Baseball Hall of Famer and base-stealing king Ricky Henderson has died. Henderson is 65 years old.
Henderson was born on Christmas Day 1958 in Chicago. The Athletics came to town shortly after Henderson graduated from high school, and his hometown team called his name in the fourth round of the 1976 MLB draft. Three years later, he arrived at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum to make his major league debut.
After an unremarkable rookie season, Henderson broke out into superstardom in 1980. Hand ranks third in walk rate and OBP. Of course, he made good use of his OBP, leading the league with 100 stolen bases. It was the first of his league-leading seven interceptions. He made his first All-Star appearance that summer and finished 10th in MVP voting that fall. In retrospect, however, he should have finished higher. According to data from FanGraphs and Baseball Reference, the only American League player with a higher WAR value that season was MVP George Brett.
Henderson was even better in his third season, the strike-shortened 1981 season. He led the league in runs scored and the American League in hits and stolen bases. At the end of the year, he won a Gold Glove and a Silver Slugger. However, it’s fair to say he’s still being overlooked in MVP voting. He finished a close second behind Brewers closer Rollie Fingers, but modern statistics like fWAR and bWAR show that he was the most productive player in the American League that season. In fact, that has often been the story of Henderson’s career. He excelled year after year and despite his fair share of praise and plaudits, he continued to be overlooked. He was a 10-time All-Star and won three Silver Sluggers, a Gold Glove and an MVP. However, all of this may not be enough to properly appreciate his greatness.
Henderson became a star in his early twenties. He continued to work efficiently on the court into his forties. During his 15 best seasons from 1980-94, he was almost undeniably the best player in baseball. Whether you look at runs scored, stolen bases, fWAR or bWAR, no other player comes close to him. With his speed, defensive range, contact skills, rebounding discipline and ultimately above-average strength, he can impact the game in a variety of ways. He is best remembered as the all-time and modern era single-season leader in stolen bases, but he also holds all-time MLB records for runs, unintentional base hits and first home runs.
In addition to these career accolades, Henderson was a transformative player in the postseason. A two-time World Series champion, he hoisted the Commissioner’s Trophy in 1989 with Oakland and 1993 with Toronto, and his 11 stolen bases in the 1989 postseason matched that of Kenny Lofton Tied for the most steals in a single postseason, and his 33 stolen bases in the 1989 postseason tied Kenny Lofton. The player with the most career interceptions in history until Lofton broke the record during the 2007 ALCS.
In addition to the havoc Henderson wreaked on the basepaths, he was also a prolific hitter, posting a .284/.389/slash line in 60 postseason games when the lights were brightest. .441. Henderson’s postseason performance has been impressive, but his performance in 14 career World Series games has been incredible: He went 7-for-9 on base and hit .339/.448/.607 , there are more walks than strikeouts. Those incredible numbers translated into a 194 wRC+, which puts him on the World Series wRC+ career list between players with at least 60 at-bats during the Fall Classic, sandwiched between Babe Ruth (195) and Between Lou Gehrig (194).
While Henderson was the greatest player of the 1980s and early 1990s, the legend of the game has kept him in a career well beyond the age when most players hang up their cleats. After his age-35 season in Oakland, Henderson went on to play 1,001 games in the major leagues, with the Athletics, Padres, Angels, Mets, Mariners, Padres, Red Sox and Back and forth between the Dodgers. The final nine years of Henderson’s career certainly didn’t reach his seemingly superhuman peak in Oakland, the Bronx, but he was still a productive player by the end of his major league career. From 1995 to 2003, Henderson hit .254/.390/.369 with a 111 wRC+ while swiping 289 bags, making him well above average at the plate and on the bases. Even in 30 games with the Dodgers at age 44, Henderson produced above-replacement-level value, according to Fangraphs (0.1 fWAR) and Baseball Reference (0.2 bWAR).
After playing his final major league game, Henderson continued to play in the independent leagues, posting an OPS of .897 in the Atlantic League and .856 in the Gold League before calling it a career in 2005 at age 46. . After being hired as hitting coach by the Mets in 2006, he had been interested in joining the major league team again and suggested after being first voted into the Hall of Fame in 2009 that he could lead in stolen bases even at age 50. alliance.
It’s this love and devotion to the game that endeared Henderson to his teammates, coaches and everyone he interacted with in the game, as well as millions of fans around the world. Henderson’s immense talent and passion for the game resulted in 3,055 hits, 1,406 stolen bases, 2,295 runs, 873 extra-base hits and a career on-base percentage of .401 in 3,081 games as a major leaguer. . MLBTR expresses its condolences to Henderson’s family, friends and teammates, and we join the rest of the baseball community in mourning his passing.
