Max Carey might be a little underrated by the different formulas. He spent his career as a leadoff hitter and did everything you could ask of him in the row. He got on base, stole bases, and scored runs. However, Carey didn’t have a whole lot of power. He was solid doubles and triples, leading the league in triples twice. However, in over 10,700 plate appearances he hit 70 homeruns. However, he had two seasons where he had 57 extra base hits.
Carey was an excellent base stealer. His best year was 1922 where he was 51 out of 53 in stolen bases. This was the seventh of 10 times he led the league in stolen bases. He also had 50 extra base hits, so that was 100 times during the season he made it to scoring position on his own. Carey scored 140 runs that year. It was the 20s but as you can see he was doing his job as a lead off man, getting on base and scoring. He was second in the league in runs scored that year. I figured out a triple crown for leadoff hitters and calculated the leader every year in major league history a couple of year ago. I have Carey as finishing second in both the decade of the 1910s and 1920s in the National Leagues. I calculated the award for all hitters. In the 1920s he finished second to super hitter Rogers Hornsby.
Due to his lack of power Carey never had a super year hitting. He was a little bit above average for a long time. He was very consistent. He had an OPS+ from 101 (just above average) to 125 from 1912 thru 1925 for 14 consecutive years. That is amazing consistency. Then starting at age 36 he was never an average hitter again.
Max Carey is further proof that a batter can work walks. After all he was the last player you wanted to walk in the league when he played and he finished in the top 10 in walks 12 times. He led the league twice. This helped his on base percentage, where he was in the top 10 6 times.
Pittsburg won the only World Series Carey played in. He batted .458 in the series with an on base percentage of .552. He scored six runs in the seven games. I think I and other sabermetric analysis might be under rating Carey and have no problem he is in the Hall of Fame.
