The idea that Michael Jordan makes the short list is equally laughable. When did Wilt Chamberlain get expunged from the official NBA record?

Chamberlain? Is Jolly Old Saint Nick around? That's like saying Bonds or Aaron are better than Ruth.

Hell, if you ignore the steroids and Ruth's pitching, I'd have no problem with saying Bonds was the best baseball player ever. And if you bozos don't appreciate the basketball genius of Bill Russell by this time, you never will.

That said, it's hard to argue with SugarBear's point about Magic's having had the greatest one game performance of any basketball player in history, though given the statistics worship you sometimes find here, it wouldn't surprise me if someone countered Magic's feat with Wilt's scoring 100 against the mighty Darrall Imhoff.

And once you get up on the level of Magic and Jordan (or Robertson or West, for that matter), there are no real losers, they were both so fucking great.

Sun rises in West

Water is dry

Derek Jeter as No. 1 in the game. Now, then and always.

a) statement 1 is false
b) statement 1 and 2 are both false
c) all of the above are false

Orr gets points for being the most-often referenced hockey player in crossword puzzles.

Hockey: Orr
Baseball: Ott
Basketball: ???
Football: Otto (as in "Football great Graham")?
Futbol: Pele

Re: basketball, I recall seeing "Mikan" as an answer in the NY Times more than once, but that was back in Eugene Maleska's day.

Magic won everywhere he went, including Michigan State which was a nothingburger backwater in basketball before he got there. Freshmen didn't turn programs around by themselves at the time Magic did (*) (because most of the best upperclassmen were still playing). It took Jordan until his 7th year in the League to win his first ring. That's one big matzoh ball hanging out there. T

Jordan took until his seventh season to win a ring despite playing much of that time with Charles Oakley and Orlando Woolridge as his best teammates, and this was his failing...because he didn't win as quickly as Magic, who joined a 50 win team featuring one of the three greatest centers in NBA history. Did I get that logic right?


The year Jordan sat out, the Bulls were an awful call from going to the Finals.

That's a HUGE leap to make. And, let's not forget, the year he returned full time, they had a team that won 72 games was probably better than any Magic had ever played for - same goes for the '97 (69 wins) team.

I agree with you that the difference between Jordan and Magic isn't massive or anything.

Jordan never, ever had a game as good as Magic's Game 6 NBA Finals, 1980. Nor was Jordan the revolutionary Magic was.

As to your first point, if we're comparing their careers, my answer is "so what?" Jordan had plenty of transcendant games, more than Magic did, I would guess.

Also, I guess you can say Magic was revolutionary in a way - but I'd argue that "revolutionary" is the wrong word - I don't think Magic changed the way the game was played in a general sense. You don't see 6-9 point guards everywhere now because of Magic....and that's my point - Magic was just so singularly unique, for the reasons you've already outlined. A 6-9 point guard? Who can also post up and play down low*? Who ALSO has transcendant court vision and passing ability? Etc, etc...

* damn right that was a double entendre

At the end of the day, though, while offensively Magic was right there with Jordan (setting aside the different "shape" of their respective talents), I can't set aside the fact that Jordan was a first team All-NBA defender nine times, and was widely acknowledged as the best defender at his poisition through the prime of his career - while Magic (to borrow from Bill Simmons) played defense like a matador.

I'd have Magic at somewhere from #2-5 historically, myself, depending on my mood that day.

Maybe it was said too quietly:

WE ALREADY HAVE A BASKETBALL THREAD

YEAH, THIS SHOULD BE A HOCKEY THREAD!

Beat me to the punch on Magic. The difference between him and Jordan isn't even close to as great as common understanding would have it. Magic won everywhere he went, including Michigan State which was a nothingburger backwater in basketball before he got there.

I wouldn't argue against Magic but the same thing about winning could be said about Kareem. He won three national championships in three years as a college player, and a freshmen team lead by Kareem won an exhibition game against the varsity team (the eventual national champions) game in which Kareem scored 51 points. That lead to a great line about how UCLA was #1 in the nation and #2 on campus.

