Why aren’t player postseason statistics counted in career totals?
Babe Ruth hit more than 714 home runs
It’s not as if the idea of MLB postseason stats not being included in a player’s career totals hasn’t crossed my mind more than once. Yet somehow, I always dismissed it as things just being the way they are. But recently when reading about Giancarlo Stanton’s most excellent post-season for the Yankees, Stanton was mentioned as being a shoo-in for induction into Cooperstown if he were to amass 500 career home runs. The lack of association with PEDs being a primary reason.
I am not here to debate Stanton’s future HOF candidacy. I am here to note that Stanton has 429 career MLB home runs. Except that he doesn’t. Going into this year’s World Series Stanton has 16 career post-season home runs making his actual MLB total 445.
Adding postseason stats to career stats would make oft-recalled numbers, different
Barry Bonds hit only nine measly postseason homers raising his total from 762 career home runs to 771. Hank Aaron, the former all-time home run leader with 755 hit even fewer postseason home runs than Bonds, parking only six for a career total of 761. Babe Ruth, whose 714 career home runs stood a long test of time, hit 15 post-season round trippers for a career total of 729. 714 is way cooler than 729 probably because that number has been in mind for my entire life.
The reasoning behind the idea of not including post-season stats in career totals is, in a word, dumb. I don’t really know where it came from. Was it an effort led by pitchers? Or was it hitters? Since post-season games are Major League games, who is being protected by not including post-season stats in career totals? Players that did not have the good fortune to play in the post-season would appear to be a disenfranchised group!
Two-time MVP Dale Murphy had 398 career homers and is often discussed as a should-have-been HOFer. Had Murphy hit just two more homers, 400 might have been his lucky number to gain a plaque in Cooperstown. Alas, Murph played in just three post-season games in 1982 carding three hits, but none went out of the park.
Not including post-season stats is not unique to baseball
When it comes to the other major professional sports, baseball is not alone in treating post-season stats at an arm’s length. The NFL, NBA, and NHL all don’t include post-season stats in career totals.
It’s fine with me that team stats for an individual season do not include post-season stats. It’s more fun to compare those regular season apples to each other since all teams play the same number of games. But making believe that post-season stats are meaningless just toasts my bagels.
Things get interesting when looking at ‘Almost’ HOF players as my son and I like to do on our podcast. Take for example the late, great Roberto Clemente who totaled exactly 3,000 career hits before his tragic passing on New Year’s Eve in 1972. Clemente was a surefire Hall-of-Famer even if he had 2,999 career hits! Yet Clemente had 34 post-season hits (hitting .318 – one point higher than his career average of .317), for a real-career total of 3,034. That’s harder to remember than 3,000 but it’s a more accurate representation of what really happened.
Baseball is the stat-iest of all the professional sports. Fans know career total numbers. 511 wins for Cy Young (nope 513). 652 career saves for Mariano Rivera (nope 694) – well Yankee fans know that at least. When you include Ty Cobb’s 17-65 in his World Series totals for the Tigers, his batting average goes… nowhere - .3655 which rounds to his career batting average of .366.
Playoff baseball pits the best teams and players versus each other. Compared to the regular season it would seem to be more difficult to succeed playing against the best. That goes for both sides, however. Some of the greatest players to have ever played baseball never reached the playoffs. 14 players are in the HOF who never had the opportunity to play in the World Series.
HOF players that never appeared in the post-season. *Source SABR
Yes they are all old-timey players. They played long before divisional play. The list above was created in 2003 and should now include Chicago Cubs star Ron Santo who was elected to Cooperstown in 2012, sadly posthumously, as he passed away in 2010. Their lack of post-season stats counting did not inhibit his ultimate election. Others were not so lucky.
