Mule Suttles: Better than A-Rod?
The Power Hitter Pantheon: Baseball’s Greatest Home Run Heroes
This project aims to determine the greatest home run hitter of all time by comparing each slugger’s statistics to the average of their era using three formulas. The final adjusted stats will then be used to compare them head-to-head with other all-time greats.
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Mule Suttles will be the next legendary home run hitter from the Negro Leagues examined in this study. For a detailed biography of Suttles, please click here.
According to Baseball Reference, Mule's official statistics reveal a total of 180 home runs over 3,220 at-bats, resulting in an average of 17.89 at-bats per home run (AB/HR).
Between 1924 and 1931, Suttles played in the Negro National League (NNL). In 1932, he competed in the East-West League (EWL) before joining the National Negro League II (NN2) from 1933 to 1944. When aggregating the statistics from all these leagues, the combined total includes 262,667 at-bats and 3,473 home runs, resulting in an average of 75.63 at-bats per home run (AB/HR) across the leagues in which Suttles played.
With this data, we can evaluate how Mule's performance compared to the average Negro League hitter of his era.
Raw Difference: 57.74
Formula: League Average – Player Career AverageImprovement Factor: 4.23
Formula: League Average / Player Career AveragePercentage Difference: 76.35%
Formula: (League Average – Player Career Average) / League Average × 100%
Suttles was unquestionably an exceptionally powerful hitter, far surpassing the average Negro League player across all of our metrics.
In our initial analysis, we examined the careers of Mickey Mantle, Alex Rodriguez, and Joe DiMaggio using our formulas. Following that, we also evaluated the careers of Josh Gibson, Sadaharu Oh, Buck Leonard, and Tetsuharu Kawakami.
Now, let's compare Mule's career statistics against these baseball legends to gain a clearer perspective on how he stacks up.
Mule Suttles was undeniably a powerhouse, not just in the Negro Leagues but also when measured against these all-time greats. His stats place him ahead of most of the legends here, including Mantle, Rodriguez, DiMaggio, Oh, and Kawakami, and just behind Gibson, with Leonard as a close peer.
Gibson’s the only one clearly ahead, suggesting Suttles ranks near the very top when comparing dominance over respective league averages. This shows us that Suttles was an exceptional talent, even among baseball’s historical giants.