Kareem did win 6 championships overall, although I think you can knock him some for only winning one title in 10 years as a pro before Magic.

YR, in the NBA thread, (where Wilt was mainly discussed vis-a-vis Russell) I mentioned Wilt as my pick for GoaT. It never really generated much talk, contrary to my expectations ... I'll offer now that while that was true, as I'd structure the question (which was closer to most productive player of all-time, balancing peak and career), it takes *very* little for me to change my answer to Jordan. Wilt's big advantage (apart from ability) was that he was always in the game ... even when the team had the match wrapped up. We probably should discount accordingly (which I'm *not* doing much of).
I'd rather that discussion take place in the other thread - though I'm also glad we've moved on to more current events by now.

YEAH, THIS SHOULD BE A HOCKEY THREAD!

Did someone actually say Lemieux had a higher peak in a 28 team league than Orr did in a six team league? REALLY?

Maybe it was said too quietly:

WE ALREADY HAVE A BASKETBALL THREAD

Sorry to take away from making fun of Maury Allen. I suppose that's at least tangentially baseball related?

(But you're right. I'll take it elsehwere.)

Did someone actually say Lemieux had a higher peak in a 28 team league than Orr did in a six team league? REALLY?

Orr was mostly in a 12 team league at the time, with his peak years occuring immediately after the expansion from 6 to 12. Lemieux's peak corresponded with a period of (relative) stability in league size in terms of teams, and with the massive influx of skill players from Europe and Russia. It's not as clear as you seem to think as to who had the better peak - Lemieux's 87/88 season was just ridiculous, especially when considering the general (lack of) quality of teammates.

I want more college football in this thread. SI this week has an interview with some of the lamest defenses of the current BCS system that I've ever read. AND they seem to have stopped running their "Cross Stat" puzzles, and for some reason there has been no baseball in the past few issues. Cancel my subscription! Until the swimsuit issue! And then cancel it because of the swimsuit issue!

WE ALREADY HAVE A BASKETBALL THREAD

Back of the bus!

1) The greatest shortstop of all time was Honus Wagner
2) The next greatest shortstops are very difficult to rank
3) This is greatly because it is very hard to measure defense relative to position, and shortstop defense is a major aspect of any shortstop's value
4) This is particularly a problem with Derek Jeter, because no one thinks any of the other "greatest SS of all-time" guys were actively bad at shortstop defense, but lots of people think Jeter was

So, one way to ask the question, rather than engaging with the sticky question of defense, is to say, how good would Jeter's defense have to be for him to be rated 2nd, or how bad would if have to be for him to fall out of the top 10? I collected the data from CHONE, and so this is how much better or worse these shortstops were, in batting / baserunning runs over replacement compared to Jeter. In other words, this is how much defense these shortstops need to make up on Jeter.

These are arranged: 3-year peak, 5-year peak, 10-year prime, career

+27, +60, +145, +420 - Honus Wagner, greatest of all time
----------------------
+07, +14, -07, -47 - Arky Vaughan
-19, -35, -103, -50 - Cal Ripken
-33, -51, -88, +37 - George Davis
-46, -69, -141, -115 - Barry Larkin
-45, -71, -151, -176 - Alan Trammell
-44, -72, -175, -109 - Bill Dahlen
-53, -82, -148, -113 - Luke Appling
----------------------
-81, -117, -189, -219 - Pee Wee Reese
-108, -164, -306, -351 - Ozzie Smith
----------------------
-12, -04, -106, -186 - Ernie Banks
+52, +106, +178, +220 - Alex Rodriguez

Arky Vaughan is right with Jeter on offense for 3-year peak, 5-year peak, and 10-year prime. Jeter will continue adding career value over Vaughna, and will beat him on perhaps 12-year prime. Without either a generous defensive rating for Jeter or a tough timeline adjustment, it's hard for me to see Jeter ahead of Vaughan.

