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  • Rod Carew

    Birth Date: 10/01/1945
    Member of National Baseball Hall of Fame
    Member of Twins Hall of Fame

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    In my opinion, Rod Carew is not only the greatest player in Twins history, but he’s also one of the greatest hitters of all time since the game was started in 1845 by Alexander Cartwright with The New York Knickerbockers Base Ball Club [Wikipedia] (Note that Base Ball is not a typo but was the official way of referring to the sport at its inception, two words).

    I’m basing this partly on the margins by which he beat the competition while winning his 7 batting titles in 12 years with the Twins.

    In his greatest season, when he hit .388 with 239 hits, he won the batting title by 52 points over teammate Lymon Bostock.  Such great players as Carlton Fisk, Jim Rice and George Brett were left in the dust by Carew’s torrid season. Rice, at .320 was 68 points behind Carew and Brett at .312 was 76 points behind Carew. Carew completely and totally dominated fellow Hall of Famers in 1977.

    Did you know that the American League batting Champion is known as the "Rod Carew American League Batting Champion"? [Wikipedia]

    Rod Carew won the 4th most batting titles in baseball history while going on a hitting blitz in the 1970s that included .350, .359, .364, .388 averages in a 5 year period. Ty Cobb won 11 or 12 (it seems the 1902 title was contested and unsettled between Nap Lajoie and Cobb) and Carew has the 2nd most for the American League, all time.

    Honus Wagner and Tony Gwynn won 8 batting titles each in the NL, although for one of Gwynn’s batting titles, in 1996, he did not have enough plate appearances to qualify, so 4 hitless plate appearances were added to his stats and he barely beat out Ellis Burks, .349 to .344.

    Carew is tied all-time with 3 other players in winning 4 consecutive batting titles. Honus Wagner, Wade Boggs and Tony Gwynn are the other 3 and Nap Lajoie if you add his contested batting title with Ty Cobb.

    The greatest margins of victory for any batting champions were Nap Lajoie’s .426 - .340 lead over Mike Donlin in 1901, an 86 point margin in the AL, and Cap Anson’s .399 average was 71 points higher than Joe Start in the NL 1881 season.

    Now let’s compare Honus Wagner’s margins of victory for his 8 batting titles with Carew’s for his 7.

    Wagner: 1900 (+14), 1903 (+4), 1904 (+20), 1906 (+12), 1907 (+22), 1908 (+20), 1909 (+29), 1911 (+1).

    Carew: 1969 (+23 over Reggie Smith .332 - .309), 1972 (+6 over Lou Piniella .318 - .312 in the year of the pitcher), 1973 (+44 over George Brett .350 - .306), 1974 (+48 over Jorge Orta .364 - .316), 1975 (+28 .359-.331 over Fred Lynn), 1977 (+52 .388 - .336 over Lyman Bostock), 1978 (+9 .333 - .324 over Al Oliver).

    Wagner had a cumulative 122 point lead for the 8 years, winning his batting titles by an average of 15.25 points per season.

    Carew had a cumulative victory over the second place finishers of 210 points for an average margin of victory for his 7 batting titles of 30 points compared to Wagner’s 15.25!!!

    Notice that the closest Wagner ever came to Carew’s 52 point margin in 1977 was his 29 point margin in 1909. Carew blows away the greatest margin of victory of the man who tied for 2nd most batting titles in AL/NL history.

    Note that Oscar Charleston won batting titles in The Negro Leagues and in The Eastern Colored League.

    Using margin of victory in the batting titles to compensate for different eras, Carew blows away Honus Wagner 30-15 (rounded). I believe this is enough to claim that Rod Carew is one of the top 3 pure hitters in baseball history. I won’t do it now but it would be interesting to calculate the average margins for Cobb and Gwynn. I may do it if this catches on with Twins fans. It doesn’t seem far fetched to claim Carew is the greatest pure hitter in baseball history depending on how the Cobb and Gwynn Calculations come out.

    Another citation for one of the greatest hitters/player of all time are that Carew was Rookie of the year in 1967 and was an All-Star in his rookie year. Starting with that first All-Star appearance in 1967, Carew would be an All-Star for 18 consecutive seasons, missing only in his age 39 season, his last, played for the Angels.

    Carew also had 6 top 10 MVP finishes including winning the award in 1977 with that .388 average in which he had a .449 OBP! He scored a league leading 128 runs for Gene Mauch’s team that year. He also had 100 RBIs, 694 PA, 38 Doubles, 16 Triples and 14 Home Runs.

    It’s also worthy to note that Carew won the 1977 MVP award despite playing on a 4th place team in a 7 team AL West!

    Carew stole over 35 bases for 4 consecutive years from 1973-1976 including a 49 steal season and a 41 steal season. And, of course, he stole home 7 times in one season!

    I admired Rodney Cline Carew so greatly, that even though a natural righty, all wiffle ball, softball and possibly baseball games I played from my 20s until late 30s, I would replicate his wide open stance and bat left handed.

    It may go without saying that I think every Twins fan should be extremely proud that Carew is one of our own and one of the best that ever lived!

    Notable Events & Trivia

    • Carew had 4 hits in the famous June 26, 1977 win over the White Sox 19-12, after which he was hitting .403!

