User Comments, Suggestions, or Complaints | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Advertising
Buy MLB playoff tickets, plus 2011 World Series, 2011 ALCS tickets and NLCS game tickets. We also have Texas Rangers playoff schedule, tickets to Red Sox games and Yankees game tickets. Plus, buy Phillies baseball tickets, Tigers playoff tickets and the biggies like ALDS baseball tickets and 2011 NLDS tickets. |
Demarini, Easton and TPX Baseball Bats
|
AllianceTickets.com has cheap MLB Tickets. Get all your Colorado Rockies Tickets, Seattle Mariners Tickets, San Francisco Giants Tickets and all your favorite baseball tickets here. We also carry cheap Denver Broncos Tickets, Seattle Seahawks Tickets and Denver Nuggets Tickets. |
Page rendered in 2.1487 seconds
40 querie(s) executed
Reader Comments and Retorts
Go to end of page
Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.
But, man, what's with the folks over there voting for The Beatles in the poll for which artist had the biggest influence on pop music. At best they should be third or fourth.
19. Hank Greenberg
This pairing is a pretty good way to evaluate a list like this. If Mize ranks ahead of Greenberg, you know the person is accounting for context.
It's a solid list overall. I enjoy the fact that Speaker ranks just ahead of Manny - with the additional advantage of being one of the best defensive outfielders ever. Speaker was really good.
I'd probably put Williams first. Without his time in the service, he probably breaks Ruth's HR record and he wasn't on his last legs when he quit either (a mere 190 OPS+ in his 1960, his final season.)
Yes, but put Ruth in OF from day one, instead of having him pitch almost 1200 innings in Boston (and good ones - his ERA+ in Boston was 125), and he still has the HR record.
I might add Jeff Bagwell's name as well.
It's funny also that I was going to nitpick and say Manny should rank above Frank Thomas, and then I looked at the Big Hurt's numbers. Wow! He was ridiculous for a good time. so much so that I wonder if he should be in the top 10.
Both have adjusted ops+ within 5 points of Albert and he has yet to enter his decline phase.
Not only that, he was also vigorously anti-steroid. I'm always confused as to why Frank Thomas isn't a more popular player nationally.
Pretty sure Hank Williams was dead before Presley ever hit the charts.
Don't see why K's matter. The benefit of not K-ing is pretty much baked into your production; no reason to double count.
Also, you have to adjust Pujols, ARod etc. for decline phase.
I definitely put Mantle and Cobb above Pujols.
Peaked before 1920: Hornsby 5, Cobb 9, Speaker 15, Honus Wagner 23. This is way wrong, Wagner that low I mean. and you've got 4 guys for 20 years. And only 1 guy per 5 years vs. 1 guy per 3 years for every other time period. Sam Crawford says hi.
Peaked 1920-1945: Ruth 1, Williams 2, Gehrig 4, Foxx 8, Ott 17, Mize 18, Greenberg 19, Waner 29. 8 guys for 25 years.
Peaked 1945-1973: Williams 2, Musial 6, Mantle 10, DiMaggio 11, Mays 12, Aaron 13, FRobby 21, Kiner 28. 8 guys for 25 years.
Peaked 1973-2009: Bonds 3, Pujols 7, F. Thomas 14, Manny 16, ARod 20, Edgar 22, Schmidt 24, Griffey 25, Thome 26, Helton 27, Vlad 30. 11 guys for 36 years. But if you broke it down into the 1970s and '80s (1 guy) and '90s and '00s (10 guys) then Pos is living way too much in the present to be allowed to use a word like "ever." Reggie and George Brett and Joe Morgan say hi.
And, yeah, what about guys like Joe Morgan and Eddie Collins? This isn't the 10 best hitters, it's the 10 best sluggers or something like that.
So, no, I'm not on board with this is a pretty solid list. It's not. Too many guys from 1990 to the present, not enough guys from the deadball era and the '70s and '80s, and mostly sluggers not all types of hitters.
Not sure what difference that makes. They had these big round vinyl things in those days and people listened to them even after the performer was dead.
Also not sure why this matters. Pos says they're the most influential, not the most popular, but then his choices are obviously based on popularity.
Yes, that's the point.