Cal Ripken needs 7-10 runs of defensive value per year over Jeter to catch him. George Davis needs 9-10. Trammell, Larkin, Appling, and Dahlen all need ~15 runs. Pee Wee Reese needs about 25 runs, Ozzie needs ~35 runs.

Banks and ARod are tough cases due to time spent at other positions. ARod's eight years at shortstop are obviously superior to anyone else's top eight years, other than Wagner.

Derek Fisher won everywhere he went, including Arkansas-Little Rock which was a total nothingburger backwater in basketball before he got there.

Here's the collected data, if anyone cares-

95, 88, 86, 83, 78, 77, 74, 73, 69, 65, 63, 61, 59, 49, 38, 32, 30, 25, 19, 15 - Career: 1181, Defense: +4/yr - Wagner

94, 78, 70, 67, 61, 60, 60, 52, 52, 49, 44, 41, 32 - Career: 761, Defense: -9.5/yr - Jeter
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
94, 81, 74, 72, 63, 60, 56, 46, 46, 44, 35, 27, 13 - Career: 714, Defense +1.5/yr - Vaughan
76, 71, 62, 55, 55, 53, 48, 48, 46, 41, 41, 41, 39, 38, 30, 23, 23, 12 - Career: 798, Defense: +8/yr - Davis
85, 71, 67, 60, 52, 50, 47, 39, 38, 31, 26, 23, 23, 18, 18, 18, 16 - Career: 711, Defense: +9/yr - Ripken
77, 57, 55, 50, 49, 43, 43, 43, 42, 36, 28, 26, 23, 14, 12 - Career: 648, Defense: +2.5/yr - Appling
76, 63, 57, 54, 51, 48, 41, 41, 37, 34, 32, 28, 24, 17, 11, 11 - Career: 646, Defense: +1.5/yr - Larkin
79, 64, 55, 55, 45, 40, 33, 33, 32, 32, 32, 31, 28, 26, 22, 22 - Career: 652, Defense +7.5/yr Dahlen
85, 57, 55, 52, 50, 50, 47, 45, 30, 21, 18, 18, 17, 16, 14 - Career: 585, Defense: +4/yr - Trammell
----------
60, 52, 49, 47, 45, 45, 41, 41, 39, 35, 34, 22, 20, 10 - Career 542, Defense: +8/yr - Reese
56, 42, 36, 36, 36, 31, 29, 29, 21, 21, 20, 19, 14, 12, 11 - Career: 410, Defense: +13/yr - Ozzie
----------
84, 75, 71, 70, 66, 53, 45, 27, 23, 23, 19, 15 - Career: 575, Defense: +3/yr - Banks
100, 99, 95, 92, 90, 82, 73, 70, 61, 59, 55, 54, 54 - Career: 981, Defense: -.5/yr - Rodriguez
99, 92, 90, 82, 73, 70, 54, 54 - Rodriguez as a shortstop

Just to go over ARod as a shortstop. Just for his eight years at shortstop:

+39, +66, -29, -147

Doesn't take much defensive difference for ARod to have a superior 10-year prime at SS, compared to Jeter, even though ARod's 10-year prime was only eight years long.

I think every single SS on the list catches Jeter. The best available assessment of Jeter's defense over his career, I think, is Tango's WOWY system which controls for the influence of hitters, pitchers, and park on a fielder's opportunities. He has Jeter at about 300 runs below average, prior to this season. See his numbers here.

It's hard to overstate how bad Jeter has been. Alan Trammell has almost exactly the same number of innings at SS, but had 818 more assists, 233 more putouts, and 175 more DPs. Make whatever adjustment you want, and he's still hundreds and hundreds of runs ahead of Jeter. With Ripken, the comparison is even worse for Jeter.

Note that one problem with Rally's WAR is that it significantly undervalues defense by great fielders, and greatly understates how bad the weakest fielders are. That's because it adjusts the estimated opportunities a fielder had by the number of outs recorded. For a fuller discussion of this see the comments at Tango's thread linked above. So Jeter's defense is much worse than his WAR rating reflects.

