Because of the recent incorporation of Negro Leagues statistics into the Major League record books, we finally get to see the great Negro Leaguers take their place on MLB's all-time and single-season leaderboards for categories like batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage and ERA.

But the counting stats are a lot harder to compare. While Negro Leagues players like Josh Gibson, Oscar Charleston and Satchel Paige compare very favorably to their American League and National League peers in those rate stats, they didn't have the opportunity to play enough official games to compete in all-time categories like hits, home runs, RBIs, wins and strikeouts.

So let's try to imagine what those Negro Leaguers' numbers could have been -- Gibson's home runs, or Cool Papa Bell's stolen bases, or Paige's victories. What we're going to do is take a group of iconic Negro Leagues players and compare each one to a similar AL/NL contemporary by adjusting their career statistics to that AL/NL player's number of career games played.

Keep in mind, this is really just meant to be a fun thought experiment -- not any rigorous attempt to adjust statistics for an apples-to-apples comparison. We just want to picture the type of gaudy numbers these Negro Leagues stars might have amassed if they'd been able to play alongside their AL and NL counterparts.

Here are Hall of Fame player comparisons for nine Negro Leagues legends -- and what those Negro Leaguers' career statistics might have looked like over the same number of games.

1) What if Josh Gibson played as many MLB games as Babe Ruth?

• Gibson's Negro League stats:
  628 G, 838 H, 174 HR, 751 RBIs, 373 XBH
• Ruth's AL/NL stats:
  2,504 G, 2,873 H, 714 HR, 2,213 RBIs, 1,356 XBH
• Gibson's numbers projected to 2,504 games:
  3,341 H, 694 HR, 2,994 RBIs, 1,487 XBH

Gibson was called the Black Babe Ruth, and his power was the stuff of legends. And the Homestead Grays slugger might well have put up Ruthian numbers if he'd gotten to play an AL/NL career as long as the Bambino's. Gibson's Negro League stats extrapolate to nearly 700 home runs over Ruth's number of games played -- so Gibson could have easily been the fifth member of the 700-home run club, alongside Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, Ruth and Albert Pujols.

MLB's career batting average leader (Gibson was a .372 lifetime hitter) could have also been in the 3,000-hit club. And it's crazy to think about someone playing on a pace to approach 3,000 RBIs (the MLB record, held by Aaron, is 2,297).

2) What if Cool Papa Bell played as many MLB games as Ty Cobb?

• Bell's Negro League stats:
  1,219 G, 1,565 H, 57 HR, 73 3B, 1,166 R, 289 SB
• Cobb's AL/NL stats:
  3,034 G, 4,191 H, 117 HR, 297 3B, 2,246 R, 892 SB
• Bell's numbers projected to 3,034 games:
  3,895 H, 142 HR, 182 3B, 2,902 R, 719 SB

Paige said Bell was so fast, he could turn off the lights in a room and be in bed before the room got dark. He was so fast, Jesse Owens refused to race him. With speed that was the stuff of legend, how many more stolen bases would be on the record books for Bell if he'd played as many games as a preeminent base-stealer of the same era like Cobb?

Bell seems like a shoo-in to have ended up in the same 700-plus stolen base tier as fellow Hall of Famers like Cobb (892), Eddie Collins (745) or Honus Wagner (722), which would put him right around the top 10 in MLB history. And Bell was also a contact-hitting machine like Cobb, with well over a hit per game in his Negro League stats. Like Gibson, he could have ended up in the inner circle of the 3,000-hit club.

3) What if Oscar Charleston played as many MLB games as Willie Mays?