Top 10
Rose
Yaz
Henderson
Ripken
Murray
Winfield
Yount
Molitor
E. Collins
Brooksie
Dead Ball and '70s-'80s only
Brett
Reggie
Morgan
Maranville
Staub
Baines
Perez
Ozzie
Max Carey
Dawson
OK Enough with the '70s-'80s, But More Dead Ball Guys
Sam Crawford
Beckley
Lajoie--hearda him?
Dahlen
Sam Rice
hooper
G. Davis
Anson
And these are just the guys with 10,000 PA.
I would say that Pos just doesn't know enough about the dead ball era to care to put together criteria that are fair to the era. Wagner 23rd and no Lajoie? The 6000 is not the problem, it's the criteria for evaluating guys from there. I mean, no Brett and no Boggs either. You really want Thome and Kiner and Vlad rather than Brett and Boggs and Joe Morgan and Lajoie? Then this is your list.
Equally to the point, it makes you wonder what a decent set of criteria would do at the top of the list.
Bottom line, the word "ever" has no business being in the title of this article. This is "the greatest hitters whose profile is similar to the guys I've been watching the past 20 years."
Hornsby's peak years were in the 1920s. He played before 1920 (turning 24 that year) but all his legendary years are in the 20's, and he's a year younger than Babe Ruth.
That leaves only 3 pre 1920's players. I guess Joe is making a reasonable assumption about the quality of play, or at least of the hitting. In a game where power hitting was impossible, a different kind of player will excel. If there were a Ryan Howard of that day, he would have been a less valuable hitter than the Chone Figgins of 1915. But from a 21st century perspective, he's looking at hitters as guys who can drive the ball, and may not consider an Eddie Collins as one of the top 20 or 30, thinking he'd be more comparable to a longer career Roberto Alomar if playing today. JoePo could also add Joe Jackson to his pre 1920's list though. I don't think character qualifications come into play on best skill lists.
Yes, that's kind of the point. These aren't the best hitters *ever,* they're the best hitters from a 21st century perspective, which is different.
Would there have been a Hank Williams if there hadn't been a Jimmie Rodgers? I think we know who the real men of influence were.
Nirvana would have the only argument after them, albeit as a negative influence...
FTA:
In other words, he's just farting around with a combination of stats and memories because he felt like throwing together a nifty little blog post - he freely admits that he didn't use a rigorous statistical method. I highly doubt that he intended to write some grand proclamation that will stand unchallenged until the universe finally dies.
Pos spells out his criteria twice:
I suspect that the inclusion of those highlighted parts is what sticks in the craws of some people, since the former is incorporated into the overall production number, while the latter is a bit too intangible for the modern eye. But if he didn't put in those extra factors, he'd be doing nothing but copying the all-time OPS+ list with a few minor variants, which wouldn't be interesting at all.
That said, there's plenty to disagree with, once you get below the top 15. I'd never leave out George Brett in favor of Ralph Kiner, not to mention his placement of Wagner way below Mel Ott, or Paul Waner making the list rather than Lajoie. And Todd Helton outside the friendly confines of that thin Denver air is nothing special at all---how in the hell did he ever get in there?
But once you get up to Manny and Speaker, there's a lot less to argue with from that point on. And I bet that any other MSM writer who took a stab at such a list would wind up with a much worse one.
# of times player finished 1st, 2nd-4th, 5th-10th in his league
player 1 2-4 5-10
Aaron.. 5 . 8 . 6
Gehrig. 4 . 8 . 1
Pujols.. 4 . 3 . 2
DiMagg 0 . 8 . 3
Foxx... 5 . 4 . 3
Musial. 8 . 5 . 4
OK class, rank these men. Who wants to put Aaron, who likely played in the STRONGEST (by league quality) of all of these except for maybe Pujols, at the bottom? Joe, are you listening??
Joe: 184,184,178,173,168
They have the same career (155) despite Aaron playing much longer. Though perhaps Aaron's post-peak is balanced by DiMaggio's missing peak in WWII. I'd go with Aaron, but not a huge difference. I'm not intentionally walking Torii Hunter to get to either of them.
Don't disagree. And if you want to talk "country," Bob Wills goes pretty high up, too.