Magic won everywhere he went, including Michigan State which was a nothingburger backwater in basketball before he got there.

It may have been nothing before he got there, but Magic did play alongside another first-round NBA draftee and a guy taken as the first pick of the second round at Michigan State. It wasn't Indiana State or anything.

Jordan took until his seventh season to win a ring despite playing much of that time with Charles Oakley and Orlando Woolridge as his best teammates, and this was his failing...because he didn't win as quickly as Magic, who joined a 50 win team featuring one of the three greatest centers in NBA history. Did I get that logic right?

Sort of, although we're really just dancing around the obvious - Michael Jordan never won anything until Scottie Pippen showed up. Pippen's selfless play and defensive wizardry allowed Jordan to focus on his true passion - throwing up as many shots as he could manage.

I think every single SS on the list catches Jeter. The best available assessment of Jeter's defense over his career, I think, is Tango's WOWY system which controls for the influence of hitters, pitchers, and park on a fielder's opportunities. He has Jeter at about 300 runs below average, prior to this season. See his numbers here.

That doesn't account for persistent effects of ball distribution / positioning for a shortstop who plays every day for the same club. I mean, I think it's most likely that Jeter's been a bad shortstop, but I don't think your level of certainty is justified. Even the best PBP stats seem to have some serious issues with accounting.

And as Tango said in the linked post, the size of the distribution seems too large, and he would only want to use it in a significantly regressed form.

While Gretzky was still a talent that would have offensively dominated any league, at any time, he happened to come into the NHL at a time where the gap between stars and scrubs was about as big as it had ever been. He's still the greatest hockey player ever, especially in career value, but his era did a lot to amplify the visibility of the difference.

Almost all of this is true for Bobby Orr, also.

I love the Hall of Merit, and I love hockey, so I wish there was a Hockey Hall of Merit. A couple of times I've gone searching the Internet for a comparable project, but every time I just get frustrated with the complete lack of understanding about the variations in league quality. The fact that major league hockey quadrupled in size, while only adding a couple of dozen Swedes to the player pool, apparently made no difference to the quality of play. And of course, Nick Lidstrom wouldn't have been anything special if he'd had to play against the great defensemen of the 1970s.

Does that help your hockey thread, Ryan?

I adore Jeter, but that article is just hilarious.

If Wagner is #1, Pop Lloyd is in the conversation for #2.

I should clarify my "doesn't account for". WOWY attempts to estimate ball distribution and positioning effects by accounting for all the pitchers, hitters, and parks involved in every defensive play which happened while a certain defender was on the field. It's a really cool stat.

My question, though, is how confident should we be that these adjustments will clear up significant issues of ball distribution? Because our data for estimating ball distribution also appears to be problematic at best, I don't really know where you'd start for making that estimate. Either way, I'm not comfortable with the assumption that ball distribution will even itself out once you account for pitchers and hitters - it will, to some degree, at least with a 10-year sample, but how confident should we be that it has evened out in a particular case, particularly in an extreme case like Jeter's?

Orr was mostly in a 12 team league at the time, with his peak years occuring immediately after the expansion from 6 to 12. Lemieux's peak corresponded with a period of (relative) stability in league size in terms of teams, and with the massive influx of skill players from Europe and Russia.

And of course during Orr's peak the WHA was at its zenith, pulling many top players out of the NHL.

If Wagner is #1, Pop Lloyd is in the conversation for #2.

Yes, Lloyd is the #2 guy and then Vaughan. Forgot about him.

The year Jordan sat out, the Bulls were an awful call from going to the Finals.

Unless you are referring to the conference finals, this is incorrect. The Knicks beat the Bulls in the east semis that year, and beat the Pacers in the conf finals.

Does that help your hockey thread, Ryan?

It does. I thank you for your efforts.

Does Keith Olbermann write under his own name AND use "Maury Allen" as a pen name?

