I feel bad for Barry Bonds

[Jack of Arcades]

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Identify the position player who cracks the top 10 who played after 1980, other than Bonds due to his post-98 feats. Griffey would have but for injuries. Maybe A. Rodriguez will one day. Mike Schmidt? A reasonable argument can be made for him, but who does he replace? Rickey Henderson? Nah.

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That's the thing. All the players you listed rightly dominated their leagues. However, that dominance is artificial.

How is a league that draws from 5 continents, 25 countries, and a booming population watered down, yet the league that drew from two continents and largely once race isn't?

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But sorry, I don't see a position player other than Bonds who cracks the top 10. Who do you suggest?

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Then again, "top 10" seems a bit too limited given the scope of the MLB. The fact of the matter is, ranking the different players is an exercise in futility. Rather, it seems we should expand it to something like 25 or so, where all of the players are roughly equal to each other in value. From the 80s-90s, we'd have guys like Mike Schmidt, Bonds, A-Rod, Frank Thomas, and Jeff Bagwell. I'd feel confident in saying those were probably the best players. The 70s and 80s are the worst times not only due to wasted talent, but do to the fact that the league was probably the smallest it'd been in relation to the talent pool: integration had fully kicked in, latin players were coming in, and we had four less teams.

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PS, there are about 11 1/2 decades of pro baseball. There are 10 names on the top 10 position player list, obviously. That's less than one player per decade. So the idea that no players from the 80s or 90s make the list is not crazy.

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Of course it isn't. But look at your list again, you essentially only drew from 4 decades of the 11 1/2.

1900-1920: Wagner
1920-1940: Ruth, Gehrig, Cobb, Hornsby
1940-1960: Dimaggio, Williams, Musial
1950-1970: Mays, Mantle

Perhaps instead of thinking that there's something *wrong* with post 1970, maybe there's something wrong with 1920-1960. Maybe their dominance was a product of the times, not the players. They were certainly great players, but it seems a little suspect.

[istewart]

This is really enjoyable to read, actually. Good argument.

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Awful pitching is far from prevalent. Unless you somehow think with the population boom brought on from the 1940s, the addition of blacks, latinos, and asians, as well as increases in medicine has not doubled the talent pool that the MLB draws from since the time of, say, Ruth.

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No I don't disagree with you or TSC here. The average player today is better than the average player in the 1940s. No question about that. My point I think is that great players today play against a greater percentage of players that are far inferior to them than the great players of, say, the 40s. That makes it easier for a player like Bonds, A-Rod, Sosa, etc., to be so far ahead of the rest of the league.

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Are you serious? The talent pool is not diluted. There are 6 billion people on the planet. Do you really think there arent enough great baseball players to fill 30 teams?

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Come on. I assume you follow the sport. You make like this is the first time you've ever heard this. I'm flattered you think that this is stuff I'm coming up with.

[jesusarenque]

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Awful pitching is far from prevalent. Unless you somehow think with the population boom brought on from the 1940s, the addition of blacks, latinos, and asians, as well as increases in medicine has not doubled the talent pool that the MLB draws from since the time of, say, Ruth.

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No I don't disagree with you or TSC here. The average player today is better than the average player in the 1940s. No question about that. My point I think is that great players today play against a greater percentage of players that are far inferior to them than the great players of, say, the 40s. That makes it easier for a player like Bonds, A-Rod, Sosa, etc., to be so far ahead of the rest of the league.

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Are you serious? The talent pool is not diluted. There are 6 billion people on the planet. Do you really think there arent enough great baseball players to fill 30 teams?

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Come on. I assume you follow the sport. You make like this is the first time you've ever heard this. I'm flattered you think that this is stuff I'm coming up with.

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I didn't say you came up with the idea. I said the idea was crazy, which it is.

[ThaSaltCracka]

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My point I think is that great players today play against a greater percentage of players that are far inferior to them than the great players of, say, the 40s.

[/ QUOTE ] I think the opposite is more likely.

As for this whole, top 10 BS, just stop doing it. There are way to many factors from every era to truely compare players fairly. Those you listed were obviously some of the greatest players ever, but there were also several all time greats from the 70's, 80's, and 90's(Griffey is one of them).

I think as a whole, the athletes of today are far far better than those of the past. Clearly its harder to make it to the top level, just look at the sheer number of training leagues (college, minor leagues).

IMO, baseball fans still have this romanticized opinion on many of the old time greats, from the games "golden age". IMO, these guys get maybe too much credit. But lets be honest with ourselves, baseball is [censored] great right now, it hasn't gotten worse at all and people need to accept that and embrace many of the young great players in the game right now (Phat Albert, Vlad, Johan, A-Rod, Beltran, Ichiro etc.) (BTW, those arguing baseball is diluted, take a look at those players I listed, and compare them to the names of those from the 50''s, 60's and 70's.)

[CallMeIshmael]

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Bonds is always trying to elicit sympathy by bringing his kids into it. This just pisses me off more than anything. He got to the be one of the greatest players ever by cheating, then whines about it when he gets caught. Give me a [censored]' break. He knew the possible consequences of his actions when he started taking steroids, now he's trying to make the rest of us feel bad about the decisions he conciously made.

