Joe Posnanski's Top 100 Players in Baseball

I know this article has been written a million times before, but it's a lot more fun when Joe P writes it:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/joe_posnanski/07/21/top.100/index.html

Thoughts? Arguments? Concurrence?

oh man i <3 this guy

i guess the obv quibble would be a-rod - the guy is getting old and is likely deteriorating, and his home run numbers are pretty obv juiced by playing in new yankee stadium - and if this was a "who would you draft" thing i dont know if i would want a guy who is hitting .250 as opposed to like... justin upton even

I thought it was pretty audacious to put the grinkster in the #4 spot, even if his performance has maybe warranted it.

greinke, lincecum & haren are almost interchangeable as the #1 pitcher imo

All the American League 1B at 14-17 seem silly to me.

xp Agree, but I'd still take Lincecum marginally over the other two to pitch a single game cuz of the strikeouts.

ya - greinke's slot was the first headscratcher to jump out at me.

Ibanez at 26 is just a joke.

23. Derek Jeter, SS, Yankees

Would take McCann, or Escobar, or Gallardo, or Phillips, or just about anyone behind Inge, prior to Inge.

McCann at 81 is fucking nuts. He's top 25 probalby.

A-Rod at 6 or whatever and Chipper at 87 is mindblowingly weird.

ibanez kinda makes sense if you follow his criteria of who is the best right now at this very moment

i guess the obv quibble would be a-rod - the guy is getting old and is likely deteriorating, and his home run numbers are pretty obv juiced by playing in new yankee stadium - and if this was a "who would you draft" thing i dont know if i would want a guy who is hitting .250 as opposed to like... justin upton even

― igloo-fifty-four-quart-sports-ice-chest.jpg (J0rdan S.), Wednesday, July 22, 2009 4:39 PM (58 minutes ago)

really dude?
arod - .252/.401/.546
"justin upton" (i know u were just trolling but) - .291/.361/.525

and those arod numbers are including that awful start

i'm like the only dude that doesn't like joe pos :(

upton was probably a bad example because he doesn't walk much, but let's go with... idk matt kemp

a-rod - .252/.401/.546
kemp - 323/.390/.507

or
mccan - .305/.379/.508

or
votto - .345/.430/.592

take any of those four guys and switch them w/ a-rod (who has inflated home run numbers due to new yankee and has a million more rbi chances being on a team like the yankees than say the reds or dbacks) and they are having comparable if not better years

"ibanez kinda makes sense if you follow his criteria of who is the best right now at this very moment"

I guess, but there has to be some forecasting to it too. I mean who'll be the rest for the rest of the season ya know?

I don't really like him either, CAD.

Uh aren't Votto's #s inflated by playing in Bandbox Park?

And it's not like A-Rod's going to stop playing in New Yankee Stadium so really who cares about that.

Agree that McCann and Kemp are seriously underrated though.

upton was probably a bad example because he doesn't walk much, but let's go with... idk matt kemp

a-rod - .252/.401/.546
kemp - 323/.390/.507

or
mccan - .305/.379/.508

or
votto - .345/.430/.592

take any of those four guys and switch them w/ a-rod (who has inflated home run numbers due to new yankee and has a million more rbi chances being on a team like the yankees than say the reds or dbacks) and they are having comparable if not better years

― igloo-fifty-four-quart-sports-ice-chest.jpg (J0rdan S.), Wednesday, July 22, 2009 5:59 PM (15 minutes ago)

okkkkk but 1) who cares about rbis and 2) arod had a horrible start, he's still a better player than those dudes

read some of the comments section re this list and ppl rightfully kind of livid over him missing out on markakis AND adam jones and even brian roberts

nflandrum
Arlington , VA
Brian Roberts leads the AL in doubles not Pedroia, is tied in runs scored with Pedroia, has more RBIs, total bases, and steals and plays on a worse team. He has also grounded into 10 fewer double plays. Glad to see major market teams getting the standard bias. This list is rediculous.

hmmmm.......

tragic that roberts' peak has been wasted on the o's imo

soo many people in the comment are mega butthurt over cole hamels not making the list - the guy has a 5.82 era and a .337 baa ON THE ROAD

lots of lols from "HOW CAN THE MVP FROM WHEN IT MATTERS THE MOST NOT MAKE THIS LIST!"

lots of stl fans getting butthurt over no yadi - dude is an amazing defender but...

what catchers made it? he's no less than the 5th best catcher in baseball right now isn't he?

Jair Jurrjens should be on this list even if he didn't have the best name in the game.

no mccann until fucken 81??? eatadiccup posnanski

i normally love poz but this is DOGSHIT i hope he is brutally murdered

it kinda feels like he just went to his yahoo league, sorted players by their ranking, and copy/pasted it into a SI column

uh this has nothing to do about this article, just a general question and i assume some ppl will open this thread:

how do you have a lower obp than BA, as yuniesky bentancourt has had in his time with the royals?

sacrifices lower your OBP but not your BA

thank u shasta

Finished with the first 10 on his 100-Greatest-Ever list:

100. Curt Schilling
99. Cool Papa Bell
98. Ron Santo
97. Lou Whitaker
96. Ichiro Suzuki
95. Mariano Rivera
94. Paul Waner
93. Craig Biggio
92. Old Hoss Radbourn
91. Robin Roberts

Prediction, based on stray comments he's made here and there: Mays, not Ruth, will be #1.

I know all the arguments against Ryan (#87), they've been widely discussed. But wow at this:

Since Deadball ended — it was a different game in Deadball — who has thrown the most no-hitters?
A: Nolan Ryan. Of course. He threw the seven no-hitters, most ever even if you include Deadball.

OK. Next. Since Deadball, who threw the most one-hitters?
A: Nolan Ryan. He’s tied with Bob Feller with 12 one-hitters.

Since Deadball, who threw the most two-hitters?
A: Nolan Ryan. He threw 18 of them.

Since Deadball, who threw the most three-hitters?
A: Nolan Ryan. He threw 31.

Think about this for a moment. Nolan Ryan threw 69 complete games where he allowed three or fewer hits. That’s more than Roger Clemens...and Pedro Martinez...and Randy Johnson. COMBINED. It’s more than Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale combined, even if you throw Greg Maddux on top.

I have a hunch that it's a lot less impressive that it seems ... i.e. how many walks and runs did he give up in those games? He threw "only" 61 shutouts, so in most of those three hitter or less games he probably gave up runs and maybe didn't win the game.

thats covered pretty well in the remainder of the article

OK, I hadn't read it yet.

Couldn't resist checking, so I went through his game logs. Not nearly as onerous as it might seem. The games in question were easy to spot, so it only took about 45 minutes.

I only came up with 66, so I must have missed three. I kept track of IP, H, ER, and decisions, not walks and strikeouts. I wanted to do it quickly. Some of the walk totals were indeed crazy--8 or 9 sometimes--and the strikeouts were indeed awesome. We already knew that, though--I wanted to see if the walks led to runs, and if the runs led to losses. For the 66 games I found:

IP: 590.2
H: 138
ER: 36
ERA: 0.55
W-L: 62-4

It's hard to know whether those games are less impressive than they seem, because there's nothing to compare them to--no one else threw that many low-hit games. If Greg Maddux had thrown those games, obviously they would have been light-years tidier in terms of walks. He probably would have given up fewer runs, too, although maybe he would have given up more home runs than Ryan (who didn't give up many). Sixty-six games of Pedro doing that would have been more impressive, I'm sure. But that's all hypothetical--they didn't do it. If Johnson or Koufax were in the 40s or thereabouts, maybe that'd form some basis of comparison.

Nice work ... I looked at a few years of game logs ('77 + '78 and '89 and '90) and it was about what I expected -- the first group had games of the 2 H 6 BB 8 K 0 ER variety, and the second group was more like a Justin Verlander special, 2 H 2 BB 12 K (except for the pitch totals ... just ridiculous ... several 140+ pitch games in '89, including a 164 pitch, 8 IP 13 K game). Pos claims that Ryan just wanted to dominate hitters and couldn't care less about the walks, but something obviously changed between the late 70's and late 80's. How much of it was the hitters and how much of it was Ryan learning how to control his pitches?

I think it was the latter. What's kind of amazing is that it coincided with a drop in his strikeout rate (actually that's not amazing) but no real drop in effectiveness (kinda interesting) but then rose like crazy again in the latter part of his career (okay that's bonkers). Also the comparison between Fangraphs and B-R WAR is really striking for Ryan. Like if you just focus on peripherals he looks amazing (esp. at the end) but in terms of actual outcome he's basically more than a win worse for every year played.

w/out looking, he figured out how not to walk ppl when he was about 35, right?

31 (1978) is the last year the walk rate is just bonkers (over 5). It trends down after that (some spikes though). It never goes below 3 a game though (mostly between 3.5 and 4.5).

Ryan's total # of career pitches must be insane

Randy Johnson just got better and better controlling the strike zone:

1988-92: 5.7 BB/9 (range: 2.4-7.9)
1993-98: 3.3 (2.7-3.8)
1999-03: 2.5 (2.1-2.8)
2004-09: 2.1 (1.6-2.9)

His K/9 never dropped below 10.0 from '91-02, peaking in Arizona.

Johnson was definitely amazing. Way better pitcher than Ryan even was.

randy would've had ten consecutive 300k seasons without the strike and injuries.

and w/ryan, his three best WHIP seasons came during his first three seasons in texas (his age 42-44 seasons!)

i mean really if he'd learned to pitch earlier in his career he could have been one of the top five pitchers ever.

