What if? PART II - Adjusted All Time Home Run List

Aug. 13, 2014

Cincinnati Museum Center/Getty Images

By: Tamir Barkan

WHAT IF? PART II

Baseball Edition

I recently blogged my "What If?" analysis for the NBA Goats. The of the greatest players of all time Bird, Magic, and Jordan all had a good ~5 more seasons that there careers should have had if not for injury, HIV or premature retirement.

What about the GOATs of Baseball? This started out as a quest to figure out how great Mantle would have been had he not had an untreated torn ACL for basically his entire career. But then I started thinking about Dimaggio/Williams/Greenburg who missed noticeable time due to serving in wars. Ironically, most of the all time greats have some seasons of "what if" attached to them.

Ruth - 4 1st seasons were mostly as a Pitcher (+ lifestyle career reduction)
Mantle - Untreated Torn ACL in 1st Post Season as well as a career of nagging injuries (+ lifestyle career reduction)
Gehrig - Career cut short by desease
Dimaggio - 3 seasons lost to War, career shortening injuries
Williams - 5 seasons lost to War
Greenburg - 5 seasons lost to War (+ premature retirement)
Musial - 1 season lost to War
Griffey - Career minimized by nagging injuries
Mays - 2 seasons lost to War

What would the all time lists look like if these players didn't suffer the career ending injuries (modern medicine probably would have prolonged their careers as well) as well if they didn't lose peak years to being drafted to serve in the military? Most full careers last between 20-23 seasons.

What about the "all time greats" that were tainted by steroids? What would the career list look like if their stats were adjusted to a more normalized career arch?

Based on my guestimated calculations (using full career assumptions), this would be the gain/loss to each player's career marks.

Then what if the PED era didn't happen. How would the list have looked then?

The difference with this part of the analysis is that I did not add years to the end of their careers. If they couldn't have long careers using steroids, they wouldn't have had them without. They did get adjustments due to injury &/or PED suspensions.