Recent Yankees with big post-season success
One last thing, because the post-season can be three times as long as when it was only the World Series (max 22 games today versus max seven games before 1969), post-season stats are more meaningful. Bernie Williams a career Yankee who is another ‘Almost’ guy had a long and splendid postseason career hitting 22 home runs (which would bring his career total to 309) and put up a postseason career OPS of .850 – in 121 career post-season games. Bernie would benefit more than most with a second look if you include his post-season stats in his career stats. Andy Pettitte might say – “hold my beer” as his career bWAR currently at 60.2 would get a big boost from 44 career playoff starts in which he went 19-11 with 276.2 innings pitched. Pettitte’s career post-season WHIP (1.31) is better than his career WHIP (1.35). I’ve not been a huge supporter of Pettitte for the HOF but adding his post-season stats would make it harder to deny. He pitched better against the best players in the biggest moments. That should count. But it doesn’t somehow, and I just don’t get it. Do you?
About the Author: Mark Kolier along with his son Gordon co-hosts a baseball podcast called ‘Almost Cooperstown’. He also has written baseball-related articles that can be accessed on Medium.com and Substack.com.
You make many interesting points David and thanks for your insight. I could have been more explicit in noting that stats are stats no matter when they occur - regular or postseason! I like that you feel the HOF should weigh postseason stats in evaluation.
Also that players are not all that motivated in the postseason since they are not paid on what they do in the postseason is an important point. Not that they aren't trying but as you put it, it does not impact their salaries.
Since there are players who never reach the postseason their chances are a little less than those that do. Including career stats from postseason to me tells the story as it actually happened and there's no need to wonder - how many more would he have if postseason were to be included in aggregate career totals? We'll always isolate postseason numbers anyway so it's not like they would melt away.
Thanks again! Fun to discuss.
I don't favor one rule about postseason inclusion for career statistics, and another for individual seasons, which it sounds like you are advocating. You know my bias, being a baseball mathematician, but the whole thing has to add up. We have to choose whether we prefer the more honest, complete assessment that total statistics provides, or whether we prefer the uniformity in games and level of competition than ignoring them gives. I think I would opt for the latter, the status quo, but not without considerable regrets, though. I don't like having the league leader in categories depending on who played the most games, and as I said, I insist on including postseason in individual seasons, if that is where we are going to go, so that would be a consequence.
But this does not mean that we shouldn't use the combined data in ALL cases when we evaluate players, however! Including evaluating them for the Hall of Fame! I think it is basically kosher to add the two together, regular and postseason. Hell, it's probably even ok to weight the postseason games three or four times. I just don't think we should do it formally for comparison purposes like official records. The only thing one has to watch is inadvertently penalizing players who have a heavy dose of postseason experience, since those games are against better competition.
To be clear, what I am saying is, there are times when an analysis has to be holistic and cannot use simple numbers. Really, some advanced stats are of this nature. Some of that stuff can get mighty theoretical. Even something like a league adjusted or a park adjusted stat -- that's more of an imputation than a simple stat, isn't it?
It would be a small effect, but if you include postseason stats, what you've done is suddenly to change the meaning of the magic numbers a little. If an average player has 1/50th as many postseason home runs as regular season home runs, suddenly 408 home runs is as easy as 400 used to be.
Just a technical point. Great that baseball is the same game though, in the regular and postseason. It's not like there's any individual category that would be wildly affected by including postseason.
Just as an academic question, not an argument pro or con, I am also interested in how including postseason statistics would affect player motivation. It's weird that, in a way, players have no statistical motivation, no motivation of accountability, to do well in the postseason, like they have in the regular season. There's not thought of, "Shit. That 7-run, 2-inning outing is really going to screw up my E.R.A.," as would normally be the case.
I said I'm not going pro or con with that, but I'd say that's a reason for including postseason stats. We want the most motivated postseason players!
Just my subjective sense, but I think position players do basically get a free pass when it comes to postseason performance and their contracts. Maybe, once in a blue moon, a hometown hero will resign off a big postseason when he otherwise wouldn't, but for the most part, I think it's just, "Thank you for your service," Ray Knight style. But there is something very alluring about a pitcher when he is dominant in the postseason, while the memory of Kershaw or David Price struggling really sticks with people and hurts their reputation. Weird, isn't it?
I liked and totally related to how you said that you'd always just passively accepted the exclusion of postseason stats, and then thought about it, and realized it didn't make any sense. Some of us don't like change, but let's do changes when they make sense, right?