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I haven't read the thread, just the OP and this repsonse. Even if everything you say of Bonds is true, why does this give anyone the right to bring his family into it? Barry Bonds choose to play baseball, not his children. Bringing people's family into the spotlight when they haven't done anything other than be born into a family where one person is famous, is, IMO, disgusting.

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Identify the position player who cracks the top 10 who played after 1980, other than Bonds due to his post-98 feats. Griffey would have but for injuries. Maybe A. Rodriguez will one day. Mike Schmidt? A reasonable argument can be made for him, but who does he replace? Rickey Henderson? Nah.

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That's the thing. All the players you listed rightly dominated their leagues. However, that dominance is artificial.

How is a league that draws from 5 continents, 25 countries, and a booming population watered down, yet the league that drew from two continents and largely once race isn't?

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But sorry, I don't see a position player other than Bonds who cracks the top 10. Who do you suggest?

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Then again, "top 10" seems a bit too limited given the scope of the MLB. The fact of the matter is, ranking the different players is an exercise in futility. Rather, it seems we should expand it to something like 25 or so, where all of the players are roughly equal to each other in value. From the 80s-90s, we'd have guys like Mike Schmidt, Bonds, A-Rod, Frank Thomas, and Jeff Bagwell. I'd feel confident in saying those were probably the best players. The 70s and 80s are the worst times not only due to wasted talent, but do to the fact that the league was probably the smallest it'd been in relation to the talent pool: integration had fully kicked in, latin players were coming in, and we had four less teams.

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PS, there are about 11 1/2 decades of pro baseball. There are 10 names on the top 10 position player list, obviously. That's less than one player per decade. So the idea that no players from the 80s or 90s make the list is not crazy.

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Of course it isn't. But look at your list again, you essentially only drew from 4 decades of the 11 1/2.

1900-1920: Wagner
1920-1940: Ruth, Gehrig, Cobb, Hornsby
1940-1960: Dimaggio, Williams, Musial
1950-1970: Mays, Mantle

Perhaps instead of thinking that there's something *wrong* with post 1970, maybe there's something wrong with 1920-1960. Maybe their dominance was a product of the times, not the players. They were certainly great players, but it seems a little suspect.

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You make many valid points. Reasonable people can disagree about them. There are only a couple of things I'd add:

Pre-1950, say, it was mostly Americans playing baseball. It wasn't the global sport it was today. So to say the league was watered down back then because they didn't include Cubans or Dominicans or Japanese I think is inaccurate. Yes, there was a whole race of fabulously gifted players that were excluded, and the league could have been so much better than it was, but that doesn't mean that the league was "watered down" at that time. The talent level for players at that time was outstanding, as evidenced by the fact that the stats of many players that played in those eras have held up for decades. Yes of course it could have been even better had they allowed blacks to play.

With respect to the "top 10", I think I've said that I agree that top 10 is ridiculous. It came up only because I think that was what the original poster referenced. Top 10 is too arbitrary for anyone to be right.

This has been a good discussion. Not sure where you are, but I am in NJ where out of the blue we are getting snowed on like nuts. It's enough already. So it's good to talk baseball, because tonight it seems like opening day is 6 months away. I've enjoyed it and thank you, TSC, and everyone else that has participated.

[Jack of Arcades]

R/G in the NL in 1936: 4.71
R/G in the NL in 2004: 4.64

I can't find the baseball graph that charts it, but it goes up and down, up and down.

Pitching was just as "diluted" in the middle of your golden era. Baseball goes in cycles. It has to do with a lot of things, and the talent of the pitchers isn't always one of them. There's been changes in balls, ballparks, strike zones (Questec?), equipment, etc that increase the R/G.

Furthermore, you're comparing raw numbers, when, in this whole thread, I've been comparing numbers against the league average. It doesn't matter that Barry Bonds has an OPS of 1.300, it's that the league average is .750 and his OPS is 1.3000.

[ThaSaltCracka]

Niss,
if anyone tries to list the top 10 players of all time from baseball, simply stop listening to them. They are most likely a narrow minded moron, seriously. I have argued like a mutha on this site for a while about baseball and after a while I realized it was pointless. I just like listing all time greats, and my lists of those is growing and that makes me happy.
-TSC
Baseball guru second only to the uber-nerd Dynasty.

[Jack of Arcades]

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Pre-1950, say, it was mostly Americans playing baseball. It wasn't the global sport it was today. So to say the league was watered down back then because they didn't include Cubans or Dominicans or Japanese I think is inaccurate. Yes, there was a whole race of fabulously gifted players that were excluded, and the league could have been so much better than it was, but that doesn't mean that the league was "watered down" at that time. The talent level for players at that time was outstanding, as evidenced by the fact that the stats of many players that played in those eras have held up for decades. Yes of course it could have been even better had they allowed blacks to play.

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It's certainly true that the top level of talent was amazing, but there were many many players on the bad side, as well. What I'm saying was, when you think of league size as roster spots-to-talent-pool ratio, the league is smaller than it was 50 years ago.