8/5/2023 0 Comments Fastest 40 yard dash everStill, it’s better than saying one player is faster than another because he looks faster (obvious when comparing Tim Raines to Wade Boggs but not when comparing Raines to Rickey Henderson).ĭuring the season he came up with this (1987, I think), the player who scored highest was Vince Coleman, who stole around 100 bases with a very high stolen base percentage. Obviously it isn’t a perfect system, since the number of steal attempts, triples and even defensive statistics are subject to the effects of a player’s home ballpark. I wish I had the article in front of me so I could explain the precise calculation. If I recall correctly a player’s speed score was based upon a combination of the following statistics: stolen bases, stolen base percentage, triples, and another composite stat called “defensive range factor” which measured how much defensive ground a player covered by comparing his defensive chances (assists, putouts, and errors) to the league average at his position. In one of his excellent Baseball Abstracts, Bill James devised a somewhat objective method of determining who the fastest players were, although the method was only designed for use in a specific season, not to compare players from different eras. I don’t think he was the fastest player of all time, but he was certainly the fastest player of his time, before his knees went kablooie. By the time it came back into vogue in the 60’s, Mantle’s speed had been shot by injuries. In the 1950s, when Mantle had incredible speed, the stolen base had fallen completely out of favor all offense was based on the draw-walks-and-hit-homers philosophy. In Mantle’s defense, players in his era just didn’t steal bases. But, that said, I find it inconceivable that the fastest player in baseball history, who stood on first base over three thousand times in his illustrious career, did not take it upon himself to swipe a few more bases now and then. And on the NY Yankees squad of the 50’s and 60’s, it probably wasn’t all that necessary. The aforementioned Herb Washington was only 29/46 lifetime (or something like that), most likely because he lacked baseball instincts, and because pitchers knew he was going to run on them. Obviously, there’s more to stealing a base than just speed. I have no known estimates of Mantle’s speed, but he stole only 153 bases in his career.
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