Despite some apparent controversy, Vada Pinson (who had his best seasons playing at Crosley Field (above) with the Reds from 1958-1968) put up some amazing numbers for a guy not in the Hall of Fame. He had a rare combination of power, speed and decent good batting average: he was putting up numbers like Hanley Ramirez (maybe slightly less gaudy) in the late 50's and early 60's (more than 20 years before Hanley Ramirez was born).
While Pinson's numbers trailed off a little too soon, his best seasons hold up amazingly well even with the barrage of players with power and speed over the last 20 years.
1959-1965 avg: .303, 193 H, 105 R, 35 2B, 10 3B, 21 HR, 88 RBI, 23 SB
.280 BA, 2500 H, 250 HR, 300 SB
1951-1973 Willie Mays (Giants, Mets) .302, 3283, 660, 338 (Hall of Fame)
1958-1975 Vada Pinson (Reds, Cardinals, Indians, Angels, Royals): .286, 2757, 256, 305
1986-2007 Barry Bonds (Pirates, Giants) .298, 2935, 762, 514
1988-2007 Craig Biggio (Astros) .281, 3060, 291, 414
.280, 20 HR, 20 SB: 5+ Seasons: 1900-present
Barry Bonds: 9 Seasons
Bobby Abreu: 8
Alex Rodriguez: 6
Willie Mays: 6
Hank Aaron: 5
Vada Pinson: 5
200 H, 20 HR, 20 SB
Vada Pinson: 3 (1959, 1963, 1965)
Jimmy Rollins: 1 (2007)
Hanley Ramirez: 1 (2007)
It may or may not show up as a "link" below at some point (I don't really understand how those things work or don't work), but I wanted to make sure you saw my pseudo-response to this. It wasn't really intended as a response in any real way, but this post got me thinking about Pinson. It's up at both my old site and the new one, TheDailySomething.com.
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