It wasn't just Ryan though, the changes in BB/9 and K/BB rates were a general trend in both leagues. A 2.5 K/BB used to be excellent, and plenty if good pitchers got away with walking 3-4/9IP. Some of the changes had to be driven by the hitters. Lineups used to be more unbalanced, so pitchers could get away with walks more easily because there were three or four banjo hitters in every lineup. That changed during the 80's and was definitely over with by the 90's, and pitchers had to adjust.

lol - banjo hitters?!

Used to be a common term, not sure of the origin. Maybe if you couldn't hit, you tended to swing the bat like Pete Seeger.

http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=all&qual=0&type=1&season=2011&month=0&season1=1901&ind=0&team=0%2css&rost=0&players=0&sort=0%2cd

League-wise there's not an enormous difference in BB/9 or K/BB rates between Ryan's first year and his last, AFAICT.
The big drop in BB/9 comes in the mid-50s.

TT is assigned to read the Dickson Baseball Dictionary over Christmas

Starting in 1973 (when the late 60's/early 70's pitchers' era ended, runs/game spiked and continued rising steadily throughout the 80's), pitching went from roughly 5 K/9, 3.3 BB/9, and 1.5 K/BB (holding steady for most of the 70's), to 5.6 K/9, 3.2 BB/9, 1.75 K/BB in 1989 (with many year to year fluctuations). I guess it's more correct to say that K's and K/BB went up steadily but not BB/9, which is really just an increase in K's.

Obviously the changes aren't as drastic as Ryan's numbers, but he's an extreme case. Still, the same trends occurred with other great pitchers of the time. Steve Carlton became a better control pitcher in the 80's (until he got too old), Jim Palmer won Cy Young awards with K/BB ratios that were far worse than the best pitchers of the late 80's, etc.

Just wanted to make note of 1970, which was one of the weird offensive blips you occasionally get (1987 being another). Much more drastic in the NL, but the AL spiked too. It's a year that's always fascinated me because it was the year I became a fan.

1969 AL: 4.09 RPG, 1649 HR, .246/.321/.369
1969 NL: 4.05 RPG, 1470 HR, .250/.319/.369

1970 AL: 4.17 RPG, 1746 HR, .250/.322/.379
1970 NL: 4.52 RPG, 1683 HR, .258/.329/.392

1971 AL: 3.87 RPG, 1484 HR, .247/.317/.364
1971 NL: 3.91 RPG, 1379 HR, .252/.316/.366

There were a bunch of huge offensive years in '70, some of them real flukes:

Yaz -- .329/.452/.592, 44 HR
Billy Williams -- .322/.391/.586, 42 HR
Tony Perez -- .317/.401/.589, 40 HR

Aaron, Bench, McCovey, Rico Carty, Dick Allen, long list--but also Jim Hickman, Bernie Carbo, Dick Dietz, Wes Parker, players who didn't do much hitting for the rest of their careers. None of which takes away from your point--pitching again dominated in '71 and '72, and it was '73 when things started to shift. Not sure what happened in '70. Same teams (almost--Seattle moved to Milwaukee in '70); new Astro-turf parks were opening around then, so maybe that figured in.

i'm loving this series so much

Great entry on Shoeless Joe.

Discussion on Willie McCovey post about whether MOST feared hitter tag has a big racial component with a lot of people naming a bunch of amazing African-American hitters and then struggling to remember if white players from the same era were also called feared (part of me looks at someone calling Dick Allen, Willie McCovey the most feared hitters and thinks duh those dudes were crazy great hitters). I think any racial significance/connotation has largely melted away now (certainly in recent years McGwire, Giambi, Piazza were all called feared hitters, not to mention Brett and Boggs from when I was a kid) but what do you think? Was it a thing?

http://shirtssince09.spreadshirt.com/the-preeminent-slugger-of-our-time-A7091470

most feared pitchers always have to have a 'stache is all I know

That McCovey discussion is really interesting. For me, I think the idea of being a feared hitter might be tied in with left-handedness. In the '80s, the two guys who scared me most against the Jays were Brett and Mattingly; didn't get to actually see as much baseball in the '70s, but the guy that came to mind was Parker. They're all left-handed, as was McCovey. I don't know that it makes rational sense, but there's something about the way a left-handed hitter is coiled up the plate that presses a button with me.

Allen though was a right-y (as were McGwire and Piazza and Thomas and Pujols). I don't know it's interesting. I can buy that in the sixties-seventies there might have been a racial component to the tag, but at same time were Mantle, Mathews, Yaz and Schmidt for example really not referred to as "feared"? Seems hard to believe somehow...

Even just a cursory google search of Eddie Mathews and feared comes up with 204K hits (50K more than McCovey and 20K more than Allen) so now I'm thinking this whole thing is bullshit.

My left-handed thing was purely subjective--it's just an image I've internalized of left-handers like Brett and Mattingly coming out of a coiled-up stance and crushing line-drives all over the place.

If you used IBB, you could probably study this. The thing that would be difficult, though, is controlling for who comes up after these hitters, which obviously figures in to the decision to issue an IBB.

You should post the results of your Google search on Posnanski's site, Alex, in response to the guy who put the theory out there.

continuing to love this countdown. i was already familiar with arky vaughan, but it was nice to read about his apparent defensive skillz.

you know what would make the countdown even better? just one photograph to go along with each entry.

(Provided Don Mossi or Willie McGee don't show up.)

http://maxcdn.fooyoh.com/files/attach/images/1068/926/212/005/etpicture_33.jpg

lol

I wouldn't be surprised if there was a racial component but the 60's and 70's were the peak for African-American involvement in baseball (I think a quarter or a third of the players were non-white) and nearly all the very best position players were African-American. There weren't enough superstar white power hitters around to even make a comparison. When the best hitters were white, they were also feared, e.g. searching "mickey mantle feared hitter" turns up a billion hits. However, I'd have to go through those and see if he was "feared" when he played or if he was described that way when his career was over.

what about "loathed"...
i want to know what ethnicity made up the most "loathed" people in baseball.
i'll bet it was the fucking dutch.

He's really emphasizing peak value and "potential" in this series ... Duke Snider was great but could have been even better, Monte Irvin was great but imagine how he would have played if he'd been in MLB from the very start, and so on.

Thinking Juan Guzman might show up then: "If only he could have clocked down to 45 seconds between pitches."

Yeah he's clearly very focused on peak for some of these picks. Based on that it's hard to argue against Snider whose for a time was pretty awesome (just unfortunately less awesome than the two CFers in the same city at the same time).

In keeping with all that, Sadaharu Oh at #69--and the expected sniping in the comments section. Myself, no idea. If he'd played a little closer to Hideo/Ichiro's time in Japan--there's a 10-year gap there--I'd feel more confident in assessing him.

His numbers were certainly awesome:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/japan/player.cgi?id=oh----000sad

Roy Campanella post seems to have brought out the trolls but I'm not clear what's controversial about him (admittedly you do have to kinda assume that that from 20-25 he was also the best catcher in the world, but given the fact that most independent observers THOUGHT exactly that not sure what issue there is either). In fact all it's doing for me is indicating how fucking weird C WAR is.

Yeah, I don't know why some of the commenters (a couple especially) don't take this in the spirit in which it's written, which is more like a combination of the 100 Best Players and the 100 Best Stories. Having said that, it was interesting to find out that Campanella's home/road splits were so drastic; Snider had a moderate split, Robinson didn't have much of a split at all.

The entire list is full of assumptions about how good some of the Negro League players really were (including the ones that later played in MLB), I figured his readers would have accepted that by now. When he puts Josh Gibson in the top 20 the trolls will have a field day.

Right but these are not huge assumptions since a lot of these dudes were pretty great when they did get to mlb and best African-American players of next gen were clearly equal or better than white contemporaries. Oh is as clemenza points out biggest leap since there is no baseline.

No question they were great but trying to assign them a ranking in a top 100 is very speculative, or like clemenza said, a combination of greatness and storyline. Like for Monte Irvin, Pos assumes that he would have had at least another 7-8 seasons that were at least as good as the few he had in MLB, and ranks him more or less according to that assumption. And he was more or less done as a star player by 35, which might or might not mean anything (plenty of HOFers declined quickly in their 30's). There's just no way to know, but at the same time you can't leave these guys out of a discussion about the best players of all time. Basically I don't envy anyone who tries to rank that generation of African-American players.

Right but by the same token you have to do adjustments of all the pre-integration MLB ballplayers as well. The whole exercise is very speculative and single out Negro Leagues ballplayers seems a bit odd.

I too btw find Campanella's H/R splits fascinating.

It's not the same thing though. You could say that in an integrated league, Babe Ruth would have been 10% less productive and correct his career numbers based on that. That's different than inventing ten prime-level seasons for a guy who wasn't playing (=was barred) in the league at the time. They're both speculative but to very different degrees, IMO. f

But yeah, there's no real way to be sure, etc.

They were playing in another league though at a very high level. 10% less productive (and it could be more than that really) is also kind of a big too because a lot of the big larger than life "records" are ones that were from that era. If Ruth only has 600 home runs and/or hit 54 in single season then I think it would diminish his stature definitely.

If you were applying a universal yardstick over all time, 90-95 of the greatest 100 are likely playing right now.

xpost

They were playing at a high level but their stats aren't reliable (or weren't kept at all), so we need to rely more on first hand accounts, which are probably as inaccurate and prone to exaggeration as stories about MLB old timers are. It's not a big deal if you're trying to find who the best players were, or even who deserves to be in the HOF. But if you're making a list of the top 100 players of all time and trying to compare players across different leagues and eras, then you need to look at the numbers or else it's mainly just guesswork.

