Greatest Hitters In Dodger History

The Dodgers this season saw two of the best in the major’s bat back-to-back all year. Both put up excellent seasons. Both have had stellar careers to this point. Both Freeman and Betts will get some serious Hall consideration. Where do they rank with the hitters of the past? That would mostly be based on one’s personal preference and just how many years do they have to play for the Dodgers to be on the list. Mookie will be entering his 5th year in blue in 24, Freddie his 3rd.

Since according to the Baseball Reference Dodgers historical page Wee Willie Keeler is the leader in career average with 5 seasons as a Dodger, we will go with at least 5 years with the team. Keeler is an excellent example of the dead ball era, and the mentality of ball players of that era. Home runs were rare. The rules and the fields were much different. Getting on base was the prime goal of any hitter. Striking out was frowned upon.

In Keeler’s five seasons, his career BA was. .352. In those five seasons, he had 833 hits and struck out exactly 28 times. He hit 8 homers and drove in 219 runs. He scored 469. Keeler was a career .341 hitter in 19 years in the majors. He hit under .300 three times, all at the end of his career when he was in his late 30’s. His nickname was ” Hit em where they ain’t.” Truly a pure hitter. Oh yeah, he was 5’4″ and weighed 140 pounds.

Babe Herman was a great hitter, fielder, not so much. Babe was also about 2 cookies short of a dozen in the heads-up baseball department. He was known as a character. But man, he could hit. He still holds the Dodger record for the highest batting average in a single season, .393. And he lost the batting title! Babe usually hit homers in double figures, but only twice did he have more than 20. He hit 21 in 1929 and had his career high the following year when he hit 35. The same season he hit .393. His OPS that year? 1.132. Yes, Babe could hit. He just couldn’t remember how many teammates were on base! His career average was .324 over 13 seasons.

Mike Piazza spent six full seasons and parts of two others as a Dodger. I think he was the best hitter I have seen as a Dodger. In those six full years, he never hit under .300. One reason his career average as a Dodger is .331. By comparison, his average as a Met in 8 years is .296. Mike also holds the record for the highest batting average by a Los Angeles Dodger in a single season, .362 in 1997. He no doubt would have passed Campy’s record for homers by a Dodger catcher had he not been traded. As it is, he is the major league record holder for most career homers by a catcher. He had perhaps some of the best power to right center by a right-handed hitter I have ever seen.

Zack Wheat was a player who spent 18 years in Brooklyn. He hit .317 as a Dodger. He was a superb outfielder, and for his time, considered one of the better power hitters. His high-water mark in homers was 15. He also did not strikeout much, 572 times in over 10,000 plate appearances. He rarely led the league in any hitting categories. But there were so many great hitters in the National League at that time. Wagner, his teammate, Jake Daubert, who won back-to-back batting titles in 13 & 14. Something no Dodger would do until Tommy Davis in 62-63. Zack did win the title in 1918. But a guy named Hornsby came into the league and won 7 in a row from 20-26.

Manny Mota may have been the model of a great pinch-hitter, but man could he hit. It was once said of him that Mota could get out of bed in December and hit a line drive single to center. He collected 150 career pinch hits, and his .304 career BA over 20 seasons shows his consistency. He was a .315 hitter in his 13 years with the Dodgers. Not a power hitter, but he hit line drives in bunches. He also did not strike out much, about 10% of his at bats. Manny is still a part of the Dodger family, and his son works for the Dodgers on their Spanish language broadcast team.

Duke Snider is the Dodgers all-time home run leader with 389. To put that in perspective, only he and Gil Hodges hit 300 or more in a Dodger uniform. The LA Dodger all-time leader is Eric Karros with 270. Over 100 less. Duke also finished his 16-year Dodger career with exactly a .300 average. So he was more than just a power source. Although he felt he struck out too much, he only exceeded 100 K’s twice in his career. He was a graceful and excellent center fielder for most of his career. He is the only player to hit four homers in two World Series. And he is the Dodgers career World Series homer leader with 11.

Jackie Robinson was a pioneer. The first Black player in the majors. He paved the way for all the great players of color who have followed him. But he was also a very good hitter. .313 career batting average. He could beat you with his bat and his speed. He won the batting title in 1949 with a .342 average and also led the league in steals. Trea Turner did that in 2021 and spent part of the year with the Dodgers. But Jackie did it as a Dodger. He wasn’t a great power hitter, 141 for his career, but occasionally, he would beat you with a clutch blast. He is in the Hall for more than just being the first. The man could hit.

