Here's how they rank in the various categories we're looking at:

Career Win Shares
Perez - 349
Hernandez - 311
Garvey - 279
Mattingly - 263

Prime Win Shares
Perez - 309
Hernandez - 303
Mattingly - 256
Garvey - 252

Top 5 Seasons
Mattingly - 29.20
Perez - 28.80
Hernandez - 27.20
Garvey - 24.80

Per 162 Games
Hernandez - 24.13
Mattingly - 23.87
Perez - 20.36
Garvey - 19.38

Average Prime Season
Hernandez - 23.99
Perez - 22.69
Mattingly - 22.09
Garvey - 19.88

My first observation upon examining these lists is that Garvey clearly ranks last among these four. He places last in four of the five measures, and next to last by a relatively small margin in the fifth. I feel that this confirms my initial statement that Garvey is overrated, at least in comparison to Hernandez and Mattingly, whom he rates considerably higher than in the eyes of the Hall of Fame voters, but clearly should not.

My second observation is one that surprises me...that is, Hernandez outdistances Mattingly in four of the five measures, including both cumulative and two of the three rate categories. Mattingly does have a higher average, by two Win Shares, in his top 5 seasons, but I feel this is the least important of the three rate categories. Hernandez not only rates better than Mattingly for his entire career, but he actually rates better, by a very small margin, in Win Shares per 162 games, and by a more significant margin in Win Shares per average prime season. Based on this analysis, I have to rate Hernandez higher than Mattingly.

Comparing Perez and Hernandez is a little more difficult. Perez wins both cumulative categories, but by a close margin in prime Win Shares, possibly proving that Perez's value is over-inflated by his career extending further beyond his prime years. Hernandez ranks higher in two of the three rate categories, including the two most important...by a considerable margin in Win Shares per 162 games, and by a smaller margin in average prime season. However, Perez does rate higher in the top 5 seasons category, and this plus my own subjective element are the deciding factors in ranking Perez ahead of Hernandez.

Like I said on Jan 13th, Perez ranks 21st all-time in RBI, and no other player in this analysis can lay claim to any statistic nearly as impressive as that. I realize bringing this back is straying from my Win Shares analysis, but I'm basically looking for a tie-breaker and this is it, in addition to the fact that Perez was one of the central figures of one of the greatest teams of all time. Obviously, Joe Morgan, Johnny Bench, and Pete Rose, all Hall of Famers based on their playing careers (I'm not going to get off on a Rose tangent here), were more important to those Reds teams than Perez, but this doesn't make Perez much different from Phil Rizzuto. In fact, I think I could argue that Perez is more Hall of Fame worthy than Rizzuto, but that's another tangent, and it would probably piss my father off, so I'm not going to go there.