Gabby Hartnett Stats
How good was Gabby Hartnett every time he batted in the major leagues?
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Presented in this article are Gabby Hartnett’s real baseball stats per official at bat. How many runs, RBI’s and home runs (HR’s) did Gabby Hartnett get per official at bat? Presenting the stats in this manner is meant to give you a clearer picture of what on average Gabby Hartnett accomplished for each official at bat he had in the major leagues.
How are the stats calculated out? Simply by dividing each stat listed by official at bats. Just like you do with hits for batting average. Here we are dividing total runs scored by total official at bats to get a player’s run average, total RBI’s by total official at bats for a player’s RBI average and total HR’s by total official at bats for a player’s HR average. For example: if a player has scored 1,000 runs in 5,000 official at bats his run average would be .200. If the player had 900 RBI’s his RBI average would be .180. And if he had 200 HR’s his HR average would be .040. So on average this player would have scored a run 20% of the time, driven in a run 18% of the time and hit a HR 4% of the time he recorded an official at bat in the major leagues.
Obviously the higher the averages the better the player was. Here is a rough guide to determine how a players averages stack up.
Run Average and RBI Average – anything over .150 is good. Anything above .200 is excellent, and the very best players in history have occasionally gone over .300 in some seasons.
HR Average – anything over .055 is good. Anything above .065 is really good and anything above .075 means one of the best HR hitters of all time.
Here are Gabby Hartnett’s raw numbers (AB’s/runs/RBI’s/HR’s) 6432/867/236/1179.
Gabby Hartnett’s Career Numbers
- Run Average – .135
- RBI Average – .183
- HR Average – .037
So on average Gabby Hartnett scored a run 13.5% of the time, drove in a run 18.3% of the time and hit a HR 3.7% of the time he stepped up to the plate and had an official at bat in the major leagues.
Gaby Hartnett was a catcher in the major leagues for 20 years. He spent 19 of those years with the Chicago Cubs (1922-1940) and played one year for the New York Giants (1941). He won the National League MVP Award in 1935, was a National League All Star for the first six All Star games (1933-1938) and made it 4 World Series in his career (1929, 1932, 1935 and 1938) all with the Cubs and of course all losses as the Chicago Cubs have not won the World Series since 1908. The only professional sports franchise to have a 100 year drought between championships (and counting).
Hartnett was nicknamed “Gabby” by his teammates because he was not much of a talker. He was behind home plate as the catcher for two of baseball’s most famous moments and both involving baseball’s greatest hitter.
Image via Wikipedia
On October 1, 1932, Hartnett was behind the plate during Babe Ruth’s infamous Called Shot in the World Series and he was also catching in the 1934 All Star game when Carl Hubbell struck out Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons, and Joe Cronin in succession.
Gabby Hartnett was elected by the baseball writers and inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1955.
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3 Comments
Well written and intertaining.Although I don’t know very much about sports. I enjoyed the read.
You indicate what good stats are for a season and then compare Gabby’s career stats to your season stats to make him look mediocre. This guy played catcher and swung a bat for 18 years, later as a player-manager. Your standard stats are based on players who played how long and in what defensive positions? How many catchers and other players, including today’s pampered ‘roid boys, can compare? When you compare stats, be fair. Compare season to season stats and career to equally long career stats, especially for a guy on his knees every game. Few catchers in history can touch this guy. And he didn’t duck out of the game at the top of his game like so many so-called heroes of today do. Stats can be tricky and in most cases bs. It’s trivial numbers that can be shaped to make even the most contradictory of arguments. This guy was baseball – in a time when it was a job and when a catcher didn’t catch the ball but stopped the ball with two hands. He knew the mythical greats and knew them as just fellow players. Other than the stat analysis, I found your web page informative. Maybe link some of the events mentioned to video available on the ‘net. Well, that’s my two cents. Have at it Joe. Go Cubs!
Actually Gabby Hartnett has pretty good stats and really good stats for a catcher especially his RBI average. Compare him to Ray Schalk and you’ll see what I mean. When I’m done with all the Hall of Famers I will go position by position and compare players in the Hall of Fame that way.
Catcher is of course the toughest position to rank because Catchers have more impact on the outcome of a game than anybody else except the pitcher.
What I’m trying to do is get people to look at more than batting averages as a way to rate or rank players. Scoring runs or driving in runs is more important than getting hits but people go by batting average to compare players.
Gabby Hartnett today would probably make about $10 million per year.
Thanks for the feedback.