Is Giancarlo Stanton the best postseason hitter in Yankees history?
It depends.
If you count pre-integration statistics (the older I get, the less credence I give to pre-integration statistics when compared to numbers accrued in a fully integrated league, but if you still do…) then Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig are in the discussion. In 155 World Series plate appearances, Ruth posted a comical .497/.788 OBP/SLG line with 15 long balls in 36 games (that’s a 68 home run pace over 162 games). Gehrig was nearly as good as the Babe, posting a .483/.731 OBP/SLG line in 150 World Series PA.
Post integration, Hideki Matsui, Jason Giambi and Mickey Mantle all brought out the lumber in the clutch, all posting SLG north of .500 in their postseason careers in pinstripes. Yet unsurprisingly, Reggie Jackson is a few furloughs ahead of even those great playoff Bronx Bombers.
In 139 PA over 34 postseason games with New York, Mr. October posted a .417 OBP and a .672 SLG with 12 home runs and 29 RBI. Against very good pitching staffs in fully integrated leagues, Reggie was on a 57 home run, 138 RBI pace over 162 games, when the pressure was at its peak. And despite playing in the hardest era to hit of all the players mentioned above, his 1.090 postseason OPS is the highest among Yankees, post integration (minimum 125 PA).
To be fair, the players mentioned above have between 127 and 273 Yankee postseason PA, which isn’t an insignificant sample size, but it’s not a full season either. We should absolutely mention that Derek Jeter with 734 postseason PA, and Bernie Williams with 545 postseason PA were just as good, if not better in October and November than they were during the regular season.
As for Stanton…
After smashing a baseball to New Mexico last night, Big G’s postseason SLG sits at .681 in 154 PA, the highest of any Yankee post integration. His 17 home runs and 37 RBI put him on a 74 HR, 162 RBI pace over a full season. We should pause and read that last line again: A 74 HR pace over a full season.
To answer the question at the top of this post, it would be hard to argue any Yankee has been a better postseason hitter than Reggie Jackson. That said, Stanton is much closer to Jackson in that regard than anyone else is to Stanton. His OPS is around 100 points higher than those of Matsui, Giambi, and Mantle, and sweet holy cinnamon, could you imagine what would happen if Stanton got hacks against two pitch pitchers who topped out in the ow to mid-eighties, as Ruth and Gehrig did?
Regardless, it’s all just fun trivia, and in Stanton’s case, we hope it just keeps going the way it’s been going.
Did I miss something? Let me know in the comments, or yell at me on the “My Baseball Page” on Facebook.
Speaking of Gehrig, “Luckiest Man” by Jonathan Eig is one of – maybe the – best baseball biography I’ve read.
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