• Charleston's Negro League stats:
  893 G, 1,144 H, 139 HR, 813 RBIs, 808 R, 218 SB, 441 XBH
• Mays' AL/NL stats:
  2,992 G, 3,283 H, 660 HR, 1,903 RBIs, 2,062 R, 338 SB, 1,323 XBH
• Charleston's numbers projected to 2,992 games:
  3,833 H, 466 HR, 2,724 RBIs, 2,707 R, 730 SB, 1,477 XBH

Charleston was Willie Mays before Willie Mays: a five-tool center fielder who could do it all. After his career with the Harrisburg Giants, Pittsburgh Crawfords and more, Charleston ranks third in MLB history in career batting average (.363), behind only Gibson and Cobb. Fellow Negro Leagues legend Buck O'Neil once said of Charleston: "The greatest MLB player I ever saw was Willie Mays. But the greatest baseball player I ever saw was Oscar Charleston."

Mays played in the Negro Leagues, too, as a 17-year-old in 1948. But he played 2,992 games in the National League with the Giants and Mets. If Charleston had that many games on record, he could have had numbers reminiscent of the Say Hey Kid, especially in the power-speed department, where Charleston might have pushed 400 homers and 700 steals.

4) What if Satchel Paige pitched as many MLB games as Walter Johnson?

• Paige's Negro League stats:
  220 G, 1,249 IP, 97 W, 87 CG, 17 SHO, 1,196 K
• Johnson's AL/NL stats:
  802 G, 5,914 1/3 IP, 417 W, 531 CG, 110 SHO, 3,508 K
• Paige's numbers projected to 802 games:
  4,553 IP, 354 W, 317 CG, 62 SHO, 4,360 K

Paige finally made his AL/NL debut with Cleveland in 1948, at age 42, but there are as many stories told about the hurler's Negro Leagues career as there are about any of the players on this list. Many who watched him said he was the hardest thrower they ever saw, with a faster fastball than even Johnson or Bob Feller. Paige kept his own stats, too, and estimated that he had in the realm of 2,000 wins, 250 shutouts and 50 no-hitters over his decades-long career.

The Negro Leagues stats that we now have in the Major League record books for Satch, for a career spent mainly with the Birmingham Black Barons, Pittsburgh Crawfords and Kansas City Monarchs, include 97 of those wins and 17 of those shutouts -- as well as a 1.01 ERA for the 1944 Monarchs that ranks third all-time for a single season. But if you give Paige the same number of games as the Big Train, he could easily be in the 300-win club and 4,000-strikeout club.

5) What if Turkey Stearnes played as many MLB games as Mickey Mantle?

• Stearnes' Negro League stats:
  1,009 G, 1,334 H, 188 HR, 115 3B, 1,015 RBIs, 924 R, 129 SB, 537 XBH
• Mantle's AL/NL stats:
  2,401 G, 2,415 H, 536 HR, 72 3B, 1,509 RBIs, 1,677 R, 153 SB, 952 XBH
• Stearnes' numbers projected to 2,401 games:
  3,174 H, 447 HR, 274 3B, 2,415 RBIs, 2,199 R, 307 SB, 1,278 XBH

Like Charleston, Stearnes was an all-around superstar center fielder in the Negro Leagues -- who also was a leadoff hitter, putting him way ahead of his time in terms of power hitting from the leadoff spot. He was one of the best leadoff hitters in Negro Leagues history, spending most of his career with the Detroit Stars. Stearnes now ranks sixth in MLB history in both career batting average (.348) and slugging percentage (.616), and is ninth in OPS (1.033).

Here, let's compare him to one of the all-around outfield greats who came after him: Mantle. Had Stearnes gotten to play as many AL/NL games as the Yankees icon, he could have had upper-echelon statistics all across the board -- especially, for a leadoff man, in the triples department, where he might've ranked among the top threats in MLB history.

6) What if Bullet Rogan pitched as many MLB games as Dazzy Vance?