Beat me to the punch on Magic. The difference between him and Jordan isn't even close to as great as common understanding would have it. Magic won everywhere he went, including Michigan State which was a nothingburger backwater in basketball before he got there. Freshmen didn't turn programs around by themselves at the time Magic did (*) (because most of the best upperclassmen were still playing). It took Jordan until his 7th year in the League to win his first ring. That's one big matzoh ball hanging out there. The year Jordan sat out, the Bulls were an awful call from going to the Finals. Jordan, as great as he was, didn't impact teams enough to be the greatest ever hands down.

Seriously? Do the sabermetric leanings of this website apply only to baseball? Barry Bonds has never won the World Series. Does that automatically exclude him from the discussion of all-time best players? This is as ridiculous as the idiots on TBS and ESPN that insist that guys having great seasons on bad teams can't be all-stars because good players on bad teams are bad players.

MCOA: With a career as long as Jeter's, the only factor we really need to control for is the pitchers. He certainly has faced a representative sample of hitters at this point, and any park effects for a SS are small. But WOWY controls for the pitchers Jeter has played behind, by comparing his performance to that of other SSs who played behind these same pitchers. that's a lot of different pitchers, who pitched in front of a wide variety of other SSs. (And I believe he treats young and old pitchers as 2 different pitchers, just in case they changed their pitching style).

For a season, the WOWY method could miss a lot. Or two seasons. But over Jeter's career? There's no way it could realistically be off by more than 20 or 30 runs. The numbers tell a very clear story: Jeter has cost the Yankees about 300 runs compared to an average SS. He's probably 500 to 600 runs worse than Ripken. Unusual ball distributions or "bad positioning" can't even begin to explain numbers like this.

And as Tango said in the linked post, the size of the distribution seems too large, and he would only want to use it in a significantly regressed form.

Yes, he said that. But if you keep reading, I explain in a later comment why the Total Zone calculations must force players closer to the mean than they really are, and Rally acknowledges this is true. So the distribution in TZ is far narrower than reality.

Football: Otto (as in "Football great Graham")?

"Raider HoF center Jim" you mean.


I can see the point about Gretzky (my 2nd-fave player-Mess is #1-and the guy who turned me onto hockey). Evidence would include the fact that nobody has done what his Oilers did since their last championship (won w/o The Great One I'll point out)-then again maybe those teams were just that good. [fan hat]Just about every postseason game someone on that team would do something amazing, and sometimes I could predict that they would score a goal as their opponent's defense broke down under the pressure. I really hope we get to see their like again, someday, because they were most definitely the most fun hockey team to watch, ever. If they had come to their collective peak in LA or NY, there's no telling how big the NHL could have gotten (eh, probably not).


Jeter and lack of range-never suspected it could be even higher than WAR shows-my impression was that defense can only swing so far because meaningful chances which separate the good from the bad only come along so often. But for a SS he'll get 5 chances a game, about the same as the number of plate appearances as a batter, so maybe it can be of that magnitude.


Jeter:range::Wilt:free throws. How much does his crappy FT percentage take away from his argument? I've seen people argue in favor of Shaq (similar player) that any free throw opportunities are a plus, forget the percentage, but doesn't missing half of them have a big impact vs. someone who makes 85% and draws as many?

Kareem won an exhibition game against the varsity team (the eventual national champions)

uhhh--no..that's the year Texas Western won it

I didn't RTFA or the thread, but what sport were they talking about?

Kareem won an exhibition game against the varsity team (the eventual national champions)

uhhh--no..that's the year Texas Western won it

Yeah, that was the one mediocre Wooden team between 64 and 75. I saw them play at Duke that year, back-to-back in Cameron and in Charlotte, and Duke had both games won long before halftime.

Of course the next year they played those back-to-back games in LA, and with Lew in the lineup it was a different story. (Lew wasn't Kareem until after he turned pro.)

uhhh--no..that's the year Texas Western won it

Blah, facts ruin another great story.

