MLB Prime 9: Greatest Hitting Seasons

welcome to prime nine the countdown show that covers the very best in baseball guaranteed to start arguments not english this week it's the nine greatest hitting seasons of all time why nine that's baseball nine players nine innings prime nine how do you possibly whittle down all the incredible hitting seasons in the history of baseball to just 9. [Applause] after all you've got triple crown winners rbi champions record setters and batting champions so how do you decide which of these amazing hitting years belong in this elite group well the first thing we did was limit ourselves to just one season per player if we didn't you'd be seen more than just one year from bay and barry he's done it again and to compare players of different areas we used a stat called ops plus that is they're on base plus slugging percentage in relation to the league average and the ballparks for that year and as always the season had to take place in the modern era which we define as since 1901 so let's begin the countdown of the greatest hitting seasons of all time starting with number nine on prime nine through the history of baseball catchers were characterized as men of great endurance great intelligence a captaincy of the outcome of the game who incidentally had to bat because their turn came up once every night at bats of course that mold was broken from time to time as some catchers emerged as offensive stars and one had a year for the ages the year that mike piazza had in 1997 362 batting average as a catcher it's unbelievable [Applause] there's a guy who was feared by every team because he could put the ball out of the park in any part of the park he had just as much power to right center field as he did pulling the ball down the left field line when he made good solid contact the ball was flying out of the ballpark he drove the ball all parts of the field and he was a deadly hitter and it showed in that one particular year where those numbers will never be reached again by any catcher well hit left center this is a big man's homer way out of here piazza's 201 hits and 6 38 slugging percentage of 97 set the bar for catchers and he did it while absorbing the punishment of almost 140 games behind the plate what an effort you know to get down there every day squat deal with the pitch and staff your legs and and the endurance that's necessary a lot of the great catchers you talk to feel the same way about that season because they've been there they've been to war they know what it's like to be behind the plate and to suffer like they do and for mike piazza to do that quite an achievement [Music] [Applause] if you get that kind of production out of your capture it's a bonus he didn't just be an impact player he was a dominant hitter in the game a monstrous home run by piazza piazza really established himself as the greatest hitting catcher of all time 97 is obviously remarkable to be able to do it while you're catching and undergoing physical rigors of that position is just flat out unbelievable that is something you probably won't see for a very long time and so the greatest hitting catcher checks in at number nine number eight also belongs to the best at his position you talk about hoeness wagon that's the greatest shortstop of all time but he is bold words given some of the talented players who played it short but none of them owned his era quite like wagner honest wagner was the consummate power hitter in the game in the first decade of the century in that decade hanus led the league in slugging six times and won seven batting titles but one year stood out wagner of course had many great seasons but everybody has a pinnacle season and i think for wagner it was 1908. he led the league in just about every he-man department hits runs better than slugging total bases batting average 354 seems like a garden-variety batting average to lead the league the national league of 1908 as a whole batted 239 wagner's batting average was nearly 50 percent better than the league average in that season the epitome of the dead ball era wagner left his peers in his wake with mind-boggling numbers those who saw him play were amazed including the legendary giant skipper john mcgraw always said that of all the players he had ever seen honest wagner was the greatest not babe ruth not ty cobb honest wagner welcome back to prime nine featuring the greatest hitting seasons of all time you've seen the ninth and eighth best we now continue with number seven [Music] the 1927 yankees are remembered as one of the deadliest teams in baseball history this rare assemblage of talent was called murderers row at a time when seasons were just 154 games these yankees won 110 and at the heart of the order were two names that are linked forever to have ruth garrick three four in the lineup must have been a nightmare for opposing pitches ruth was already established as one of the game's greatest hitters while garrick was quietly coming into his own they babe loved the limelight loved to be in the focus gary was much more workman like behind the scenes but in 1927 larapin lou stepped out of the shadows with the best season any first baseman would ever have that was the season that he told baseball i am as great a player as my teammate babe ruth it was the year lou's bats did all the talking be sure to keep the arms straight from the body back and ready to hit gary had a fierce combative spirit when he went up there to hit he had one purpose to knock the hell out the ball gary was known to hit the most ferocious line drives in all directions and if you look at his total of doubles and triples you can see [Music] what he did in 1927 with the 175 runs better than is even more phenomenal ruth hit 60 home runs so gary came to bat 60 times that year after ruth had cleaned the bases lou gehrig was the model of consistency his entire career but one year stands out as the seventh best hitting season of all time in 1927 he hit 47 home runs not his career high he drove in 175 not his career high if you look at slugging if you look at on base percentage if you look at the two of them combined as ops which nowadays is very common the sabermetric approach would probably yield you 1927 as the greatest of his seasons in combination [Music] 1956 i would have been 25 years old i finally became a you know a ball player i guess a ball player who five years into his career would finally realize his full potential showcasing his incredible skills and in 1956 mantle would write his name into the record books with one phenomenal season he was a magnificent athlete and a great ball player and it was one of those years where everything fell into place for him this was the year where he moved to to the big stage so to speak it's what gave him prominence there are not many that a player has where he achieves so much in so many categories and does so well [Music] here you have mickey mantle at the peak of his powers in 1956. he hits 353 52 home runs he drives in 130 runs wins the triple crown and the triple crown that he won wasn't just the american league triple crown it was the major league triple crown in other words he led the majors in homer's the majors in batting average and the majors in rbis no one has done that since and best of all he led the yankees to a world series title mantle capped off his incredible season by winning the first of three most valuable player awards but they might as well have been oscars for the mick was a leading man of his era and the 56th season his greatest performance in a lifetime of legendary rules it's a glamorous player playing on the most glamorous stage in all of sports yankee stadium i mean there it is there's there's your script straight out of hollywood welcome back to prime nine featuring the greatest hitting seasons of all time piazza and wagner checked in at nine and eight respectively followed by gary and the man with the perfect baseball name which means it's time for number five [Music] to say which is ty cogh's greatest season is like saying uh which is shakespeare's greatest play i mean there's a lot to pick from [Music] cobb in 1911 probably hit his pinnacle and i think joe jackson's charge at him with a 400 average had something to do with it the presence of shoeless joe bearing down on him in almost every offensive category must have pushed the fiercely competitive cobb to new heights 248 hits was the most he ever had run scored runs batted in slugging ty cobb excelled even himself that year com was the best in the game and no one knew it better than ty himself this cocky confident attitude was typical of ty cobb thought he could do anything the georgia peach approached every game like it was war and every at-bat was a battle cobb probably is as well known for how fierce he was and unrelenting he was as a base runner and an outfielder as a hitter cobb would win 12 batting titles in his career but it was his fifth straight in 1911 that helped him make this season one of the all-time best he had a philosophy never let yourself come out of a game without at least one hit and you have to believe that kind of fanaticism when you look at a lifetime batting average of 367. that's over 24 years there's something wrong with that there's something maniacal about it that just doesn't happen [Music] will you explain why you stand in the extreme corner of the box rod well it gives me the advantage of stepping in and hitting the ball to any field hornsby had a very unusual stance a very unusual grip he was an unconventional player all the way around but the numbers he compiled in his 23-year career have certainly stood the test of time if you grew up with baseball even in the 1960s and 70s and were asked the question who is the greatest right-handed hitter your answer had to be rogers hornsby hornsby was obsessed with hitting when asked once what he did during the off season he said i stare out the window and wait for spring to come and when the spring of 1922 came he was ready in that season he had the kind of year that no one could have expected and least of all from a hitting standpoint you don't expect that kind of production from a second baseman what hornsby did in terms of power and production that year still stands alone among second basemen today what was hornsby's difference from all the second basemen who had gone before and those who would come after it was the extraordinary total base power he led the league with 42 home runs which in 1922 was was quite a large number in fact it was a new national league record hornsby was also in the midst of a stretch of five consecutive seasons in which he averaged over 400 no one else has equaled this string of success in the history of the game if not for babe ruth you'd look back at the 1920s and say that was the age of hornsby just a remarkable player we have not seen the kind of play offensively from second baseman that hornsby gave us in that great triple crown year toward the end of the 20th century mary bonds was already a three-time mvp and a certain hall of fame but his feats were now overshadowed by other sluggers of his error that would change in 2001. even before that year he was as good a all-around player as you were going to see in the history of the game and then in that year to just watch what he did it was unbelievable bonds began the year six home runs shy of 500 and appeared in a hurry to get there barnes has hit the historic 500th homer he joins his godfather willie mays he joins william [Applause] at the age of 37 at a time when most players are winding down their careers bonds appear to be getting better and he embarked on a home run pace that lifted his legend to new heights bond simply frightened the rest of the national league bonds continues to draw walks at a very very high pace couldn't pitch to him wouldn't pitch to him wouldn't think of pitching to him don't expect bots to see anything to swing out here and then he'd get that one pitch and payout again he's done again mark mcguire [Applause] you stop everything you're doing to watch what barry bonds was going to do number 67 number 68 number 69. he just sat there every night he was trying to see that he hit it again did he have another one another one the all-time record set in 98 was now in sight looks like number 70 for barry bonds and it is tying the all-time record everybody was just caught up in this magical chase that nobody ever thought would come close again to mark maguire and barry bonds shattered it who knows how bonds was able to do what