Pioneers (pre-Elvis)
Jimmie Rodgers
Louis Armstrong
Bob Wills
Robert Johnson
Louis Jordan
Hank Williams
Basie/Charlie Christian
Ellington
Frank Sinatra
Woody Guthrie
Bing Crosby
Les Paul
Pete Seeger
Carter Family
Paul Whiteman
Yes, that and whether saying these are the best "ever" isn't self-delusion.
The outlier on your list is Dimaggio, but if any of those others had been contemporaries of Ted Williams***, they'd look like outliers, too. Not that this is a point to be made against Aaron, but rather a point that you have to consider all the contextual factors and not just copy a list.
***Foxx was, but only in the twilight of his career
Yes, that and whether saying these are the best "ever" isn't self-delusion.
I do think that Pos would acknowledge that, but there's nothing wrong with a bit of hyperbole now and then. It's not as if Pos is some Roman Emperor who's sentenced George Brett to die.
Tom H's batting wins list is instructive, though I'd add that Gehrig's and Foxx's modest totals reflect their competing with each other (not true of any others on the list), and also against some guy named Ruth for half their careers.
Actually, I would say that it is interesting, but in no way should be used as a comparison of each players value or ability. There is definitely a decent argument to rank Aaron higher than Pos has him, but this isn't it. In addition to what SandyRiver mentioned, DiMaggio's totals are so low because he was competing with Ted Williams. Here's a hint, if Aaron had played his career in the same league as Babe Ruth or Ted Williams, he would likely have zero #1 finishes.
I'll give myself the coke for that one, Randy. See #38.
Al three were vastly influential. Not really arguable either.
I forget who wrote this years ago, but somebody wrote about a miniature HoF made-up of only 30 players, and IIRC, Schmidt was bumped to make room for some current players, including possibly, Barry Bonds (And yes, I realize that Barry Bonds is a better player than Schmidt, but Schmidt was an extremely good 3B - versus Bonds, who was mostly a LF - which is a better position on the defensive specturm and he doesn't have the steroids issue lurking).
Third base as a position doesn't get the respect it should, IMO.
No, this is much more important than that.
(Pujols) adamantly said that he’s NOT a home run hitter.
And, sure enough, he did not hit a home run for the rest of the season.
Any loser, like Ruth or, well, Pujols, can call a home run, but it takes a real bad-ass to do the reverse.
Anson didn't have the ISO those guys did. According to John Montgomery Ward, he didn't swing at the ball like modern guys do. His swing was more of a push. Brouthers and Connor, OTOH, had a power swing.
Now granted, most speculation about Bonds and steroids starts somewhere around 1999 (and Bonds had had a great run from 1993 to 1999 with SF, including a remarkable 1993). To me, there is no doubt that pre-plausible steroids Barry was better as a hitter than Schmidt.
However, Schmidt was no slouch versus pre-2000 Bonds PLUS he played an extremely good 3B (and ocassionally filled-in at 2B and SS, which are even tougher positions on the defensive spectrum than 3B).
So yes, Schmidt doesn't get as much recognition as he should.
I wonder just how many games that a circa 1930 all-Babe Ruth team might have won against that year's version of the Philadelphia A's, with clones of Ruth being forced to play all 8 positions behind the pitcher? And how many games could that all-Ruth team have won against a team like this year's Yankees, one that could get on base at a high rate, and steal bases at will against a weak catcher?
Should I repost my table and take out the 'best other guy' in the league for everyone?
The point was not an in-depth analysis. It was to show that great OPS+ numbers is easier in some times than in others. The published list seems to acknowledge that in leaving out, for example, Dan Brouthers (8-time leader in bating wins), but not in assessing DiMag/Foxx/Aaron.
Check out BP's 'translated stats' for each of the above. How anyone could put Aaron lower than 4th alltime (Bonds / Ted / Ruth in some order) unless you're a huge peakster fan is beyond me.
re: #45, Schmidt - he absolutely should be in a 30-man HoF, and he don't need no position bump to get him in.
Most of his readers might not. But a lot of us seem to.
If I wanted any #### from you, I'd squeeze your head.
No Wieters????
That's a given. The real question is if he belongs in the top-ten.
It's a good story and I appreciate Poz trying to draw a line connecting the Cardinal greats, but... it was Opening Day and it was the Cardinals. Seems like that's already plenty of reason for Musial to want to go to the game, even if it was in a "foreign" city like Denver.