I pulled the 10% number out of thin air, it could definitely be more than that.

disturbing thought: pete kozma may be one of the top 2000 baseball players who ever lived

*shudders*

I would say the whole exercise of ranking the 100 best players is mainly guesswork. :D I mean really how do you compare Ty Cobb and Rickey Henderson? They were playing completely different games.

Story of Ty Cobb carrying Kid Nichols stats around slaying me.

Great comment on that post that can apply to our discussions on this board too (new board description?)

How dare you rank this player so low or so high!
WAR
So much better than player x who I presume you’ve ranked much higher
So much worse than player x who I assume hasn’t made your list
Morris! Garvey!
(If you don’t like it why do you read)
(Park effects, stories!)
I have ranked so and so in this spot.
My rankings are perfect!
Your rankings should match mine exactly
EXACTLY!
blah blah blah blah
yadda, yadda, yadda
(stop posting your opinion)
(adjustments for player quality)
Negro Leaguers shouldn’t be ranked
The Japanese play baseball?
PEDs, PEDs, PEDs!
(Amphetamines!)
More Home Runs is all that matter
(more walks is all that matters)
Strikeouts
(teams with bad defenses)
RBI, RBI, RBI, FEARED!
(Teh Fear!)
(Stop capitalizing)
This list is biased!
This list is not consistent with other lists
STATS
STATS
STATS
(Stories)
(Fun)
(Publish a book)
Grammar error!
typo!
Uninformed!
(thanks for writing so much!)
This player was the worst, doesn’t belong in the top 200!
Look at my list! Use MY LIST!!
Jack Morris!

Murray so relatively high has surprised me more than anything so far. I'm fine with it, but I'm sure there'll be lots of pushback in the comments. A real mystique player when such things ruled the day, right in the middle of the pack of HOF first baseman by newer metrics. But, again, a great story for Posnanski.

Yeah that's not where I see Murray at all.

I'm OK with it. He's been favouring peak over career but the career guys still belong somewhere on the list.

At least 5 more dudes should be ahead of him at first base though (Gehrig, Foxx, Pujols, Bagwell, Thomas) and then maybe some turn of the century guys. That seems like a lot of first baseman.

Love seeing Reggie so relatively high. When I get all wishy-washy nostalgic about '70s baseball, he's probably second on my I-want-to-go-back-there list after Fidrych. That one segment in the Ken Burns series where he jokes about how good he is at shoveling it out to reporters (right after a typically pious interview) is priceless.

Reggie's numbers are mind-boggling when they're scaled to a 1996 run scoring context. Basically if he were around in the 1990's then he would have had Jim Thome's career, i.e. a 600+ HR three true outcomes player (and sure enough, their WAR's are almost the same).

Stearns article great. Never even heard of that dude.

John Stearns? where, where?

John Stearns actually mentioned in Yount piece, but Turkey Leg Stearnes was who I meant above.

#57 is Roy Hobbs. Reads like something from a movie.

Most striking thing about Hobbs was his stunning resemblance to Robert Redford.

not true, the Hobbs I know struck out

I never read of a "Leg" in Turkey Stearnes' name before

Obviously I just wanted it to be there so much I read it in. :D

I was keeping up until yesterday afternoon, but god, they're up to 171 comments on the Jeter post.

Looking at Chipper Jones' #s I am SHOCKED by how not awful the defensive rating for him is. I always thought he had a bit of a rep as a poor defender but these actually look pretty respectable.

The Jeter article was probably the sloppiest one of the series thus far, he just completely misrepresents him. He wasn't average in his first couple of years once you account for his position (which is clear from his oWAR, and he was RoY in '96), he wasn't the clear "leader" of the '98 team (except in retrospect), to name just two examples.

Plus, the idea that Jeter didn't do well in MVP voting = Jeter was underrated is a total fallacy, because being CAP'N JETES THE FACE OF BASEBALL doesn't mean he's the best player in the league who deserves the MVP. There might be two years where he had a legit claim to the MVP. It's like saying that everyone loved Mo Rivera, he dominated at his position for 15+ years, so why didn't he ever win a Cy Young? It's not really much of a mystery.

yeah, he was 2nd and 1st among AL nonpitchers in WAR in '98 & '99, only in the top 10 twice more.

His most valuable stat might be having 540+ PA for 17 straight seasons (all but two of those were 650+).

Wow Steve Carlton is crazy. I completely repressed that for some reason (even though I vaguely remember that interview when it happened).

Whoa, I knew he was eccentric but didn't realize he was a conspiracy nut.

he's the Woody Allen of Cy Young winners

(sorry, posting on behalf of "Jim Bunning truthers")

I thought the breakdown of his '72 season was amazing. He was lousy for a full month, Pedro/Koufax the rest of the way. And, by Joe's research, the team didn't make as much of a difference as you might have assumed (some, yes).

Junior at #51. Good pick. Don't know if I could think of another player where a) the career totals are imposing, but b) there's this albatross of coulda-shoulda because of how they were compiled. I was so caught up in him and Thomas for those first few years. And yes, it was probably clear already, before 2000, that Bonds was the superior player.

This got me thinking -- if Bonds had had Griffey's career after '98, how would he have been remembered? Everything he did from 2000-2005 also helped remind people of how great he had been before that. I guess he'd be lumped together with Thomas as a guy who was otherworldly for a few years, and then hung around compiling stats with one or two great seasons mixed in there. He wouldn't be considered a top-50 all time player, IOW.

Interesting. Griffey began to break down after his age 30 season, his first with the Reds (which was far from his peak, and continued a clear and ominous decline, but he did hit 40 home runs and make some more progress towards catching Aaron); Bonds began his science-fiction surge at age 35, the very same year. So there's a five-year age gap when their fortunes cross. At first I was going to try a time-shifting thing, creating two players based strictly on age: 1) Griffey's totals through age 30 + Bonds' totals starting at age 31; 2) Bonds' totals through age 30 + Griffey's starting at age 31. Those numbers are absurd: young Griffey/old Bonds hits 908 home runs. Instead, here's what you get if you ignore the age gap and just switch them starting in the year 2001:

Griffey (1989-2000) + Bonds (2001-2007): retires at age 37 with 706 HR, 8743 AB, 2661 H, 5353 TB, 1852 BB, 1806 R, 1861 RBI, 216 SB, .304/.429/.612

Bonds (1986-2000) + Griffey (2001-2010): retires at age 45 with 686 HR, 10905 AB, 3055 H, 5894 TB, 2018 BB, 2,083 R, 1971 RBI, 482 SB, .280/.393/.540

Perceptions would obviously be changed...have to think about that.

.280/.393/.540 is about what I would have expected from the young Bonds/old Griffey combo, but the counting stats are a lot more impressive that I thought they'd be. You have to figure that the old Bonds would have never have played past 40 since he couldn't stay healthy, but that would still leave him with about 600 HR, 1700 RBI. So maybe it's Jim Thome's career power numbers and slash stats, plus the great baserunning and defense. That *should* make him a top-30 all time player, but I'm not sure people would have seen him that way (although 600 HR would be hard to ignore).

Before I got into baseball, Ken Griffey Jr was one of the 7-8 non-expos names I knew in baseball.

Yes, that makes more sense--add Griffey's totals only for 2001-2007, up to the point where Bonds actually retired (which is what your original post hinted at). Here's what you get: 649 HR, 9930 AB, 2832 H, 5507 TB, 1868 BB, 1966 R, 1836, 482 SB, .285/.399/.555.

Top 30? Just as raw numbers, that's in range of Mays: 660 HR, 338 SB, .302/.384/.557. Mays would move ahead when you start adjusting for era, but young Bonds/old Griffey would still be in the Top 30 with room to spare, I would think.

Something I wrote in 1993 for Radio On:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7SjjGanCdBAZ25ya1c2b0FILVk/edit?usp=sharing

I remembered it as being just about Griffey, Thomas, and Gonzalez, but it's also about Bonds and Olerud. I get a little carried away at times--you can tell I'm in full swoon--but I think most of it holds up. I laughed when I read the words "just flipped through the encyclopedia"--a lot of leg work back then. And everyone can be thankful we have WAR instead of "Run Factor."

Not from the top 100 players list, but this is fantastic:

http://joeposnanski.com/joeblogs/the-dutch-leonard-affair/

Yeah that was great history.

http://joeposnanski.com/joeblogs/no-47-albert-pujols/

at least 25 spots too low, imo

Yeah that does seem low to me too.

He's 40th all time in WAR (27th for position players) so it's a defensible ranking based on career value, but the entire writeup focuses on his peak value, so the ranking makes no sense to me.

maybe he's just protecting the list in case pujols continues to spiral downward for the next 5 years and then retires, but the whole post is about how his only company is guys like ruth, williams, mays, etc, so putting him at 47 is weird

xp yeah

I bet it's a lot of damn pitchers lurking in the wings

I think he's hedging his bets too. If Pujols continues to decline, the ranking won't look that unusual down the road--even though, yes, continued decline won't alter his peak value. Without necessarily saying so, I think Posnanski has factored in career value, which is currently a bit up in the air.

I'd have to go back and look at the rest of the list, but you could probably predict exactly how many pitchers are coming and exactly who they are.

if he was going to punish players for being mid-career, he should have cut off his list at players who retired by 2013

also i can predict the future and have a feeling pujols is going to have a great year this year (i will probably be totally wrong on that but it's a gut feeling i can't deny)

He's been favouring peak over career value for the entire series up until now, so to hedge on Pujols when he was bullish on so many other players (who were nowhere near as dominant as Pujols was) is a bit messed up.