was thought impossible at his age but it was his entire body of work that makes this year the third best of all time the 73 home runs the record for bases on balls the slugging percentage record the ruth record that nobody ever thought would be surpassed these now belong to barry bonds [Music] we now return to prime nine where this week we're focusing on the greatest hitting seasons in the history of baseball to qualify for the show a hitter had to have a season that almost defied belief and so far we've seen some great ones now it's time for the very best two years that in the long history of the game rise above the rest we begin with number two [Music] when ted williams made the majors in 1939 he had no qualms about what his future would hold the lanky red sox rookie told people flatly that he intended to become the greatest hitter in baseball history in 1941 the 22 year old williams would back those words up but his greatest season ever actually began on the wrong foot in spring training he fractured a bone in his right foot and he seemed to favor that right foot a little bit stayed back a little bit more maybe it helped because teddy ball game had a sensational first half headbath has generated rocket speed williams was hitting 405 at the all-star break and he used the midsummer classic to prove that this just might be a magical year bottom of the ninth the american league trailed by one had two on and two out ted williams at bat william swings there's a high drive hitting that home run in the all-star game in the ninth inning was certainly a big thrill and i'll never forget the rest of my life and there was so much more to come in the season's second half for while joe dimaggio's hitting streak was stealing the spotlight williams was destroying american league pitching he wasn't jabbing or beating out infield hits or bonds he was hitting 400 with power ted would lead the majors in home runs on base percentage slugging percentage runs walks and ops but the most legendary number of all came down to the final day of the season i was still hitting well over 400 the beginning of the last week and then i ran into just a little bit of a cold streak and before the last day i was down to 399 399.6 with a doubleheader that day in philadelphia ted could have taken a seat and technically finished the season at 400 but he would have none of it i think if i were 10 i would sit out today joe cronin came to me and he said ted you don't even have to play today he said officially you're 400. i said hell no joe i want to play deep in his psyche something said to him you're not going to be the greatest hitter that ever lived if you sit down in the face of a challenge of this magnitude [Music] williams would achieve baseball immortality by going six for eight in that doubleheader to finish with a 406 average still the last man to hit 400. any 400th season is remarkable but it's the way he did it that there's something marvelously heroic about it [Music] which brings us to the greatest hitting season of all time it's been almost a century since he first stepped to the plate but this honor could go to only one man ladies and gentlemen [Music] [Applause] the question is which of his legendary seasons would it be i could look of 1920 some could look at 1923. others could look at 1927. 1921 was the best remarkably ruth had still been a part-time pitcher for boston just two seasons prior and had just completed his first year as a yankee when he rewrote the record books babe ruth was trying to prove that what happened in 1920 was no freak and that he was really babe ruth you're going to be today for you boys in 1921 ruth broke almost every record he had set the previous season and the word ruthian became a part of the baseball lexicon we are talking about an era when major league leaders and home runs might be 13 14. 59 home runs was an unheard of number and in fact babe ruth out homered most of the teams in the american league that season for the third consecutive season he set a major league home run record the bambino was crowned king of swat by manager hugging he just tore up the record book threw it out the window and started writing new pages i think that's going to be a record to stand for a long time that would also be the case for the records he set that year for extra base hits and total bases marks that still stand today it was quite simply a season that helped change the game what ruth accomplished in 1921 brought baseball into the new era it was hitting that went beyond the furthest extremities of the imagination well we can't end the show without a few more fun facts about bay his 1921 season also brought the yankees their first world series appearance and ruth would play in six more through first 32. run of the series in those seven fall classics babe did just fine hitting 347 with 15 home runs and 30 rbi in 36 games [Applause] and remember how we said early in the show that there'd be only one season per player well here's a good reason why the top 10 highest ops seasons ever belong to just three men ted williams with two barry bonds with four and babe with four no surprise they also own our top three hitting seasons that's our prime night what's yours

Channel: cacable7

Views: 19,185

Rating: 4.852459 out of 5

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Id: S-5hghnbvmA

Length: 23min 36sec (1416 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 30 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Rebecca102017]

Ah the golden days of mlb network

[u/MONGSTRADAMUS]

I find it a bit interesting for some of the seasons they pick as best for each player, when they stated they are using ops+ as the primary stat. For example by ops+, using either wrc+ or adjusted ops+ , they use Bonds 2001 season as his best, but baseball reference and fangraps have his 2002 season as his best. The same argument could be said about Rogers Hornsby's 1922 vs 1924 season.

In both examples I guess they looked as home runs as the primary stat as it was both players most home runs in their career. I know its difficult to find each players best year, but if you are going to state you are using ops+ as primary stat than stick to it .

[u/Working_Box_1366]

Why 9? That's baseball, 9 players, 9 innings. PRIME 9!