Also, not to be rude, but I have no idea why anyone would consider, say, the ability to hit to all fields in a list like this. Whether one is a pull or an all field hitter is obviously interesting information, and is relevant for understanding someone as a hitter, but is pretty irrelevant in a retrospective evaluation of how good they were. The one possible reason I can think of is that, perhaps, it is easier to leverage your pitcher/defensive strategy against pull hitters (maybe they have higher platoon splits?), which leads them to be comparatively unclutch and hence less valuable than their context neutral performance would indicate. But 1) I have no idea whether that empirical claim is true; and 2) wouldn't it, in that case, be better to just take account of the contextual performance of the hitter without using this pretty poor proxy?
The discussion of which of Bonds, Williams, or Ruth was the better hitter (by which I mean offensive player) is fascinating to me. It basically turns on how one wants to adjust for era. Also highly relevant is Williams's missed time. And I think somewhat relevant is the fact that Bonds was forced out of the game prematurely; even though he was in his 40s he was still one of the best hitters in the game. If Bonds finishes with 800+ home runs (the last several dozen coming as still a productive hitter) he looks even better, obviously. And aesthetically, playing at a high level well into his 40s would have argued for him being the greatest as well.
I think Bonds's insane peak, dominating a league of higher quality than the leagues Ruth and Williams dominated, argues for him to be considered the greatest hitter ever.
EDIT: I noticed this interesting tidbit about pre-steroids Barry: Pujols, over his career (from 2001-2009), has an OPS+ of 172. Bonds, from 1990-1998 (same number of years), had an OPS+ of 182. Hands up if you knew that pre-steroids Barry was probably a better hitter than Pujols, and not by a small amount?
This is a good idea -- Poz should post this on its own website. He could call it www.fivethirtyeight.com
Depends on how much you timeline. On straight stats Ruth is better:
Career OPS+: Ruth 207, Bonds 182
Career OBP: Ruth .474 Bonds .444
Total Bases per 162 Games: Ruth 375, Bonds 324
Home Runs per 162 Games: Ruth 46, Bonds 41
Out of all the debates anyone has ever had about Dick Allen, the only thing I don't think has been questioned is his hitting ability.
Also, not to be rude, but I have no idea why anyone would consider, say, the ability to hit to all fields in a list like this.
I have no idea how you'd measure the ability to hit to all fields, at least not for the really old players. (Yeah, there are anecdotes and stuff. But it seems like a very stat-based list.)
The problem with OPS+ here is that Bonds has a huge edge in SB value, while Ruth's SB value is a serious negative:
Bonds: 514 SB, 141 CS
Ruth: 123 SB, 117 CS
Ruth wasn't like Williams, who didn't run and so had neutral SB value. Ruth ran. And got caught. (And it looks like we don't have CS data from Ruth's early years, though he wasn't running much then.)
Using EqA makes this closer. Taking career EqA, "adjusted for all time":
Ruth: .363
Williams: .359
Bonds: .354
But how can you not? His late career peak is inexplicable by any other mechanism.
IMHO, you have to haircut his post-1999 production substantially. He's still a great player, top 10ish, but nowhere near the top 2 or 3.
His late career peak is inexplicable by that mechanism.
Unless one thinks that Bonds is the only one who used steroids.
It's debatable whether stolen base value should factor into a discussion of "hitting." Obviously it counts if you're discussing "offense," but the presence of Hank Greenberg on the list ahead of Honus Wagner suggests that we're not counting basethievery.
Says the person who alluded to Ichiro above :-)
I'm happy not to discuss steroids, and wasn't discussing it until Snapper brought it up. But if people are going to state with certainty that steroids caused Bonds's peak, we're going to have a problem.
Look, like it or not, steroids are a part of these discussions now. And that's not the fault of the "steroids don't really matter" crowd; it's the fault of those who insist that steroids matter in a significant way.
The prescription to having a steroids-free thread is simple: all it takes is for nobody to assert that steroids significantly impact baseball performance in general, and Bonds's performance in particular.
Unless one thinks that Bonds is the only one who used steroids.
I'll drop it after this. But, someone has to have been the best at exploiting steroids (best juice, best regimen). Also, late career guys were very likely to be the ones to benefit most in terms of injury recovery etc. We already see a reversion to more predictable aging patterns.