    Personal Experiences

    I drove with my brother starting at 11 p.m. from Toledo to the Twin Cities to see Carew and the Twins in Rodney’s last season as a Twin. I had been at a Toledo Mud Hens game in 1978, and the team owner, Calvin Griffith, was behind the home plate backstop, in the stands. I got up my nerve and chatted with him for quite a while, then I asked him the BIG question as this was Carew’s walk year. I said to Calvin, "Are you going to be able to sign Carew?" And Calvin paused, then harumphed, "SIGN CAREW? I don’t sign Carew, Carew signs me" With that, I still hoped but then Calvin shipped him off to the Angels for 5 players in what I consider the worst trade in Twins history. Unfortunately, that was the pattern with Calvin after free agency started in 1975, Bert Blyleven may have been part of that purge and Calvin let an all star team or maybe 2 escape to free agency. I’vce never gotten over that trade and I truly think Rodney would have won more batting titles had he stayed with the Twins.
    Greg Allen

    Rod Carew Statistics

    Standard Batting
    Year Age Tm Lg G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS OPS+ TB GDP HBP SH SF IBB Pos Awards
    1967 21 MIN AL 137 561 514 66 150 22 7 8 51 5 9 37 91 .292 .341 .409 .750 113 210 12 2 7 1 4 *4/H AS,RoY-1
    1968 22 MIN AL 127 492 461 46 126 27 2 1 42 12 4 26 71 .273 .312 .347 .659 95 160 11 1 2 2 1 *4H/6 AS
    1969 23 MIN AL 123 504 458 79 152 30 4 8 56 19 8 37 72 .332 .386 .467 .853 134 214 7 3 6 0 0 *4/H AS,MVP-10
    1970 24 MIN AL 51 204 191 27 70 12 3 4 28 4 6 11 28 .366 .407 .524 .930 152 100 1 2 0 0 0 4/H3 AS
    1971 25 MIN AL 147 632 577 88 177 16 10 2 48 6 7 45 81 .307 .356 .380 .736 107 219 23 1 6 3 1 *4/H5 AS
    1972 26 MIN AL 142 591 535 61 170 21 6 0 51 12 6 43 60 .318 .369 .379 .749 119 203 11 2 9 2 9 *4/H AS,MVP-14
    1973 27 MIN AL 149 657 580 98 203 30 11 6 62 41 16 62 55 .350 .411 .471 .881 144 273 16 2 7 6 9 *4/H AS,MVP-4
    1974 28 MIN AL 153 690 599 86 218 30 5 3 55 38 16 74 49 .364 .433 .446 .879 150 267 17 1 13 3 9 *4/H AS,MVP-7
    1975 29 MIN AL 143 617 535 89 192 24 4 14 80 35 9 64 40 .359 .421 .497 .919 157 266 10 1 7 10 18 *43H/D AS,MVP-9
    1976 30 MIN AL 156 687 605 97 200 29 12 9 90 49 22 67 52 .331 .395 .463 .858 148 280 12 1 8 6 14 *3/4H AS,MVP-5
    1977 31 MIN AL 155 694 616 128 239 38 16 14 100 23 13 69 55 .388 .449 .570 1.019 178 351 6 3 1 5 15 *3/H4D AS,MVP-1
    1978 32 MIN AL 152 651 564 85 188 26 10 5 70 27 7 78 62 .333 .411 .441 .853 139 249 18 1 2 6 19 *3H/47 AS,MVP-11
    1979 33 CAL AL 110 493 409 78 130 15 3 3 44 18 8 73 46 .318 .419 .391 .810 125 160 9 0 8 3 7 3/DH AS
    1980 34 CAL AL 144 612 540 74 179 34 7 3 59 23 15 59 38 .331 .396 .437 .833 132 236 15 1 9 3 7 3DH AS
    1981 35 CAL AL 93 421 364 57 111 17 1 2 21 16 9 45 45 .305 .380 .374 .753 120 136 8 0 10 2 7 *3/DH AS
    1982 36 CAL AL 138 612 523 88 167 25 5 3 44 10 17 67 49 .319 .396 .403 .799 121 211 9 2 16 4 5 *3/H AS,MVP-26
    1983 37 CAL AL 129 536 472 66 160 24 2 2 44 6 7 57 48 .339 .409 .411 .820 128 194 15 1 3 3 9 3DH/4 AS
    1984 38 CAL AL 93 378 329 42 97 8 1 3 31 4 3 40 39 .295 .367 .353 .720 102 116 8 0 5 4 1 3H/D AS
    1985 39 CAL AL 127 518 443 69 124 17 3 2 39 5 5 64 47 .280 .371 .345 .717 99 153 8 1 9 1 9 *3H  
    19 Yrs 2469 10550 9315 1424 3053 445 112 92 1015 353 187 1018 1028 .328 .393 .429 .822 131 3998 216 25 128 64 144    
    162 Game Avg. 162 692 611 93 200 29 7 6 67 23 12 67 67 .328 .393 .429 .822 131 262 14 2 8 4 9    
      G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS OPS+ TB GDP HBP SH SF IBB Pos Awards
    MIN (12 yrs) 1635 6980 6235 950 2085 305 90 74 733 271 123 613 716 .334 .393 .448 .841 137 2792 144 20 68 44 99    
    CAL (7 yrs) 834 3570 3080 474 968 140 22 18 282 82 64 405 312 .314 .393 .392 .784 119 1206 72 5 60 20 45    
    Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
    Generated 4/11/2024.

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    tony&rodney

    tony&rodney 16,877

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    As shown by my byline, I'm a huge Rod Carew fan as well. I have often quoted his dominance over every batter in baseball using the measure of batting average, specifically that 1977 season. It irked me that George Brett, a very fine player and fellow Hall of Fame member, received more national press than Rodney when George  hit  .390 with 515 PA and 175 hits versus Carew's 694 PA and 239 hits or if you prefer GB=9.4 WAR vs. RC=9.7WAR.

    An interesting point that started Carew's career is that Calvin Griffith "ordered" the manager to start Carew from Day One of the regular season. Rod had only played as high as "A" ball to that point. Cal knew baseball talent.

    Link to comment
    https://twinsdaily.com/forums/topic/66753-rod-carew/#findComment-1479791
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