Greatest Baseball Players

[andyfox]

Let's say you wanted to put together a team to last five years. What five-year span would you take for a player at each position?

According to Bill James's Win Shares system, here's what you should do. I'll give his top 3 at each position and 9 total outfielders.

Pitcher:
Walter Johnson 1912-1916
Cy Young 1901-1905
Pete Alexander 1913-1918
(Note: modern pitchers don't earn as many win shares as do the old-timers because they don't pitch as often)

Catcher:
Yogi Berra 1950-1954
Mike Piazza 1994-1998
Johnny Bench 1970-1974

First Base:
Lou Gehrig 1927-1931
Jimmie Foxx 1932-1936
Will Clark 1988-1992

Second Base:
Joe Morgan 1972-1976
Eddie Collins 1911-1915
Rogers Hornsby 1920-1924

Third Base:
Home Run Baker 1910-1914
Eddie Mathews 1953-1957
Mike Schmidt 1980-1984

Shortstop:
Honus Wagner 1904-1908
Arky Vaughn 1933-1937
Alex Rodriguez 1998-2002

Outfield:
Babe Ruth 1920-1924
Ted Williams 1941-1948
Mickey Mantle 1954-1958
Ty Cobb 1907-1911
Tris Speaker 1912-1916
Willie Mays 1962-1966
Barry Bonds 1998-2002
Hank Aaron 1959-1963
Mel Ott 1934-1938

Utility:
Stan Musial 1944-1949
Dick Allen 1964-1968
Pete Rose 1969-1973

I haven't taken the time to figure out Bonds' figures for 2000-2004, I'm sure it would move him up the outfield list, maybe to the top. (Perhaps A-Rod's 2000-2004 would also move him up to number two.)

Note that I've only listed a player one time at each position. That is, I've taken each player's best five year span. He might have a different five year span that would rate him in the top three also.

The two biggest surprises on the list, to me, were Home Run Baker and Will Clark. Baker is sometimes listed among the all-time greats, but Clark? Arky Vaughn may also come as a a surprise to some, but he was a helluva player.

[GuyOnTilt]

My friend Jeff and I used to do stupid fun things during classes back in High School during lectures. One day we decided to separately make an all-time starting lineup (no DH) and 5 starting pitchers. If I remember correctly, mine was:

1B : Jimmie Foxx
2B : Rogers Hornsby
3B : George Brett
SS : Honus Wagner
OF : Stan Musial
OF : Mickey Mantle
OF : Babe Ruth
C : Yogi Berra
P : Walter johnson
P : Cy Young
P : Christy Mathewson
P : Steve Carlton
P : Eddie Plank

We had to do it off the top of our heads, so there was a bunch of positions that I would've picked differently if I had more time to think about it and had access to some lists and stats. I'd switch out Brett for Schmidt, maybe Foxx for Berra, maybe Plank for Ryan. But that's about it I think.

GoT

[bugstud]

Why would you ever consider Ryan for a spot?

[1111]

Agreed...Ryan had great longevity, but there are many pitchers who were more dominant for shorter periods of time who are more deserving.

[GuyOnTilt]

Why would you ever consider Ryan for a spot?

'Cause I'd need more right-handers. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

GoT

[sam h]

[ QUOTE ]
Will Clark 1988-1992

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow. How Win Shares could rate him higher than Frank Thomas 93-97, for instance, is beyond me.

[1111]

Thomas' numbers during that period were remarkable. I seriously considered him a top 3 hitter in the game during his "golden" years.

[CCass]

How can you have an outfield without Teddy Ballgame?

[ThaSaltCracka]

or without the freakin Say Hey Kid....

[Senor Choppy]

In 1988, I believe that was the year Gwynn won the batting title hitting .301, so a guy hitting .282 with 29 HR and 109 RBI meant a lot more than it does today, (or 93-97), with the inflated numbers resulting from expansion.

[sam h]

That must be a big part of the rationale. I just have a hard time believing that Clark, who broke .900 OPS once in those five years, would really grade out better than Thomas, who never fell below 1.033. That is a pretty wide gap to be made up by differences in league average.

It may also be that Thomas is penalized since the 1994 season was cut short by the lockout. But even though he only played 113 games, he still hit .353/38/101 with an insane .487 OBP and .729 SLG. In a non-Bonds world, that could have been the best post-WWII season ever.

[hetron]

[ QUOTE ]

Pitcher:
Walter Johnson 1912-1916
Cy Young 1901-1905
Pete Alexander 1913-1918
(Note: modern pitchers don't earn as many win shares as do the old-timers because they don't pitch as often)


[/ QUOTE ]

I'm guessing Pete Alexander is Grover Cleveland Alexander. I can't see how you can get too much better than Sandy Koufax's famous 1962-1966 campaign, though I read your caveat about modern pitchers gettng less win shares.

[andyfox]

Yes, Grover Cleveland Alexander. Take a look at his 3 seasons, 1915-16-17 (I think). Pretty impressive. 16 shut-outs one year.