BTW, it's not just Bonds for me. You have to regress Clemens, ARod, Palmeiro, all these guys. The art is in how much to regress. There's no scientific formula.
Suffice to say I disagree :-)
As a hitter, yes. As a pitcher, nope. His pitching career remains the wildcard that will keep Ruth ranked as the best baseball player ever.
But those guys are usually totally unable to coach players of lesser natural ability. They yell a lot and get frustrated.
I hear ya, but a lot of players have raved about the advice Bonds has given them. David Eckstein's brother and Bonds became good friends while discussing hitting with each other. I think it would be worth a shot to give him a chance. McGwire is another formerly great hitter who seems to draw players to him as a kind of hitting guru. If it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. Hitting coaches are hired to be fired anyway.
But he was the worst baserunner ever, so that cancels out.
(maybe not, but I'll say that the next time I'm in a real-life discussion about this)
I know this was tongue-in-cheek, but Ruth was an aggressive baserunner (as he was in everything else that he did on the ballfield) who sometime took chances that he should not have taken. That doesn't make him a terrible baserunner. We'd need to have a lot more data than we have to compare Ruth to other players of his era on the bases before we made that judgment.
-- MWE
Now that sounds like a list! My #1 would definitely be Ahhnuld.
I vote for Carrot Top or Joe Piscopo. They're really 1 and 1A I guess.
Joe DiMaggio never led his league in batting wins
How many times would he have won, but finished 2nd to Ted Williams?
a. as many as Pujols (4)
b. more than Pujols
c. half as many as Pujols
Joe DiMaggio never led his league in batting wins
How many times would he have won, but finished 2nd to Ted Williams?
a. as many as Pujols (4)
b. more than Pujols
c. half as many as Pujols
How many times did Pujols finish 2nd behind Bonds?
Migh help with era adjustments.
Without Emmett Miller and Jelly Roll Morton, this list is FAIL.
This is why Teddy Ballgame was so great: He was able to coach players of lesser natural ability, AND he yelled a lot and got frustrated!
Personally I think it's the fault of the players who took steroids.
If David Eckstein's brother manages to post a 200 OPS+, we'll look into it.
I enjoy snark as much as the next guy (God knows I do!), but I'm not sure what your point is here. My point is that Bonds can be lucid and congenial with people who are not only NOT stars, but aren't even professional ball players, contrary to Bonds' popular image.
Now to Bonds. More than almost anything else in baseball, I would love to see someone worthy sit down with BB and write a book on hitting. No talk about steroids, just baseball. The few times I've heard him talk on the subject he has been articulate and educational. I think it would be a fascinating exercise.
And there are BBRAA voters who legitimately think he's a borderline at best Hall of Fame candidate. Ridiculous.
I too would be fascinated to read this. There's another thread somewhere about useless player quotes that the media gets from them after the games. The kinds of quotes I _am_ interested in hearing is when the player describe what he was thinking as a particular at bat or play unfolded. What did he expect the pitcher to throw him? What was his strategy? Etc.
Clemens was an interesting post-game interview in that he'd often go into detail about what he was thinking on the mound, how he was feeling, what his strategy was, what his pitches were doing, etc.
Oh, don't ever use that stat. It includes a BPro special fudge factor that modern players are more talented than players from past eras. While that's probably true, it's pointless for any meaningful comparison. From their site:
Statistics that have been adjusted for all-time have all of the adjustments for a single season, plus two more. One adjustment normalizes the average fielding numbers over time. Historically, the fielding share of total defense has been diminishing with time - more walks, more strikeouts, and more home runs means less work for fielders. In the single-season adjustments, fielders from before WWII have a lot more value than fielders today; the all-time adjustments have attempted to remove that temporal trend. The second adjustment is for league difficulty. League quality has generally increased with time. Each league has been rated for difficulty and compared to a trend line defined by the post-integration National League. In addition to the adjustments for season, an adjustment is made for league difficulty.
The second adjustment yanks down Ruth's EQA considerably (from 374 to 363). God only knows the "model" behind that adjustment and how they calibrated it.
I would be curious, on what basis, you could rank Aaron above Hornsby as a hitter.
How's Dial feel about him as a HOFer? Chris seems to rail against DHes like they're the ones that made the rule in 1973.
You must be Registered and Logged In to post comments.
<< Back to main