter in the game's history. Hornsby had a lifetime 1.010 OPS. That's a spectacular
season. But for a career mark, that's ridiculous. Hornsby had a 175 OPS +. Simply put, he was, for his career, 15% better than Lajoie. That's a significant gap.
Since we're allowing the removal of the very last couple of years when age and injury caught up with Lajoie, look at Hornsby under the same light. From 1932-1937, Hornsby played a combined 132 games. 305 PAs after age 35. He was a .291 hitter, with an .826 OPS. Chop that little bit of baseball off his career, and his numbers jump up. Now, Hornsby is a .361 career hitter with a 177 career OPS +.
Let's just think about that a second. Chop off roughly 300 plate appearances from the very tail of Hornsby's career, and his lifetime OPS + is two points lower than Lou Gehrigh's 179 OPS +. Gehrig is widely considered the greatest first baseman in the game's history, playing a position known for its great power hitters. Hornsby nearly equals him, and he was a second baseman.
In the history of the game, only Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Barry Bonds and Lou Gehrig have had higher career OPS + marks than Hornsby. Lajoie, as great as he was, is 35th all-time. Still one of the elite players of the game, but the fact remains that Hornsby had a career batting average that was 8-10 points higher than Lajoie, depending on how much of Lajoie's career is being compared. But Lajoie doesn't come close to matching Hornsby's power. Yes, he played his entire career in the dead ball era. But OPS + is measured against peers, and simply put, Hornsby was much better than Lajoie was, on that basis. Lajoie was capable of putting up the big numbers-he had a 1.106 OPS in 1901, leading the league with 14 home runs. But, while he came close, he never topped the 1.000 OPS plateau again. Hornsby's career OPS was 1.010. And, even though Hornsby played in the live ball era, he still had more triples than Lajoie, 169 to 163, in about 1,000 fewer plate appearances.
Lajoie went over 10.0 WAR once. Hornsby did it six times.
Both are elite Hall of Famers. But Hornsby is on his own level as far as the position is concerned.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CMIZ5290
Lajoie had a career batting average of .340 for 21 years, I personally don't think the gap between him and Hornsby is that great, not at all.....Also, Lajoie's batting average includes the last three years of his career where he was injured a lot, and they were very sub par by his standards (.257, .280, .244)...If you exclude those 3 years, his batting average was probably around .375 for 18 years, how do you argue that?
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