If I get a chance, I'll see what I can find on post-1960 pitchers. Koufax's performance 1962-1966 was impressive, but he pitched in a pitcher's ballpark in an era of little offense. Plus he was hurt in both 1962 and 1964. But it would be interesting to compare his five-year stretch with the best five year stretches of, say, Gibson, Marichal, Seaver, Carlton, Clemens, Johnson, Pedro, Maddux, etc.

[andyfox]

It was 1968 when Yaz hit .301 to lead the American League. The Yankees hit .213 as a a team and finished above .500. Read that sentence again to get the full feel of what a pitching-dominant era it was. It led directly to the DH.

[hetron]

I spent many a summer in my youth memorizing the stats and lineups from Burt and Lou Acoccella's "All-Time All-Star Baseball Book". Their greatest lineup circa 1985, was:

1B-Lou Gehrig
2B-Rogers Hornsby
3B-Pie Traynor
SS-Honus Wagner
OF-Babe Ruth
OF-Ty Cobb
OF-Willy Mays
C-Bill Dickey
P-Walter Johnson

The choices of Dickey and Traynor are particularly noteworthy, because their names rarely come up in conversations about great players.

[nolanfan34]

[ QUOTE ]
Why would you ever consider Ryan for a spot?

[/ QUOTE ]

OK, I'll bite, for argument's sake.

SEASON W L ERA G GS CG SHO SV SVO IP H R ER HR HBP BB SO
1972 19 16 2.28 39 39 20 9 0 --- 284.0 166 80 72 14 10 157 329
1973 21 16 2.87 41 39 26 4 1 --- 326.0 238 113 104 18 7 162 383
1974 22 16 2.89 42 41 26 3 0 --- 332.2 221 127 107 18 9 202 367
1975 14 12 3.45 28 28 10 5 0 --- 198.0 152 90 76 13 7 132 186
1976 17 18 3.36 39 39 21 7 0 --- 284.1 193 117 106 13 5 183 327
1977 19 16 2.77 37 37 22 4 0 --- 299.0 198 110 92 12 9 204 341

This doesn't format well....but I think he had a pretty good stretch from 72-77. If you throw out 75, which he missed time to injury, he had 5 seasons of 300+ k's, giving up about 0.5 HR/9, and a K/BB ratio of about 2, which isn't as bad as I thought it would be. Check out the # of complete games and SHO's. And this all happened while he pitched for one of the worst hitting teams in the league. Imagine Randy Johnson this season on the D-Backs, and that's kind of how a lot of Nolan's seasons with the Angels were.

Yes, I know he is not deserving of the title "best pitcher of all-time" like he was voted in that dumb fan poll. But with the user name I have on this site, I at least have to point out that he can be included in the argument.

Maybe he's not in the starting rotation for an all-time team, but based on this stretch of years I think he at least makes the staff as a right handed dominate setup man, if not a potential closer. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[M2d]

what goes into the win share's system? not to take away from Piazza, (or Berra, Campanella, Dickey, Fisk, Cochrane, Lombardi or any of the other great backstops), but I think I'd start a team with IRod over Piazza, with the difference being defensive skills.

[M2d]

[ QUOTE ]
'Cause I'd need more right-handers

[/ QUOTE ]

Gibson or Pedro

[GuyOnTilt]

Gibson or Pedro

I was kidding. The addition of Ryan would give me 4 righties.

GoT

[GuyOnTilt]

C-Bill Dickey

Ah yes! That's who my catcher was, not Berra! Good call.

GoT

[andyfox]

I haven't been able to understand his Win Shares system and I have the book. But I trust James's player evaluations.

[andyfox]

Yes, when I was a kid Bill Dickey was widely regarded as the greatest catcher and Traynor the greatest third baseman. Probably because of their lifetime batting averages. We didn't knows from OPS then. I think my first baseball book (circa 1960) listed Cobb, Ruth and Dimaggio as the outfielders (yes, two centerfielders). So the same as yours except for Mays/Dimaggio, as Mays was in mid-career then.

[ThaSaltCracka]

M2D brings up an interesting point about defense. How do they even begin to accurately judge a plyers defense based upon simply stats? I mean if you are a catcher, how do you judge how good he is defensively? Number of passed balls? % of unners thrown out? Both of those are somewhat dependant on who is pitching.

[daryn]

no koufax?

[andyfox]

James claims he's figured out how to evaluate fielding. Like I say, I don't understand it. Branch Rickey, who had perhaps the greatest baseball mind ever, used to say there was nothing one could do with fielding.

Catching would indeed seem particularly difficult to rate. I know someone who used to work on Arliss and who spent some time with Al Leiter when he was on the show. Leiter told him that he hated to pitch to Mike Piazza because the way Piazza caught he would lose a lot of umpire calls for him.

BTW, here comes Pedro out for the 7th inning. Hopefully, for the Sox, the ghost of Grady won't get to Francona. /images/graemlins/smirk.gif

I hope Piazza isn't a lurker here. /images/graemlins/smirk.gif

[ThaSaltCracka]

yeah they should lose it here.

[jagoff]

No Koufax, no Gibson I don't get it. Of course we can debate this til we are blue in the fingers. There were alot of GREAT players over the years and to exclude any of them would piss someone off.