• Rogan's Negro League stats (pitching):
  210 G, 1,476 IP, 118 W, 134 CG, 18 SHO, 905 K
• Vance's AL/NL stats:
  442 G, 2,966 2/3 IP, 197 W, 216 CG, 29 SHO, 2,045 K
• Rogan's numbers projected to 442 games:
  3,106 2/3 IP, 248 W, 282 CG, 38 SHO, 1,905 K

Almost 100 years before Shohei Ohtani, there was Bullet Rogan, the Negro Leagues' own two-way star. He was the ace starting pitcher and the cleanup hitter for the Kansas City Monarchs. Let's focus on the pitching side here. Some said Rogan threw even harder than the other great Negro Leagues flamethrowers, Paige and Smokey Joe Williams -- even though he was only 5-foot-7.

Rogan was dominating in the Negro Leagues at the same time Vance, with his own great fastball, was dominating in the National League for the Brooklyn Robins. If Rogan had the same number of games on record as Vance, he might have posted very similar career totals to the seven-time strikeout king. And that's on top of what he could've done at the plate -- Rogan had a .337 lifetime batting average and .932 OPS as a hitter in Negro Leagues play.

7) What if Smokey Joe Williams pitched as many MLB games as Bob Feller?

• Williams' Negro League stats:
  53 G, 356 1/3 IP, 16 W, 28 CG, 1 SHO, 201 K
• Feller's AL/NL stats:
  570 G, 3,827 IP, 266 W, 279 CG, 44 SHO, 2,581 K
• Williams' numbers projected to 570 games:
  3,832 1/3 IP, 172 W, 301 CG, 11 SHO, 2,162 K

Williams stood 6-foot-3 and threw hard. Before Paige rose to fame, Williams was the fireballer who was renowned across the Negro Leagues. But unlike Paige, we have very few career statistics currently on the record for Williams -- only 53 games pitched.

So this exercise in comparing him to Bob Feller, one of the other great fireballers in baseball history, means a lot of extrapolation. But with significant projection, it's very reasonable to think Williams would've eclipsed the 2,000-strikeout mark, at least, and maybe pushed for 200 wins.

8) What if Mule Suttles played as many MLB games as Jimmie Foxx?

• Suttles' Negro League stats:
  977 G, 1,109 H, 183 HR, 899 RBIs, 479 XBH
• Foxx's AL/NL stats:
  2,317 G, 2,646 H, 534 HR, 1,922 RBIs, 1,117 XBH
• Suttles' numbers projected to 2,317 games:
  2,630 H, 434 HR, 2,132 RBIs, 1,136 XBH

Suttles is one of the additions to the career slugging and OPS leaderboards, ranking fifth in the former (.621) and 10th in the latter (1.031). So for a "right-handed slugging first baseman" comparison, let's go to Foxx, who's also in the top 10 in MLB history in both categories.

Suttles has a good number of games in the Major League record book now -- 977 over two decades in the Negro Leagues from 1924-44, with most of that time spent with the Newark Eagles and St. Louis Stars. Give him Foxx's number of games, though, and Suttles could have posted jaw-dropping RBI and extra-base hit totals.

9) What if Jud Wilson played as many MLB games as Paul Waner?

• Wilson's Negro League stats:
  955 G, 1,099 H, 81 HR, 735 RBIs, 640 R, 104 SB, 339 XBH
• Waner's AL/NL stats:
  2,550 G, 3,152 H, 113 HR, 1,309 RBIs, 1,627 R, 104 SB, 909 XBH
• Wilson's numbers projected to 2,550 games:
  2,935 H, 216 HR, 1,963 RBIs, 1,709 R, 278 SB, 905 XBH

Wilson was only 5-foot-8, but the lefty-swinging third baseman was known throughout the Negro Leagues for absolutely ripping the ball -- his nickname was "Boojum" for the sound his line drives made slamming off the outfield wall. So let's project his stats to match another undersized yet Hall of Fame-caliber hitter: Waner, who was also 5-foot-8 but collected 3,152 base hits in his career.

Wilson has the batting average already -- his .350 career mark ranks fifth all-time after Gibson, Cobb, Charleston and Rogers Hornsby. But over Waner's number of games, he could've had close to 3,000 hits, and maybe even joined that milestone club.