The thing Posnanski just posted on serendipitous timing--Catfish Hunter vs. Jim Kaat--is quite good. Trying to think of which players today might be benefiting from good timing or getting lost because of bad timing. Example: if you're a player with a broad range of skills--good average, medium-range power, good fielding and baserunning--you'll be treated more favorably today by writers and in awards voting than you would have in 1985, when you were more likely to have been overlooked. (As you should.) If you're a guy who knocks in 100 runs and doesn't do much else, you've come along at least 20 years too late.

Well but part of his point around the timing thing is just who is around when you get inducted. It's pretty clear to me that Biggio had retired in 2005 (with 3000 hits of course) he'd probably be in whereas because he's going to get stuck in this glut of dudes he might have to wait another 3 or 4 years to be inducted. Mussina also probably would look at lot better if he retired before this massive glut of pitchers. I mean value of walks (for batters) and strikeouts (for pitchers) and defensive range probably more understood now than well anytime previous, but I don't know that Raines would have been more or less likely to be thought of as a HOFer in 1984 than 2014 because of it...

I would think for sure there would be a better appreciation of Raines today than in the mid-'80s, when James and Pete Palmer seemed like a chorus of two. I don't know if I can point to a specific player today as evidence, as I'm not sure if there's anyone around who's really similar to Raines. (I don't know, is there? I might be missing someone obvious. You can't use Trout, who's at a whole other level. If you could merge Ellsbury's 2009 and 2011 seasons in the right way, you might have a Raines-type player.))

The only recent player who's in Raines' top 10 B-R sim scores is Johnny Damon (3rd).

If Berra's that high, Bench must be really high. Has Piazza come up yet? I'd put him ahead of Berra, I-Rod too.

directly comparing greats from different eras is very often arbitrary.

Of course, but that's what we do, right? Probably more with baseball than any other sport--being a fan just wouldn't be the same without such comparisons.

My god this is taking forever.

He's stalling, because he wants to be sure that Mark Buehrle's for real.

He's stalling because it's taking longer than he thought to process the paperwork for his entry into the witness protection program, which he'll need after ranking Barry Bonds at #1.

ha!

(xpost to self) Joe can get on with his countdown now.

I don't want to complain too strenuously, because this is available for free, it has been excellent, and it will finish. But Posnanski sure does take a lot of detours between updates. Today, the best places to get ribs.

I liked his post about A Few Good Men, the Demi Moore character always pissed me off too.

It's alive!

I actually thought Pedro might sneak into the Top 25, being on the short list of pitchers where there's a reasonable argument he was the most dominant peak-value pitcher ever (let's say three or four best seasons). Who else...Grove, Clemens, both Johnsons*, a few others. (I'll add Koufax, too, though his mystique has taken a hit because of park-era adjustments.)

*not Josh--saw enough of that guy

Digging way back but Christy Matthewson ?

Yes.

There are a bunch of ways you could arrive at such a list. I picked an easy one I could check really fast: four best seasons, all of them 8.0+ WAR, all of them post-1900.

1. Walter Johnson – 51.2
2. Grover Alexander – 42.9
3. Cy Young – 41.7
4. Roger Clemens – 40.8
5. Lefty Grove – 40.3
6. Christy Mathewson – 39.3
7. Randy Johnson – 38.7
8. Pedro Martinez – 38.4
9. Rube Waddell – 38.2
10. Bob Feller – 37.2
11. Robin Roberts – 35.1

Koufax, Maddux, and Gibson just missed, with a fourth season between 7.0-8.0. (Same for Halladay, although he never reached 9.0 in any one season.) Depending upon how many seasons you set the bar at, and what WAR figure you use--three of 10+, five of 7+--you get a different list.

Johnson #1 is way ahead. Truthfully, I'm a little skeptical of all pitching stats pre-Ruth. I know all adjustments are made, but once you eliminate the home run, it's a very different game. And, I have to believe, an easier one for pitchers.

Another point in W. Johnson's favor: although he had lots of 10+ seasons scattered throughout his career, his four best were consecutive (1912-1915).

You can sponsor Walter Johnson's Baseball Reference page for $165. Max Scherzer's will set you back $265, A.J. Burnett's $385. Please tell me at least one of those is a typo.

lol

Love Pedro. Ranking seems about right because while esp. those two years (99-00) are off the chart amazing once you go to 5-7-10 year peaks he has a lot of contemporary company and all of those dudes (he's still slightly ahead of Maddux at 7 year, but he falls behind Johnson and Clemens at 4) were better and for longer.

Yeah, the more you stretch out the concept of peak--or the more heavily you weight career--the more Pedro starts to edge downwards.

Any thoughts on how much you trust the statistical dominance of Johnson/Mathewson/Alexander? Johnson's in his mid-30s when Ruth starts to hit home runs, and while he's still very, very good, he's not dominant anymore. I don't know how much of that is attibutable to age, and how much to a changing, less pitcher-friendly game.

Just to clarify, it's more like early-mid 30s, and it's not a 10 or 20% decline, it's 50-60%.

i think it's really foolish to compare players across eras, period, but especially so pre-ruth. it was just a completely different game then. you can say walter johnson was the best pitcher of his era, but there's just no way to realistically compare him to seaver or clemens or other dominant pitchers

That's my thinking exactly. People always put the 19th century to one side, but they're still more or less playing a 19th century game until Ruth comes along. Clearly Johnson and Mathewson and Young and Alexander were great pitchers; I just have doubts about whether they were as great as their 12/13/14 WARs would have it.

I think WAR is still somewhat useful for comparing pitchers of the pre-Ruth era to each other, just not to players from the modern era. Basic counting and results-based stats show a pitcher like Mathewson to be dominant, contemporaneous accounts describing him say the same, and his WAR also points to the same thing. But comparing him to Pedro Martinez is just pointless

No argument with the idea of comparing them to each other--pretty clearly Johnson was the greatest pitcher of his era.

"Any thoughts on how much you trust the statistical dominance of Johnson/Mathewson/Alexander? Johnson's in his mid-30s when Ruth starts to hit home runs, and while he's still very, very good, he's not dominant anymore. I don't know how much of that is attibutable to age, and how much to a changing, less pitcher-friendly game."

This has been answered, but yeah I trust it against the era. Do I trust it enough to say that those guys were better pitchers than Clemens/Johnson/Maddux/Martinez? Definitely not. I think there is a good chance those four guys (plus Seaver and maybe Carlton at his best) are the best pitchers to have ever pitched by any objective measure.

Really liked this, and yes, I think it definitely matters, or at the very least matters how you handle it:

http://joeposnanski.com/joeblogs/knowing-arky/#more-2001

I've devoted a good portion of the last 35-40 years to music, films, and baseball. I have lots of gaps in what I know. When one of them comes up, I say so--I wouldn't try to deflect attention away from the gap with derision.

He's really obsessed with a Few Good Men.

And tennis, and soccer, and lots else besides the Top 100 Players in Baseball. He writes well about anything, but I kind of hope his comments continue to dwindle whenever he writes about other things, at least until he finishes that other thing he started. Coming up on one month since he posted #41.

The Top 100 won't be resuming anytime soon--but will, it seems, be completed at some point.

http://joeposnanski.com/joeblogs/a-joeblogs-update/

In emulation of James's "Hey Bill," the launch of "Yo Joe!":

http://joeposnanski.com/joeblogs/yo-joe/#more-2313

those are thouroughly entertaining, I hope he keeps doing them

If nothing else, he's at least writing about baseball. He writes very well about tennis--well enough that a barely-casual fan like me will read some of his posts--but I still want him to focus on baseball.

More interesting to me than Bruce's WAR is who would represent replacement level rock and roll. I'm going with Hootie and the Blowfish or Huey Lewis for now, but would love to hear opinions.

Leaving aside my indifference to Springsteen himself, those are actually pretty good choices. There were a whole bunch of mid-'80s roots/heartland/whatever bands that might work. The Replacements do not work; they were well above replacement level.

no way huey is replacement level

I don't see how anything that sold as well as Hootie can be replacement level. Hootie were the ultimate rock and roll compilers, they're more like the Harold Baines of 90's rock. Replacement level would be closer to Cake or Smashmouth -- bands that had multiple platinum albums and minor radio hits even though everybody knew they sucked.

Cake did and does not suck.
you might be onto something with smashmouth tho.

ok but consider someBODY ONCE TOLD ME THE

Replacement level in terms of pop music for me would mean completely generic in terms of the music (I wouldn't bring sales into it). I don't hate Huey or anything, but I don't think I'd be alone in say he practically defines generic. Anyway, once you move over to pop music, you're in the realm of opinion--no objective metrics--and you can argue all day without getting anywhere.

"saying"

I don't hate Huey or anything, but I don't think I'd be alone in say he practically defines generic.

Well, we're going to have to disagree here. Huey look like completely inoffensive and unoriginal bar rock at first glance, like a bunch of nondescript guys who shouldn't have any standout talent, and yet somehow they managed to set themselves apart from all the other aspiring pub bands and overcome a bunch of obvious deficiencies (i.e. they were music video stars in the decade of video megastars even though they looked like your dad's softball buddies). For me they're the prototype of the "scrappy" ballplayer who also happens to be great -- e.g. Dustin Pedroia.

Replacement level scrappy for 80's rock would be more like Ratt or pre-VH Sammy Hagar.

huey's p iconic imo

replacement level should be, technically, a band you can grab at quick notice when a bigger band drops out of a festival

I always plead generational differences when this kind of impasse is reached. (I sense we're about 10-15 years apart.)

