Best Leadoff Hitters In Your Lifetime

[TennNC]

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).

[WA_Vol]

Ricky Henderson.

Everyone else is a distant second

[hatvol96]

Henderson and Raines set the standard. Vince Colemen was unbelievably disruptive to the opposition for about 4 years.

[vader]

Originally Posted by hatvol96

Henderson and Raines set the standard. Vince Colemen was unbelievably disruptive to the opposition for about 4 years.

[TennNC]

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.

[WA_Vol]

You left Lou Brock off your list.

[TennNC]

Originally Posted by oklavol

You left Lou Brock off your list.

Never saw him play. I was too young.

[BigPapaVol]

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.

[hatvol96]

Originally Posted by wbarron

Never saw him play. I was too young.

You didn't miss anything.

[cd12]

Mickey Rivers

[GAVol]

Originally Posted by wbarron

Coleman was awesome. Didn't last as long as the others, but man, he was scary good (esp. combined with Willie McGee).

Back in the early 80s I saw Vince Coleman when he played Class A ball here in town. He stole 145 bases that year.

[Vercingetorix]

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.

[GAVol]

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.

[WA_Vol]

Originally Posted by Vercingetorix

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.

On base % is the most underrated stat in baseball.

On Base Percentage top 25

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.

[WA_Vol]

Originally Posted by hatvol96

You didn't miss anything.

Just a Hall of Famer.

He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1985. His number 20 was retired by the St. Louis Cardinals. In 1999, he ranked Number 58 on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and was nominated as a finalist for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.