Joe Sewell, the Best There Ever Was...at This Very Specific Thing

Joe Sewell is a legend. He played baseball in a way nobody else ever could have, and is without a doubt the greatest ballplayer who ever lived…at this. Sewell never struck out. Ever. He was literally the best at not striking out of all time. In fact, its not close. In a game that has swing and misses going up on the daily, I think it is important to look at the one man was able make more contact than anyone else by a margin larger than the Grand Canyon.

First of all, Joe Sewell really was a fantastic player. He had a career lifetime average of .312, and a .391 OBP. In his prime, he was the best fielding shortstop in the league, and his career bWAR was 53.7, and he was rightfully elected into the Hall of Fame in 1977. However, his main skill is undoubtedly his ability to put the ball in play. in his 14 years in the Bigs, he struck out 114 times. Put together with his 7,132 AB, you find he struck out once every 62.5 times He only hit double digits in four of those years, with his career high being 20 in 1922. He had five seasons in which he played over 100 games and still struck out 4 times or fewer. As good as he was as a regular player, his contact skills are his defining attribute, and he truly is the best of all time in that aspect.

Lets put this into some perspective. Firstly, there are 60 players in the Majors who have 114 or more K’s this season. We aren’t even all the way done, and still there are that many who whiffed more times than a man did in his whole 14 years. Need more proof. The league leader in K% this year is Andrelton Simmons with a 6.2% mark. That is still over four times Sewell’s career K%, which ended at 1.4. Seriously. The man was simply impossible to strike out. It’s a skill that doesn’t exist today, and it’s worth remembering that a man like this exists; a man with a skill that is so ridiculously above everyone else’s that it deserves to be remembered by anyone who truly enjoys the game of baseball.