(NoTime, I meant--more with zachlyon.)

this is the most embarrassing conversation i've had in weeks

Glad to be of help.

if my hep friends find out i swear

Didn't realize the Top 100 countdown resumed the other day:

http://joeposnanski.com/no-40-eddie-collins/

Posnanski's gone on to a bunch of things at NBC and elsewhere since he put it aside last year. I think there's a lesson somewhere in there about money/status vs. an actual engaged readership. Not that I'm against money or status, I just wonder if he ever gets as much feedback about what he does at NBC as in the Top 100 comments section, where each entry would usually generate 50-100 comments.

Honestly, I didn't think he'd ever return to do the top 40, at least on his site. I figured he was saving 40-1 for his book.

glad the countdown is continuing though!

this is some of my favorite shit, i can't believe it's not a book. what a mad man.

Pretty sure he does plan to publish it all as a book; when he stopped, there was a lot of complaining in the comments about having to pay down the road to read the last 40, but now that no longer applies.

Every single one of these is pure gold:

A quick scan of famous quotes about Gibson:

Dick Allen: “Gibson was so mean, he’d knock you down and then meet you at home plate to see if you wanted to make something of it.”

Don Sutton: “He hated everyone. He even hated Santa Claus.”

Red Schoendienst: “He couldn’t pitch today because they wouldn’t let him. The way he’d throw inside, he’d be kicked out of the game in the first inning.”

Tim McCarver: “I remember one time going out to the mound to talk with Bob Gibson. He told me to get back behind the plate where I belonged, and that the only thing I knew about pitching was that I couldn’t hit it.”

Dusty Baker: “The only people I ever felt intimidated by in my whole life were Bob Gibson and my Daddy.”

His blog is as erratic is ever these days--NBC links, big gaps between posts--but good piece on the Papelbon trade.

http://joeposnanski.com/the-worst-trade-of-the-season/

Tribute to my favourite baseball stat ever:

http://joeposnanski.com/runs-created-and-mvps/

Good piece; brings together Ken Keltner, Torii Hunter, Lorenzo Cain, the Royals, and the Mets.

http://sportsworld.nbcsports.com/world-series-mets-royals-winning-with-depth/

Something Posnanski's been doing this year:

http://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*UERgYBLSiazXk5Iu5f8gfg.png

always thought W/L should just go to the starter regardless of what happens. or just whoever pitched the longest. I support this initiative.

if they really did change the definition, i can imagine some Gossage-like bellowing from retired starters.

(like anyone thinks Don Sutton was a better pitcher than Tom Seaver bcz he has a few more wins)

there'd be a lot of bellowing from current players (and managers and broadcasters and fans) too

after all, that would mean all those times that the starting pitcher was left in for an inning too long just so that they could cross the magical 5-inning line, or pitch long enough so that their team could take the lead, was...completely pointless.

even the thought of it...*shudders*

I just skimmed the post, but it seems like he's reviving this; he's going to start over, and you have to pay this time.

A few readers posted that they'd be happy to do so, but they want to be assured that he'll carry through this time. I wouldn't pay myself. He's a great writer, but he's got so many things on the go, he does disappear for weeks and sometimes months at a time.

He's relaunched this with Zack Greinke. There are two lists now: the Baseball 100 and the Shadow 100, where he'll include Negro League players (I know that sounds awful, not including them in the main list, but he grappled with it and he explains his reasoning very well), personal favourites, and near-misses. At some point, I'm going to pay whatever he's asking for access. I just want to wait until he actually seems committed on following through.

"If you look at (Harold Baines's) Baseball Reference page, you will see that he won two awards in his career: The 1987 and '88 Edgar Martinez Awards as best designated hitter. It’s a strange thing to see, because Edgar Martinez was barely in Major League Baseball yet; he played a total of 27 games those two seasons. Harold Baines winning the Edgar Martinez Award is like Kate Hepburn winning the Meryl Streep award -- it’s time-bending weirdness."

Nice piece today on Elston Howard getting an MVP vote in 1967 while splitting time with the Yankees and the Red Sox (.178/.233/.244, -1.3 WAR). If you know Posnanski, you'll know it wasn't written to ridicule the vote.

Of interest to NoTime (I'll post here instead of the WS thread): Posnanski hated the IBB to Soto too, but his main complaint was rooted in psychology:

The Astros’ confidence bordering on arrogance, in a flash, was gone. Hinch and company literally did something they had not done all year — and for what? Simply to avoid facing Juan Soto. They displayed fear. They hesitated. They left absolutely no doubt that they were shaken by the Nationals’ mojo. They did not have any faith at all that they could get Soto out with the game on the line.

http://theathletic.com/1321747/2019/10/24/posnanski-so-about-that-intentional-walk-in-game-2/

(Behind a paywall.)

Although, again, I don't agree in this case--to me, it's just a rational preference for facing one hitter rather than another--I like that Posnanski does think about these things and writes about them. Earlier in the game, when Altuve got caught stealing third, I was thinking that part of what he was up to was issuing a wake-up call to the rest of the team. A perfect throw got him, and yes, losing that out was huge. But a single and a Bregman HR later, they were tied. Was there a connection? Obviously I can't prove it, and I'm sure most sabermetric-leaning observers would ridicule the very idea. But I do believe, at the margins, there's a mental component to the game that, while it can't be quantified, does exist. Numbers explain 95% of what happens on the field; there are other dynamics that are more elusive.

I think athletes, in general, have a mental toughness far greater than most of us, and that allows them to block out most of this stuff. I think of the Raptors losing the 5th game last year, when they were up six with a couple of minutes to go; they blew the lead, and Lowry missed a three at the buzzer. I was convinced that was it--the series was over. So Lowry came out next game and scored 11 points in the first three minutes.

But they're human, and I don't think they can block out everything. Maybe Posnanski's right, maybe he's just making up stories after the fact. (If Bregman fields Kendrick's ground ball cleanly, Posnanski wouldn't be writing that column.) But I like that he doesn't dismiss the possibility that such mental factors exist.

Have to say, it strikes me as odd to even consider the idea that a mental doesn't exist with some type of human activity.

mental factor

Obviously, there was way too much of that kind of speculation 20 years ago; I think the pendulum has maybe swung too far in the opposite direction. It wouldn't be fair to say that analytics dismisses such ephemera altogether (Posnanski himself is, more than not, a full-fledged analytic writer). But there's a built-in skepticism (which is good) that I think is so entrenched, things that can't be definitively quantified are brushed aside. "If Kershaw is pressing in this one start, why isn't he pressing in this other one?" Both things can be true.

i wonder how many of the astros players even realized it was their first IBB of the year, let alone were shaken by it

Players talk about what they're thinking when they are at bat all the time. (In fact, that's always an interview question - "Take me through that at-bat...") I would imagine every single player has some perception of how successful they are when they're thinking this or thinking that, or how successful they are when they're not thinking as much, etc.

Pitchers too.

'oh no, the nats brought corbin out of the bullpen for the first time all year, their mojo is gone'

Body and brain also feel different every single day. And every hitter has a distinct relationship with every opposing pitcher and vice versa, so while you might not want to use BvP stats to make certain decisions, why in the world would you not want to know that your batter is 1-20 lifetime against some pitcher?

I don't think the Astros were shaken by it either...I think Posnanski is reaching. But 1) I like that he thinks that way, and 2) I'd be willing to bet almost all Astros were aware that they hadn't issued an IBB all year. It's been covered lots in the press, and it was clearly a team policy that must have been discussed openly at some point (or many points) in the season.

They left absolutely no doubt that they were shaken by the Nationals’ mojo.

Yeah, I tune out when I read lines like this. Posnanski probably wants to take it all back now that the series is tied.

So, here’s the plan on the Baseball 100 — right after the first of the year, I’m going to count down the 100 greatest baseball players in 100 days over at The Athletic. As you might remember, we have done the first 35 players or so already here — those essays will be edited and updated (and I believe there might be one or two changes based on recent events!). So the first month will be a bit of a repeat for many of you with a couple of added twists. But then we should have all 100 up more or less by Opening Day, plus a special Negro Leagues countdown in February. It’s going to be a lot of work, yes, but I’m really excited about it.

Never have I felt more compelled to use the words "I'll believe it when I see it." This thing started something like 23 years ago.

https://images.gr-assets.com/hostedimages/1417133315ra/12236351.gif

OK, your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to rank players in 30 "Who's better, who's best" questions to help with the New Baseball 100, starting in January at @TheAthleticMLB. I think it's fun. I also think it's hard. Have at it! https://t.co/zRn1LH4txC

— Joe Posnanski (@JPosnanski) November 18, 2019

these are hard! i'm doing it without looking anything up. for #1 i went with my heart:

miggy
frank thomas
thome
murray

let's see, who do i want as my corner outfielder, manny ramirez or al simmons

it's difficult to imagine how prime manny would do in the early 1930s. seems like pretty much any modern conditioned player would be a star against 1930s competition. so instead, i'm going to imagine today's manny, wherever he is right now, playing in the 1930s

going with manny

looked at the first one and decided there's no way i can do this

#13 is a doozy

eddie mathews
chipper jones
wade boggs
adrian beltre
george brett

that's the order i went with, but sheesh

clemenza you're gonna shit yr pants when you find this survey

rank:

yogi berra
shoeless joe jackson
bob feller
robinson cano
rafael palmeiro

I just moved and have limited internet access at the library until they get my connection fixed, but will look at that for sure, thanks.

I did it...Raced through it--you'd go insane trying to weigh each group carefully. That one towards the end that more or less had the eight greatest hitters was funny. If Mays turned up, I always ranked him #1 ahead of Ruth or anyone else. I don't think Jackie Robinson turned up once for some reason.

He's up to #8--almost finished, so mea culpa over my skepticism that he ever would.

