Manny Ramirez is NOT statistically the best postseason player of all time

“Manny Ramirez is statistically the best postseason player of all time.”

This statement is one I heard Wednesday, while waiting in line for the Purdue basketball game. It was said with an air of confidence not seen since the days of Muhammad Ali, and I reacted with immediate fury. Such a broad statement is impossible to make due to the nature of postseason play and the changes in its format over the years. Nevertheless, I will set out to prove that statement wrong in every way possible.

I assume the statement grew from the fact that Manny has been an absolute monster in the past two playoffs, helping lead the Red Sox to the World Series in 2007 and taking the Dodgers to the championship series on his shoulders last year. Manny is indeed the all-time leader in postseason home runs, is fourth in runs, third in hits, second in RBI, and third in total bases. So he wants to play the accumulation game. I can play that game as well. We will take Derek Jeter and Bernie Williams and I will show why they are at least just as good at Manny Ramirez if we only take the cumulative statistics. Derek Jeter and Bernie Williams are 1-2 respectively in games played, at bats, runs, hits, total bases, and times on base, while going 2-1 in doubles, 2-5 in home runs and 1-3 in extra base hits. As you can see, they are dominant enough in just about every category to be considered in this debate. Remember, right now we are only looking at cumulative statistics, so rate statistics such as AVG, OBP, OPS will not be considered here. First, let us compare Bernie Williams to Manny Ramirez:

Player	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	SB
Bernie Williams	121	465	83	128	29	0	22	80	71	85	8
Manny Ramirez	103	378	64	108	16	0	28	74	70	85	1

Cumulatively, Bernie Williams is statistically a better postseason player, with nearly 20 more runs, 20 more hits, 14 more doubles, and just 6 less home runs while having 6 more RBI, along with eight times as many stolen bases as Manny (OK, a nearly irrelevant statement, but the fact that Bernie has a significant number of stolen bases while Manny has one is well, significant).

Now let’s look at Derek Jeter, for a somewhat less convincing but still interesting argument:

Player	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	SB
Derek Jeter	123	495	85	153	22	3	17	49	51	96	16
Manny Ramirez	103	378	64	108	16	0	28	74	70	85	1

Clearly, these are two different types of players, but I will take “El Capitan” Derek Jeter by virtue of him having 21 more runs, 45 more hits, and many more steals. An argument could be made for Manny, but clearly the “Manny Ramirez is statistically the best postseason player of all time” statement is not definitive whatsoever.

Now that I’ve played the less important cumulative statistics game, I will completely blow the validity of that statement out of the water. You cannot look at cumulative statistics and say “this man is better than that man” because ‘this man’ had the chance to play almost three times as many postseason games per postseason. For example, the legendary Babe Ruth played in 10 postseasons, just as Manny Ramirez did, but Manny Ramirez played in an astonishing two and a half times more playoff games than did Babe Ruth. Does this mean that Manny is better just because he got to play in more games? Absolutely not. Let’s look at the data:

Player	G	AB	R/G	RBI/G	AB/HR	BA	OBP	SLG	Rings
Lou Gehrig	34	119	0.88	1.03	11.90	0.361	0.477	0.731	6
Babe Ruth	41	129	0.90	0.80	8.60	0.326	0.467	0.744	7
Derek Jeter	123	495	0.69	0.40	29.12	0.309	0.377	0.469	4
Bernie Williams	121	465	0.69	0.66	21.14	0.275	0.371	0.480	4
Manny Ramirez	103	378	0.72	0.73	13.50	0.286	0.399	0.550	2
Reggie Jackson	77	281	0.53	0.62	15.61	0.278	0.358	0.527	4

Here we have the relevant data for the players I figured may get close to Manny in terms of postseason greatness. A quick glance at the data reveals that we can pretty much shave this group down to Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, and Manny Ramirez. At this point, there is no argument to make for Manny Ramirez being statistically the greatest postseason player of all time. Manny’s not great (relatively) .286 postseason average was bolstered by his .340 average in the LCS, while his LDS and WS averages are a paltry .246 and .247 respectively! BOTH Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth have more Runs/Game, RBI/Game, AB/HR (less in this case), higher BA, OBP, SLG, and a little stat I like to call World Series Rings. Here is the kicker: Not only did Babe Ruth hit incredibly well in the postseason (which at the time consisted only of the World Series), but he went 2-0 with a 0.87 ERA in three starts in the postseason as a pitcher!!!!! When the Dodgers can bring in Manny Ramirez to pitch 14 innings in a complete game while only giving up one run and six hits, then come talk to me and claim that Manny Ramirez is statistically the best postseason player of all time. Because he still won’t be.


Interesting baseball fact of the day: If you expand Manny and the Babe's postseason stats to a 162-game season, Manny would have 44 HR, 116 RBI, 101 R, .278/.399/.550. The Babe would be at 59 HR, 130 RBI, 146 R, and .326/.467/.744.