Me too. Pete Rose.
Slugging percentages and on-base percentages are about the same, aren't they? You get a hit, you're on base, right?
No.
What people don't understand about patient hitters is that WALKS replace OUTS, not HITS.
OUTS, not walks, end rallies.
NOBODY would get many hits on the pitches that they take.
Ted Williams ranks first all-time in career on-base percentage and second only to Babe Ruth in career slugging average.
Babe Ruth ranks first all-time in career slugging average and second only to Ted Williams in career on-base percentage.
Barry Bonds, like him or not, is in the career
top ten in both categories. (Almost 20.000 have played in MLB since the 1870s.)
If somebody has a better example than those three to promote an alternate method of ranking hitters, I'm all ears.
Baseball games are scored in runs.
That's how we know who won.
Thus, runs scored and runs batted in are the two most important batting stats.
HOWEVER,
neither is a truly individual stat.
Both are highly dependent on the batting order around the hitters scoring and driving in the runs.
On-base percentage is the
individual contribution to runs scored.
Slugging average is the
individual contribution to runs batted in.
The combination of the two reveals the overall efficiency of the hitter in contributing to runs, which is how the game, after all, is scored.