(I only skim certain entries; waiting to read the whole thing in book form.)

i haven't bought a baseball book in a while, but i'll be first in line

When you finish that, read Posnanski's book on the '75 Reds--excellent.

For anyone who doesn't have access, here's the list so far:

No. 100: Ichiro Suzuki
No. 99: Mike Mussina
No. 98: Carlos Beltrán
No. 97: Roberto Alomar
No. 96: Larry Walker
No. 95: Tony Gwynn
No. 94: Roy Campanella
No. 93: Ozzie Smith
No. 92: Bullet Rogan
No. 91: Mariano Rivera
No. 90: Max Scherzer
No. 89: Mike Piazza
No. 88: Curt Schilling
No. 87: Charlie Gehringer
No. 86: Gary Carter
No. 85: Sadaharu Oh
No. 84: Cool Papa Bell
No. 83: Phil Niekro
No. 82: Kid Nichols
No. 81: Ferguson Jenkins
No. 80: Carlton Fisk
No. 79: Derek Jeter
No. 78: Clayton Kershaw
No. 77: Miguel Cabrera
No. 76: Willie McCovey
No. 75: Justin Verlander
No. 74: Frank Thomas
No. 73: Brooks Robinson
No. 72: Robin Roberts
No. 71: Bert Blyleven
No. 70: Sandy Koufax
No. 69: Monte Irvin
No. 68: Gaylord Perry
No. 67: Hank Greenberg
No. 66: Robin Yount
No. 65: Ernie Banks
No. 64: Johnny Mize
No. 63: Steve Carlton
No. 62: Smokey Joe Williams
No. 61: Arky Vaughan
No. 60: Pete Rose
No. 59: Reggie Jackson
No. 58: Jeff Bagwell
No. 57: Rod Carew
No. 56: Joe DiMaggio
No. 55: Bob Feller
No. 54: Chipper Jones
No. 53: Buck Leonard
No. 52: Adrián Beltré
No. 51: Al Kaline
No. 50: Nolan Ryan
No. 49: Warren Spahn
No. 48: Ken Griffey Jr.
No. 47: Wade Boggs
No. 46: Eddie Mathews
No. 45: Bob Gibson
No. 44: Cal Ripken Jr.
No. 43: Yogi Berra
No. 42: Jackie Robinson
No. 41: Tom Seaver
No. 40: Roberto Clemente
No. 39: Nap Lajoie
No. 38: Carl Yastrzemski
No. 37: Pedro Martínez
No. 36: Christy Mathewson
No. 35: George Brett
No. 34: Cy Young
No. 33: Jimmie Foxx
No. 32: Mel Ott
No. 31: Greg Maddux
No. 30: Johnny Bench
No. 29: Eddie Collins
No. 28: Randy Johnson
No. 27: Mike Trout
No. 26: Grover Cleveland Alexander
No. 25: Pop Lloyd
No. 24: Rickey Henderson
No. 23: Albert Pujols
No. 22: Lefty Grove
No. 21: Joe Morgan
No. 20: Frank Robinson
No. 20 (tie): Mike Schmidt
No. 18: Tris Speaker
No. 17: Rogers Hornsby
No. 16: Alex Rodriguez
No. 15: Josh Gibson
No. 14: Lou Gehrig
No. 13: Roger Clemens
No. 12: Honus Wagner
No. 11: Mickey Mantle
No. 10: Satchel Paige
No. 9: Stan Musial
No. 8: Ty Cobb

Which leaves Mays, Ruth, Bonds, Williams, Aaron, Walter Johnson, and someone else.

I hope and predict Mays at #1.

Probably said this already: Posnanski was very clear that the rankings aren't meant to be taken that seriously, or even in some cases whether or not someone made the list. He was more interested in stories and who was a conduit to good writing.

The number one player of all time? you, the fan who makes it all possible.

Or, if Posnanski needs medical assistance right now, Donald Trump.

#1 will be JoePos. you have to be an idiot not to vote for yourself on election day

which player is missing, though? that is kind of a conundrum

I assume that Buck Leonard and Josh Gibson already listed rule out a Negro League player.

#7, Walter Johnson.

i know you can do this for any ancient ballplayer vs modern, but if Walter Johnson was a SP today, do you think he would have an ERA > or < 5.00?

(not quibbling with old timers being up at the top of the list, either. continual improvement is the name of the game. some day there will be a league full of prime era pujols cyborgs)

As I've said many times in connection to Coors field, I think there's a limit as to how much adjusting you can do for various factors. I don't know about Johnson, but I know that if were doing something similar, my default would be to always give close calls to the modern player. Which is one of the reasons I hope Mays finishes ahead of Ruth for #1 (and why someone else might hope Bonds finishes ahead of both).

"if I were doing"

also, as you've pointed out, he's made it clear that it's not really a straight up "ranking" - it's also about extra-baseball things, who has a good story, etc.

otherwise, i have no idea why trout is in the upper 20s on the list. but yes, he is boring as hell and has pretty much no story other than how good he is and how pujols made a pact with the devil to prevent the angels from making the playoffs

"No, it’s true, you can’t really compare the pitching Johnson did during Deadball — or even in those early years after Deadball — with baseball 100 years later. Different games. Different times. We have nothing at all to compare with Johnson’s pitching from 1910-1915, when he went 174-80 with a 1.51 ERA, 1,494 strikeouts, 390 walks and 24 homers allowed in more than 2,100 innings.

In 1916, Johnson pitched 369 innings and gave up zero home runs. Zero.

There’s no conversion chart that can tell us how Johnson’s stuff would hold up today. All we have are the stories and the quotes — and from those, you can understand the awe that people felt when seeing how impossibly hard Johnson threw."

The thing is, in 1916, Wally Pipp (!) led the league in HR with 12. So not giving up any is impressive, but...

Anyway, Posnanski knows this.

yeah, the fact that he was so much better than his peers, and so consistently, is enough for me. it's funny how inner-circle hall of famers are on the outsiden edges of the bell curve distribution, looking in

*outside edges

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSyxhRP-DL8

Forgot all about that...posted a link in the comments section.

#6, Ted Williams of the MFL.

Think I've encountered this elsewhere, too:

DiMaggio during the streak: .408/.463/.717, 1.180 OPS
Williams all of 1941: .406/.553/.735, 1.288 OPS

Gleaned this from the comments: Oscar Charleston is the missing player. I always thought Gibson/Leonard were considered #1/2 among Negro League players, but I guess that's changed.

otherwise, i have no idea why trout is in the upper 20s on the list.

I'm assuming it's because 27 is his uniform number

Hey! You've unlocked the key that opens some (if not all) of the doors: Seaver's uniform number was 41, Gibson's was 45...

As I've mentioned at least once, someone at a national SABR convention -- I recall it being Kevin Goldstein, tho it may not have been -- suggested that by objective standards, Adam Jones is probably a better baseball player than Willie Mays, to great consternation. That's just evolution.

All-time player lists can only measure an individual against his era.

I have received that suggestion with great consternation.

Gleaned this from the comments: Oscar Charleston is the missing player. I always thought Gibson/Leonard were considered #1/2 among Negro League players, but I guess that's changed.

I almost mentioned this, I swear! But then I thought “higher than satchel Paige and Josh Gibson, though?”

james ranked him #4 all time behind ruth wagner and mays in 01

wow! i don't know all that much about charleston, i should figure my shit out!

#5, Oscar Charleston.

That’s what the rankings are...they are here to give this project shape and to spark a few feelings. Yes, they’re in the basic order of a formula I used, one based on five things in no particular order:

Wins Above Replacement
Peak Wins Above Replacement
How multi-dimensional they were as players
The era when they played
Bonus value — This might include postseason performances, leadership, sportsmanship, impact on the game as a whole, if they lost prime years to the war and numerous other possibilities.

But I have no illusions about the formula. It is as flawed as anything so, whenever possible, I attached the player and a number that fits. So, for instance, Mariano Rivera is 91 for Psalm 91, the Psalm of Protection. Gary Carter is 86 for his role on the 1986 Mets. Joe DiMaggio is 56 for the hitting streak. Grover Cleveland Alexander is 26 because that was his magical year, 1926.

Bob Gibson, Tom Seaver, Jimmie Foxx, Greg Maddux, Mike Trout, Jackie Robinson, Frank Robinson and Mike Schmidt, among others, were all given a ranking based on their uniform numbers. I would say at least two-thirds of the numbers have some sort of connection to the ballplayer.

I even skipped No. 19 because of the ’19 Black Sox, the biggest single-year scandal in baseball history.

The Psalm of Protection?

that does make me wonder who ranks #666

who WAS the most evil baseball player?

I'm also suddenly intrigued about the sexual life of Monte Irvin at #69.

Assuming there are no more hidden-meanings to the rankings at this point, I'll guess Aaron 4th, Bonds 3rd, Ruth 2nd, then Mays at #1--that, or switch Bonds and Ruth. I think Joe is an err-on-the-side-of-contemporaneity kind of guy, so I don't think Ruth will be first. If not for the complicating PED factor, which I don't think he'll ignore altogether, I could even have seen Bonds at #1.

#4, Hank Aaron.

And then there’s his absurd, almost laughable, breakaway lead in career total bases. If you want to call Henry Aaron the king of something, call him the King of Total Bases. He had 6,856 total bases in his career — 700 more than anyone else.

Musial could have hit 350 more doubles and not had as many total bases as Aaron.

Ruth could have hit 250 more home runs and not has as many total bases as Aaron. (Bonds would have needed 220 more homers just to tie Aaron.)

Pete Rose could have cracked another 1,100 singles and not had as many total bases as Aaron.