Steve Garvey could always hit. It was his throwing that worried the Dodgers when he first arrived on the scene. He was originally a third baseman, but after so many errant throws, the Dodgers took a chance and moved him to first base. Garvey would develop into one of the better first basemen in the league. From 74-77 he earned Gold Gloves at the position. But it was his bat that the Dodgers wanted to keep in the lineup. He was durable, he played almost every game and set the NL record for most consecutive games played with 1207. Garvey had 200 or more hits 6 times in his career, all with the Dodgers. He finished with a career, .294 BA. As a Dodger he hit .301 over 14 years with the team.

Carl Furillo was what most today would call a blue-collar player. But Ol Skoonj as he was known by his teammates, could rake. He won the batting title in 1953 with a .344 average. He could be counted on to hit at least .299, with 17 or more homers and 95 driven in a year. He had one of the best arms in baseball, and few ran on the man who had gotten the nickname, “The Reading Rifle” when he was young. He was one of the best right fielders in the game. Injuries eventually eroded his game some, but he still hit .290 in each of his last two full seasons with the team. LA Dodger fans remember him the most for driving in the winning run in game two of the 1959 playoffs with a single.

Matt Kemp was an excellent hitter. Especially before injuries slowed him down. As a Dodger, he batted .292 with 203 homers in blue. Yes, he struck out a lot, but that is the way hitters of this generation are. They do not carry the stigma they did years ago. Kemps high-water mark was in 2011. He hit .324 with 39 homers and 126 driven in. He also scored 115 runs. Kemp was off to an even better start in 2012. Then in May he suffered a hamstring injury. Two days after he returned from the IL, he injured it again. In total he missed almost two months. He was still voted to the All-Star team and he participated in the home-run derby. He hit .355 in the first half. But in August, he crashed into the wall at Coors Field, damaging his shoulder and knee. He continued to play and finished at .303 with 23 homers. He had surgery after the season on his shoulder. He never was the same player again. The injuries took his speed, he had 40 steals in 2011, he never had more than 12 after that. He was traded after the 2014 season to the Padres, but returned in a trade in 2018 and had a resurgent season.

Jake Daubert won back-to-back batting titles, making him the only player besides Tommy Davis to do that. He hit .350 in 1913 and .329 in 1914. He was also the MVP of the NL in 13. Over his nine seasons in Brooklyn, he was a .305 hitter. Teaming with Zack Wheat, they made a formidable 1-2 punch. Daubert was not a power hitter, nor did he drive in a lot of runs. 8 homers were his high-water mark with the Dodgers and 66 RBIs. Like most players of that era, he did not strike out much, 489 times in over 8,000 plate appearances.

Dixie Walker, better known in Brooklyn as ” The Peeples Cheerce”, spent nine of his eighteen years in the majors in Brooklyn. He batted .311 as a Dodger. His best year was 1944 when he won the batting title with a .357 mark. Dixie was traded not long after the 1947 season to the Pirates. He was supposedly one of the ringleaders in the group of players who wanted to keep Jackie Robinson off of the team. He went to Pittsburgh with Hal Gregg, another of the petitioners, and Vic Lombardi, a catcher, for Billy Cox, Preacher Roe and Gene Mauch, who would make his mark on baseball as a manager.

Johnny Frederick had a very short major league career, six years. He spent all of them with the Dodgers. Frederick, a left-handed hitting outfielder, hit 24 home runs in his rookie season to go along with his .328 batting mark. In 1932 he hit six pinch hit homers setting a mark that stood for 68 years. His rookie year he also had 52 doubles; a mark passed by Freddie Freeman this year. Frederick hit .308 for his career and he only struck out 172 times over that span.

Honorable mention goes to Lefty O’Doul who spent 3 years as a Dodger, Lefty hit .340 in his time as a Dodger. Jack Fournier in four years hit. .337. Gary Sheffield spent 3 1/2 years in LA and batted .312. Other great hitters who were past their prime when they played in LA included Eddie Murray, and Jim Thome. Chase Utley and Jeff Kent, two of the best second basemen the game has seen, who were also very good hitters, spent time in Dodger blue also.

Not a great hitter, but perhaps the most unselfish player I have ever seen was Jim Gilliam. Gilliam did what the team needed from the first year he arrived. He had many clutch hits, but his biggest contributions came when he was hitting behind Maury Wills. Gilliam would often sacrifice his own stats for the good of the team. He was an excellent bunter and one of the more versatile players of his time. He could play 2nd, 3rd SS and the outfield.

There probably are a few more I could add to this list, but guys like Dolph Camilli, Ducky Medwick and the Waner Brothers, all great hitters, were only with the team a short time.

Perhaps one of the greatest nicknames in all of baseball history belongs to this guy. Bob “Death to all flying things” Ferguson. Never a Dodger, but what a great baseball handle.