Rickey past his prime, but still prime

By Rob Neyer
ESPN SportsZone



When he hit just .244 in 1996, many of us were ready to write off Rickey Henderson, and the San Diego Padres desperately tried to trade him prior to this season.

But they couldn't work out a deal, and with a .274 average, .422 on-base percentage and 29 steals, Henderson wound up taking most of the playing time in left field from slugger Greg Vaughn. And now he'll spend the rest of the season with Anaheim, battling Seattle for the AL West title.

Should we be surprised by Henderson's resurgence? Perhaps not.

Total Baseball assigns a career value, called "Total Player Rating," to every player in major-league history. Entering this season, Henderson ranked 11th on the all-time list, between Mike Schmidt and Mickey Mantle.

Below are the top 15, along with what we somewhat subjectively decided was their last very good (or better) season. Babe Ruth's 2.4 TPR means that at the age of 39, he was about 2.4 wins better than an average American League player at his position. 

Player          Age   Avg  HR  RBI   Runs   TPR
Babe Ruth        39  .288  22   84    78    2.4
Nap Lajoie       38  .335   1   68    66    2.8
Willie Mays      40  .271  18   61    82    3.6
Ty Cobb          38  .378  12  102   115    3.3
Hank Aaron       39  .301  40   96    84    3.7
Tris Speaker     38  .304   7   86    96    2.4
Ted Williams     39  .328  26   85    81    2.9
Honus Wagner     39  .300   3   56    51    3.1
Rogers Hornsby   35  .331  16   90    64    2.3
Rickey Henderson 38  .274   8   36    85     ?
Mike Schmidt     37  .293  35  119    97    4.1
Mickey Mantle    35  .245  22   55    63    2.7
Stan Musial      41  .330  19   82    57    1.4
Eddie Collins    39  .344   1   62    66    2.0
Frank Robinson   38  .245  22   68    81    2.6

You can see that, even when their careers are nearly over, the very best players are still productive major leaguers. I'm not able to project Henderson's TPR for this season -- his other stats are projections -- but it should be two-point-something, enough to move him past Mike Schmidt on the all-time list.

We're not going to argue today whether or not Henderson really is the 10th-best player ever. But if you do agree that he's one of the game's greatest, then you shouldn't be surprised to see him playing as well as he is.

Henderson's top two skills, drawing walks and baserunning, aren't listed in the chart. This season he's already drawn 71 walks, and he's swiped 29 bases while being caught only four times.

Now the Angels just hope he keeps it up.

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