BTW both Chamberlain and Walton also led their freshman teams to wins over the varsity, and in Walton's case the UCLA 1970-71 varsity did go on to win the NCAA title.

It does. I thank you for your efforts.

Anytime, my compatriot.

BTW both Chamberlain and Walton also led their freshman teams to wins over the varsity, and in Walton's case the UCLA 1970-71 varsity did go on to win the NCAA title.

Walton was a great, great college player and I am glad that I get to use that story again. But the fact that he did lose a tournament game is knock against him when comparing his collegiate career with Kareem. Kareem was the best college player of all time IMO and there's really not an argument against him.

For a season, the WOWY method could miss a lot. Or two seasons. But over Jeter's career? There's no way it could realistically be off by more than 20 or 30 runs.

Since we don't know the variation of ball distribution, we can't know the limits of that variation.

That's the issue - I'm pretty sure I get what WOWY is doing, and I think that it's going to be a very useful tool on average. But to apply it to a particular case with this level of confidence, we need to have an estimate of its reasonable level of variation, and I don't believe that's known. (We also don't know the quality of the data it's based on, but now I'm just calling Dial's fury down from the heavens.)

But WOWY controls for the pitchers Jeter has played behind, by comparing his performance to that of other SSs who played behind these same pitchers.

How exactly does it do this? Who are the other shortstops who have played behind Mariano Rivera? Chien-Ming Wang? Andy Pettitte must have pitched 70 percent of his career innings in front of Jeter, with most of the rest in front of Adam Everett in a different park and different league. How are you going to get anything meaningful out of that?

Walton was a great, great college player and I am glad that I get to use that story again. But the fact that he did lose a tournament game is knock against him when comparing his collegiate career with Kareem. Kareem was the best college player of all time IMO and there's really not an argument against him.

Hard to argue with that. Walton himself certainly doesn't.

And what really stung about loss to NC State was that UCLA had drilled them earlier in the year, and in the semi-final UCLA scored the first seven points in the overtime and then collapsed completely.

Who are the other shortstops who have played behind Mariano Rivera? Chien-Ming Wang? Andy Pettitte must have pitched 70 percent of his career innings in front of Jeter.....How are you going to get anything meaningful out of that?

Tom, you should read the article (it's in the 2008 THT Annual). Obviously Rivera and Wang don't provide much context. But Jeter has played in front of 118 pitchers, many of whom also pitched in front of a range of other SSs. They gave up about 40,000 BIP with Jeter behind them, and 135,000 BIP with other SSs, so it gives you a very robust comparison. And these pitchers, as a group, were basically average when not backed by Jeter in terms of the % of balls turned into outs by the SS. But Jeter made far fewer outs, equivalent to about 25 runs per season.

Since we don't know the variation of ball distribution, we can't know the limits of that variation.

Look, we've got 40,000 BIP to work with. If the typical distribution allows a SS to turn 12.5% of these into outs, then random variation would give you a 95% confidence interval of +/-.003. So maybe Jeter was extremely unlucky, and should have fielded just 12.2%. But he only got 11.6%, so 2/3 of his shortfall remains. And by this logic, it's just as likely that he was really 100 runs worse than Tango estimated.

The bottom line is this: the pitchers in front of Jeter give up a normal distribution of balls in front of other SSs. The hitters are typical hitters. And yet still Jeter has made 400 to 500 fewer plays than he should have. The buck -- though not the groundballs -- stops with Jeter.

Great line, Guy.

Tom, you should read the article (it's in the 2008 THT Annual).

The link you provided wasn't working. I'll read it when I can get into it again.

The Columnists: Allen: Yankee shortstop may be the game’s all-time best

Well, I might have brought my arrowhead collection. I didn't, so I'm not going to look for it!

The fact that major league hockey quadrupled in size, while only adding a couple of dozen Swedes to the player pool, apparently made no difference to the quality of play. And of course, Nick Lidstrom wouldn't have been anything special if he'd had to play against the great defensemen of the 1970s.

Stan Fischler, is that you?