Unrelated to this, a Facebook baseball group I'm on has been doing one of those bracketed greatest-hitter-ever (hitter, not player) polls. I've decided I'll go with Ted Williams right till the end, if he makes it.

i think every time i've ever had to make a decision on that, i went with ted williams, too. the thing that always does it for me is realizing he missed all of 1943-45, his prime years, and still came out so far ahead of everyone. also, his 1957, as a 38-39 year old. amazing.

Exactly my thinking--plus what he did in those two (very) partial Korean War seasons. He did have a big Fenway advantage, but when you look at his career road stats (.328/.467/.615), that seems less important.

yeah it’s williams without hesitation for me too. underrated in this countdown imo

I can't speak to Oscar Charleston, but #5 seems fair to me for Williams as a player rather than just a hitter. Mays was, from all accounts, one of the greatest fielders ever, Bonds was great, and I think Aaron was viewed as solid, at least. Ruth, probably not, but you've got to credit him with his pitching. I've read different opinions about Williams, but he did seem to be quite indifferent to fielding until late in his career. And with Mays and Bonds, speed also factors in.

Actually forgot all about this...From yesterday: #3, Bonds.

Probably the longest entry yet, divided into "For Bonds Fans"/"For Bonds Critics" arguments and counter-arguments.

Another reason I think Mays will be #1: he's still alive. Someone, I'm sure, will get word to him that a prominent baseball writer has been counting down his greatest-players-ever, and he was picked as the greatest. Towards the end of life, I think that's something anybody would appreciate.

#2, Ruth. (Didn't think there'd be a post today, but there is.)

I hardly ever read online comments--irony: I'm on ILX--but I thought I'd take a glance after the Ruth entry. 15 minutes after posting, there are about 20 already. Only one seems negative:

"Say it ain't so Joe! The logic that would NOT make Ruth hands down, no argument #1, should not even make him top 100. We get it Joe: you're woke, but...no, the Bambino is of course #1."

Happily, someone called this idiot out on the "woke" part.

wonder how many times that commenter saw ruth play?

gotta give it up for the #1, Pete Kozma

#1, yes.

Sounds a little apocryphal, but...

That year, 1954, was an incredible one for Mays. He’d missed almost all of the previous two seasons while serving in the Army, and he looked rusty for the first three or four weeks of the season. And then, on May 6, things kicked in. Over the next 24 games, he hit .424 with 13 homers. Later in June, he had a seven-game stretch where he went 15-for-26 with seven home runs.

At the All-Star Break, he had 31 home runs. He was ahead of Babe Ruth’s 60-home run pace. The press kept asking Mays if he thought he had a shot at the record, but at the end of July, he stopped even trying. Durocher had asked him to give up home runs and to, instead, get on base more and spark more rallies.

Here’s how good Willie Mays was: He did just that. He hit only five homers the rest of the season. But he also hit .379/.442/.601 with 16 doubles and seven triples.

He has a post up today about the death of his 95-year-old grandmother--not directly COVID-related (though she was tested), but related in that his own mother was only allowed to communicate with her over the phone.

New project:

"I’m tentatively calling it 60 Moments. My editor Kaci Borowski and I are still playing with the name. But here’s the idea: I’m going to count down the 60 greatest moments in baseball history(!)(?)."

As a Jays fan, I want Ernie Whitt's grand slam when the Jays erased a 10-run deficit against the Red Sox to be Top 10, but I'm going to guess it might not make the list.

A couple of things:

First, I wanted to pass along some pretty exciting news: The Baseball 100 is about to become a book. So many of you have asked about that for years, and now it’s going to happen. The great folks at my publishing house, Avid Reader, are going to publish the book in October to coincide with the World Series (and, sure, hopefully in time for you to buy many many copies as Christmas gifts for friends and family). I’m very excited about it, obviously, but particularly for two reasons:

1. The Baseball 100 will NOT be a coffee table book. No offense to coffee table books, I love them, but the Baseball 100 was meant to READ. I feel like it has some of the best writing that I’ve ever done, and while that might not mean a whole lot in the grand picture, it does mean quite a bit to me, and I would like for the book to be the sort you could take to the beach, take on a train or a plane, read in bed at night. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it will be big — 300,000 words is a lot of words — but my editor and friend Jofie Ferrari-Adler and the folks at Avid are dedicated to designing the book for readers. I love that.

2. One of America’s greatest journalists and baseball fans has agreed to write the introduction. No, more than agreed — he ASKED to write the introduction. It’s an incredible honor, and I can’t wait to tell you who it is.

Also:

Second, I want you to be the first to know about the project that I’m about to start at The Athletic: I’m going to count down (aw, come on, not another countdown) the 100 greatest players (so unoriginal) who are NOT in the Hall of Fame. It’s not going to be exactly like the Baseball 100 in that I’m not going to do an individual essay on all 100 players. I’ll do very short essays, 10 at a time, on the first 70. The final 30 players will each get his own essay.

Here’s the fun part: I’m going to do it in the order that I would vote them into the Hall of Fame. So it won’t necessarily be in the order of the players’ greatness on the field. In fact, I can tell you that it definitely will not be in the order of the players’ greatness. It’s a much more holistic kind of list. That project will begin on December 1 and end on the day the Hall of Fame announces its new inductees. I hope you come along for the ride.

I hope, and assume, the not-in-the-Hall list won't duplicate the six or seven players on the 100-greatest list who aren't not-in-the-Hall because they're not good enough.

How does that happen?!

Maybe I garbled that. I'm talking about Bonds, Clemens, Rose, etc. He's already written entries for them on the greatest-ever list; he doesn't need to write another one (or duplicate the same entry) for the not-in-the-Hall list.

Just noticed yesterday that he'd started his countdown of "the Outsiders"; he's halfway finished. From the Rick Reuschel entry (#51): "In fact, over his career he had 158 quality starts that were either losses or no-decisions. That ranks eighth in the expansion era. In those starts, Reuschel was 0-81 with a 2.45 ERA."

In those starts [quality starts that were either losses or no-decisions], Reuschel was 0-81 with a 2.45 ERA."

i always wish there was a baseline for that kind of stat, like the average SP's ERA in their quality starts that weren't wins. because the very worst ERA you can have in a quality start is 4.50, right? (6 innings, 3 earned runs). so it wouldn't surprise me if the average was around 3.00 or something...i don't know. it's still sounds impressive (especially just the sheer quantity of them). i guess it's also hard to compare between eras, since reuschel was pitching in a lower scoring environment for a lot of his career.

what i'm saying is that we need a no-win Quality Starts era-neutralized composite stat. it can be called, QDERAR:LKJEPR#@R134+

*joe morgan lets out a bloodcurdling scream from the beyond*

That's a good point. It's like the first time you hear Team X has only lost once when leading after 8 innings and you go "Wow," and then you find out that that's pretty much true of every team. My guess is that Reuschel's no-win quality-start ERA is below the norm. And I'm not sure if he'd be that affected by any adjustment--a lot of his career was spent in Wrigley, and that would even out any era adjustment.

Oh, for sure. I don’t doubt that reuschel is way below the average ERA in that situation, or that posnaski didn’t put in the time to check. I’m just always curious about what the actual baseline is!

This Outsiders list is in some ways more interesting than the Top 100 list, which was players who get written about to death; instead, all these great players who will fade from view because they missed the HOF. (#41: Bobby Abreu.) The entries are short enough that I hope he appends everything to the Top 100 book.

and you go "Wow," and then you find out that that's pretty much true of every team

the worst case of this was a few years ago when some HOF voter said he was considering not voting for mariano rivera because he had a really bad ERA in games that he lost. he didn't have any other reasons, he clearly just saw the stat in a tweet or something and didn't look into it. and then constructed an entire narrative that mo was a phony because his ERA was bad in games where he gave up runs.

(Haven't read the article as I don't have a subscription) I would have thought Pos would rank Reuschel higher, I always thought he had a very decent case for the HOF. I'm a sucker for longevity cases, but there is a zone in the 60-70 WAR/3000 + IP/ between 3.00 and 3.50 era/fip in which some players are in (Glavine, Bunning, Palmer, Drysdale) and others aren't (Lolich, Koosman, Friend) and it seems only tea leaves are separating them.

reuschel played for some awfully shitty teams, not least the mid-80s pirates, so he didn't get the wins

but also he barely broke 2k K's, only twice approached a cy, gave up more hits than innings pitched

i love him but he's a hall-of-really-good guy

Now that he's into the Top 30, full essays. The Schilling piece is not what I expected:

https://theathletic.com/2250850/2020/12/11/top-mlb-outside-the-hall-of-fame-curt-schilling/

(Probably paywalled--I can put it on a Google Doc later, Joe always said that was okay ocassionally.)

that's well said and is very close to my own change in thinking about the hall. there was another voter last year - pretty sure it was keith law - who wrote a short diatribe expressing his newfound disillusionment with the institution. i think more and more people might start to think this way (though pos obviously isn't writing off the HOF entirely)

for most of my time as a baseball fan i saw the HOF as nothing more than another argument to win. it was a major battleground in the endless stats vs tradition culture war and another opportunity to feel smug. that's what it is for most dingholes on the internet. and when a player like edgar or blyleven finally gets in, it gives us dingholes a big validating endorphin rush. so you keep campaigning for guys on the outside looking in, because the more you care about the more you stand to win when they win.

last year the players that i would've rooted for the hardest on a statistical basis were a bigot (schilling), 2 wife beaters (bonds and andruw), and a statutory rapist (clemens). (and scott rolen, who i don't believe is caught up in any shit.) it's really hard to continue seeing a HOF win as a win for truth and rightness when that's that cast of characters who stand to actually benefit. like pos, i stopped seeing the Hall as an abstract concept and started seeing it the way that i think most of the players themselves see it - a ceremony meant to honor men, an opportunity for honored men to get up on stage and make a speech about their whole lives and their whole selves, not just the numbers on the back of their baseball card. that's what i see now when i think of HOF elections - not a plaque reeling off achievements, but a man walking up to a podium.

the kicker for me was actually harold baines. after he was voted in, everyone basically agreed that he didn't deserve it but people kept talking about the speech - that he was a great, well liked guy who played for a million years, probably had a lot of stories to tell, and he deserves to get up there and command our attention for x minutes. i honestly never even watched an entire ceremony, i never cared about them. people would say so and so gave a great speech, and i'd think "i should watch that when i have time" and then i never had the time. my feelings about the HOF were about me, not them.

that's how i see the hall now. regardless of what the hall says about itself, it's really just an opportunity for players to stand up there and build their public profiles, add value to their autographs, elevate their eventual biographies a little more into hagiographies. i don't want that to happen for any of these assholes. so i just don't see the value in it anymore.

