Best Leadoff Hitters In Your Lifetime

#1
TennNC

TennNC

a lover, not a fighter
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#1
Has the leadoff hitter become a lost art? The lightning-fast guy who finds a way to get on base and then bug the crap out of the opposing team on the basepaths until he scores? A guy like Otis Nixon, while not in the top 10 best leadoff hitters of all time, was invaluable to the Braves in their early 90s run.

The best ones I can think of are from yesterday:

-Rickey Henderson (best ever?)
-Brett Butler (did he ever strike out?)
-Kenny Lofton (wreaked havoc on the basepaths)
-Tim Raines (solid all around, another guy who never struck out)

The best from today:
-Jose Reyes
-Ichiro
-Hanley Ramirez (tho don't know if he bats leadoff mostly)

Notable omission of Pete Rose, as I honestly was too young to remember him in his prime. And Alfonso Soriano, who is no longer a leadoff hitter (and rightly so).
 
#3
#3
Henderson and Raines set the standard. Vince Colemen was unbelievably disruptive to the opposition for about 4 years.
 
#5
#5
Coleman was awesome. Didn't last as long as the others, but man, he was scary good (esp. combined with Willie McGee).

Raines is one of those outstanding players who often gets overlooked.
 
#8
#8
Rickey Henderson said Rickey was the greatest of all time. He was probably right.

Don't really know where Cobb batted, but he was probably a prototype leadoff guy. Other that comes to mind is Rod Carew, but he wasn't the terror on the paths that guys like Rickey, Raines and Coleman were.
 
#11
#11
wbarron said:
Coleman was awesome. Didn't last as long as the others, but man, he was scary good (esp. combined with Willie McGee).
Click to expand...

Back in the early 80s I saw Vince Coleman when he played Class A ball here in town. He stole 145 bases that year. :wacko:
 
#12
#12
Sure, it's an easy choice, but it's an easy choice for a reason. Rickey Henderson was the best leadoff hitter of all time, and by such a wide margin that the only conversation you can even really have about it is who was second best. And #2 was probably Raines.

Basestealing is a nice bonus in your leadoff guy, but what you want from him is OBP. Managers tend to put the speedy guy up there because that's what they think of when they think leadoff, but if a guy can't get on base in front of your big hitters, speed is pretty useless. I remember arguing in about 1986 that the Braves should have Ken Oberkfell lead off because he had far and away the best OBP on the team. But since he was a slow pudgy white guy, they probably never even gave it a thought.
 
#13
#13
I can't imagine how you ever won that argument with such stalwarts as Terry Harper and Omar Moreno on the other side of the equation. :crazy:
 
#14
#14
Vercingetorix said:
Basestealing is a nice bonus in your leadoff guy, but what you want from him is OBP. Managers tend to put the speedy guy up there because that's what they think of when they think leadoff, but if a guy can't get on base in front of your big hitters, speed is pretty useless.
Click to expand...

On base % is the most underrated stat in baseball.

On Base Percentage top 25

Code: 
Name OBP (Raw) Rank 
Ted Williams .482 (.4817) 1 
Babe Ruth .474 (.4739) 2 
John McGraw .466 (.4655) 3 
Billy Hamilton .455 (.4552) 4 
Lou Gehrig .447 (.4474) 5 
Barry Bonds .443 (.4429) 6 
Rogers Hornsby .434 (.4337) 7 
Ty Cobb .433 (.4330) 8 
Todd Helton .430 (.4300) 9 
Jimmie Foxx .428 (.4283) 10 
Tris Speaker .428 (.4279) 11 
Eddie Collins .424 (.4244) 12 
Frank Thomas .424 (.4242) 13 
Ferris Fain .424 (.4241) 14 
Dan Brouthers .423 (.4233) 15 
Max Bishop .423 (.4227) 16 
Joe Jackson .423 (.4227)   
Mickey Mantle .421 (.4205) 18 
Mickey Cochrane .419 (.4192) 19 
Edgar Martinez .418 (.4178) 20 
Stan Musial .417 (.4167) 21 
Lance Berkman .416 (.4161) 22 
Cupid Childs .416 (.4158) 23 
Jesse Burkett .415 (.4151) 24 
Wade Boggs .415 (.4150) 25

Ricky Henderson is 51, no one else mentioned makes the top 100.

On a sidebar, Todd Helton is some pretty elite territory. Probably first ballot Hall of Famer.
 
#17
#17
What's the minimum games played for that list? Albert Pujols has a .419 career OBP...
 
#20
#20
hatvol96 said:
Phil Rizzuto's in the Hall of Fame. I don't feel the slightest bit diminished that I didn't see him play. The same can be said about 50 other guys with plaques in Cooperstown.
Click to expand...

Don't tell the folks in St. Louis they put his statue in front of the stadium:

 
#21
#21
oklavol said:
Don't tell the folks in St. Louis they put his statue in front of the stadium:

Click to expand...
I know. I was there a few weeks ago. Couldn't care less if they name the Gateway Arch after him. That won't change the fact that he's the most overrated leftfielder of all time.
 
#22
#22
hatvol96 said:
I know. I was there a few weeks ago. Couldn't care less if they name the Gateway Arch after him. That won't change the fact that he's the most overrated leftfielder of all time.
Click to expand...

I agree he's overrated, a good argument can be made that he doesn't belong in the HOF too.

But when your talking lead-off hitters, he stole more bases then any other player then Henderson.
 
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