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Is it just me or was Brett Butler one of the top lead off hitters of all-time?
olb31
Posts: 3,091 ✭✭✭✭✭
Fantastic player, played the game right and gave 100%. The Butler-Bedrosian card is a pretty darn good rookie card.
Work hard and you will succeed!!
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Fantastic player for sure! Loved those 80's Braves. Bob Horner, Dale Murphy, scary lineup for opposing pitchers!
https://www.ebay.com/mys/active
He was good in his prime. .400 OBP with lots of triples. Unfortunately, he thought he was a better base stealer than he actually was and got thrown out a ton. 23 CS in 62 attempts one year - that's really, really bad.
Agree with all above. Loved watching him play. If he was more selective running he would have been even better.
To me the most underrated lead off hitter is Lofton.
Kenny Lofton was SO good....
It's just you. Not sure Butler cracks the top 25.
I’ll take Ty Cobb and his .366 lifetime avg as my lead off hitter.
If not Cobb, my next group would be Rickey Henderson, Marquis Grissom, or Kenny Lofton.
Always buying Bobby Cox inserts. PM me.
Cobb batted 3rd & 4th
Not on my team he wouldn’t 😂
Always buying Bobby Cox inserts. PM me.
He was worth a lot more than Len Barker
Henderson, Ichiro, Raines, Boggs, Rose, Brock, Biggio, Molitor, Ashburn, Combs, Lofton come to mind as guys that hit lead off that are among the best of all time. Hard to see Butler cracking top 10 as I’m probably forgetting a bunch. (Though I’m not forgetting Jeter. I never list him in a group of best anything).
Vince coleman?
Butler stats very similar to lofton and ashburn. Butler currently 25th in stolen bases all-time. batted 290 and and 2400 hits. Also top 15 in triples for modern era players, 1930 and up.
Butler was a very good player. Always got things going.
Brett Butler is one of the best bunters I have ever seen.
Ohtani also bats leadoff.
Brett Butler would have been greatly served by today's analytics approach to baseball. He really wasn't valued properly until later in his MLB career.
Hard to hold a MLB outfield spot with such little power then and now though. Brett Gardner and Lance Johnson come to mind.
Ronald Acuna holds down the leadoff spot for the Braves and Mookie Betts for the Dodgers these days so times have changed!
saucywombat@hotmail.com
good points
Stolen bases are not valued in today's game. Makes it a lot easier on the pitchers.
So true. Mookie Betts is a really good all around baseball player. He impacts every game in multiple ways.
Love Betts. I'm a huge Dodger Fan.
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Brett Butler is definitely underrated and was underrated during his playing days as well. In fact, when searching top 10 or top 25 lists of leadoff hitters his name did not appear once. Yet...he's 4th in OBA and 5th in stolen bases amongst this list of the greatest leadoff hitters.
AVG/OBA/Stolen bases
Rickey-.279/.401/1406
Butler .290/.377/558
Lou Brock .293/.343/938
Lofton .299/.372/622
Raines .294/.285/808
Ichiro .311/.355/509
Rose .303/.375/198
Boggs .328/.415/28
Ashburn .308/.396/234
Hack .301/.394/165
Biggio .281/.363/414
Damon .284/.352/408
Molitor .306/.369/504
nice post Art. Before this thread I didn't know how he rated amongst the all-time guys, but having watched him play, I thought he was a darn good player.
Didn't get on base nearly enough. .324 OBP is horrible.
Brett Butler was also amazing on Grace Under Fire, but my favorite leadoff hitter of all time has to be Rickey Henderson.
So, Brett Butler was very good player, but Lofton led the league in steals six straight seasons. Butler never led in steals, but he did lead the league in getting caught stealing 3 times.
But seriously, this discussion starts and ends with Rickey Henderson.
i agree, but my post was about brett butler. i know he wasn't the best but he certainly was very good.
Waiting for Geordie (TNP777) to respond...
Collecting: Topps 1952-79, Bowman 1952-55, OPC 1965-71, and Pre-War White Sox cards
I was just thinking that.
You beat me too it.
I think had they had today's appetite for advanced stats back when he played, he would have been remembered as a borderline Hall of Famer. Probably should have made five all star games instead of the one. He also had sporadic playing time until he turned 26, although he hit .340 in over 700 AAA at bats.
just picked up his topps rookie psa 10. there was only 1 on ebay. probably overpaid a bit at $160, but there are only 32.
Guess it depends where you draw the line to be considered one of the top guys.
He is pretty close to Tony Phillips overall.
braves and wtbs were hot in the 80's. they were on tv everyday. phillips was good, just didn't have the same exposure.
i dont know if anyone was any better than prime wade boggs. he was an on base machine.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
His prime was from age 31-37 where he put up a 120 OPS+ and he received MVP votes in six of those years. Good career for sure for Butler.
I agree with the sentiment of the thread...very underrated player.
Good player. Probably deserved more HoF votes than Rick Honeycutt.
The Braves front office in the era after Bill Lucas' death (early 1979) until the return of Bobby Cox (Winter of 1985-85) was a complete clown show. They brought him up late and traded him early, just one of many missteps they made then.
Just got the PSA 10 a few seconds ago in the mail.
The GM John Schuerholz doesn't get enough credit, he was the GM in the 90's. He is the cousin of an old work friend of mine.
Successful card BST transactions with cbcnow, brogurt, gstarling, Bravesfan 007, and rajah 424.
Schuerholz and Bobby Cox really established a winning, professional culture for the Braves, one that endures to this day. JS made some individual bad moves here and there but his tenure in Atlanta (much like his earlier one in KC) was exemplary.
Personally, I really like Brett's '82 Donruss card (and Bedrock's, too)