I want to add that the hockey and basketball hall of fame have women enshrined and I think it’s time for the BBWA writer to take a proper stand on this.

X -- I really like your post, even though I'm not where you are in my own thinking. Which, at this point, is more muddled than ever. I want Schilling in, remain indifferent to Bonds and Clemens, and balk at the idea of Baines (and Vizquel, and other good guys)--is there any consistency there? In my mind there is, but I don't know anymore. I want Dick Allen in; he was considered a bad guy for most of his career, now he's a good guy. I'm fine with Kirby Puckett; good guy (more than just good) when he played, now a villain. I suspect Posnanski's Schilling piece today may be seen as influential down the road. Sean Foreman voted for Tim Hudson, left Schilling off.

tbf i don't think anyone in the world outside of jerry reinsdorf wanted baines in the HOF

Something of an extension to his Schilling post, Joe argues today that both Felipe Alou and Dusty Baker should be in (or, more accurately, that there should be a mechanism in place for the likes of hybrid careers like Felipe Alou's and Dusty Baker's): "Honor great baseball lives." I don't disagree. I used to make more or less the same argument for Leo Durocher, before he was finally inducted in 1994--that he was so integral to so much baseball history, the sum was greater than the parts. (Durocher's managerial career was actually pretty similar to Baker's: good career winning pct., very little to show for it in terms of postseason success.)

Pete Rose, #9 on Posnanski's Outsiders list. I figured out a way to quickly compile the whole list--I'll do that later today.

ooh that wld be great, thanks

100. Juan Alberto González Vázquez
99. Fredric Michael (Fred) Lynn
98. Rocco Domenico (Rocky) Colavito
97. Albert Jojuan Belle
96. Samuel James (Jimmy) Tilden Sheckard
95. Quincy Thomas Trouppe
94. Fernando Valenzuela Anguamea
93. Darrell Wayne Evans
92. Steven Patrick (Steve) Garvey
91. David Gene (Dave) Parker
90. Frank Oliver Howard
89. Albert (Al) Oliver
88. Willie Larry Randolph
87. William Lance Berkman
86. Paul Aloysius Hines
85. Ronald Ames Guidry
84. Walter Anton (Wally) Berger
83. Dwight Eugene (Doc) Gooden
82. Elston Gene Howard
81. Orel Leonard Hershiser IV
80. William Nuschler (Will) Clark Jr.
79. Urbain Jacques (Urban Shocker) Shockcor
78. Jorge Rafael Posada Villeta
77. Louis Rogers (Pete) Browning
76. Bobby Lee Bonds
75. Timothy Adam (Tim) Hudson
74. Francis Joseph (Lefty) O’Doul
73. James Sherman (Jim or Jimmy) Wynn
72. John Garrett Olerud
71. David Gus (Buddy) Bell
70. Howard Ellsworth (Smoky Joe) Wood

T-69. Omar Enrique Vizquel González
David Ismael (Dave) Concepción Benitez
Dagoberto (Bert, Campy) Campaneris Blanco
Mark Henry Belanger

“I basically think all four players have roughly an equal Hall of Fame case to me. If I had to rank them in the order I’d vote them in, I suppose I’d go like this:

1. Bert Campaneris
2. Omar Vizquel
3. Dave Concepción
4. Mark Belanger

But honestly, as players, I’d vote them all in or none of them.”

68. Torii Kedar Hunter
67. Dan Raymond Quisenberry
66. Richard Benjamin (Dick) Lundy
65. Charles Ernest (King Kong) Keller
64. Andrew Eugene (Andy) Pettitte
63. Mark Alan Buehrle
62. John Wesley (Jack) Glasscock
61. Roger Eugene Maris

T-60. Vernon Decatur (Vern) Stephens
Anthony Nomar Garciaparra

59. Walter Williams (Billy) Pierce
58. Stanley Camfield (Stan) Hack
57. Grant U. (Home Run) Johnson
56. Wesley Cheek (Wes) Ferrell
55. Salvatore Leonard (Sal) Bando
54. Maurice Morning (Maury) Wills
53. Donald Arthur (Don) Mattingly
52. William Henry (Willie) Davis
51. Rickey Eugene (Rick) Reuschel
50. William Frederick (Bill) Dahlen
49. William Ashley (Bill) Freehan
48. Bernabé (Bernie) Williams Figueroa Jr.
47. Sherwood Robert (Sherry) Magee
46. James Lee (Jim) Kaat
45. John Christopher Beckwith
44. Vada Edward Pinson
43. Thurman Lee Munson
42. Theodore Roosevelt (Double Duty) Radcliffe
41. Bob Kelly (Bobby) Abreu
40. Thomas Edward (Tommy) John
39. Jeffrey Franklin Kent
38. Alejandro Oms
37. Kenton Lloyd (Ken) Boyer
36. David Andrew (Dave) Stieb
35. Pedro (Tony) Oliva López Hernándes
34. James Kevin Brown
33. Graig Nettles
32. Rafael Palmeiro Corrales
31. Bret William Saberhagen
30. Curt Schilling
29. Reggie Smith
28. Doc Adams
27. Johan Santana
26. David Cone

T-25. Felipe Alou
Dusty Baker

T-24. Sammy Sosa
Gary Sheffield

23. Fred McGriff
22. Keith Hernandez
21. John Donaldson
20. Manny Ramirez
19. Todd Helton
18. Bobby Grich

T-17. Luis Tiant
Billy Wagner

16. Kenny Lofton

T-15. Andruw Jones
Jim Edmonds

14. Mark McGwire
13. Gil Hodges
12. Shoeless Joe Jackson
11. Dale Murphy
10. Dwight Evans
9. Pete Rose

Cutting, pasting, cutting--not that onerous. So really there’s going to be 110-120 players by the time he finishes. (He should have had Rose and Shoeless Joe as a tie.) He stopped with the full names inside of #30--I really liked those. I'll update as he counts down.

terrific, thanks p!

79. Urbain Jacques (Urban Shocker) Shockcor
62. John Wesley (Jack) Glasscock

normal baseball names, nothing to see here

Shockcor was a shocker--never knew that.

Schilling was on his Top 100 list, so he does allow overlap...with that in mind, I'm trying to guess the remaining eight.

Bonds and Clemens. (But not A-Rod--when he began, he put him in a separate list of best 10 players not yet eligible.) Probably a tie at #1.

Lou Whitaker, Scott Rolen, Buck O'Neill...and then I get stuck.

8. Curt Flood

Of course--when I was trying to guess yesterday, I was scanning WAR charts on Baseball Reference, down to about 60 career WAR. I added O'Neil because Posnanski was his friend and has written numerous columns on him. Now that Joe has clearly factored character-counts into his advocacy, Flood is an obvious choice. (Posnanski sits about halfway on that question, I'd say--he's still going to have Bonds and Clemens on his list. He's an inch to the right of wherever Schilling exists on that spectrum.)

I sent this a Hey Bill" into James last summer:

This years Veteran's Committee ("The Golden Era"--ugh) covers Curt Flood's window, 1950-1969. I think Flood should be in the HOF already, but voting him in this year, would, I feel, make a strong statement about the moment we're in. Not sure if you agree--you may not--but if you do, the problem then becomes how do you categorize him? He was a good player who falls short based on his on-field career, with the mitigating circumstance that his career was cut short because of the very thing you'd be inducting him for. But can you call him a builder? That seems weird.

Answered: 8/29/2020
Player and pioneer.

So he didn't say whether or not he agrees that Flood should be inducted.

(I said on some thread the other day that all my posts strategically leave out one word. Except when I strategically add one--get rid of that "this.")

i have been working on leaving out one additional word per post, every year that i'm on ilx. by the end, my posts will just be one or two words, tops, and probably just conjunctions by that point

So he didn't say whether or not he agrees that Flood should be inducted.

didn't say so explicitly, but any true "pioneer" of the game (like Flood) is HOF-worthy, imo.

I'm a month late with this, but a category for "hybrid" HOF careers is sorely needed.

7. Dick Allen

I must have assumed he'd already been listed.

That leaves Bonds, Clemens, O'Neil, and Whitaker for sure, I think; Rolen probably (doesn't make sense to me that he'd be this high, but it makes even less sense that he wouldn't be in the Top 100); plus one more.

O’Neill I wasn’t expecting.

Paul O'Neill at #3 will not make me happy.

(If you go back a few posts, I misspelled his name too!)

I don’t see it at all. He’s nowhere near those other guys.

Buck O'Neil in; Paul O'Neill, no.

(Unless you mean Buck O'Neil shouldn't go in as a player. I don't know enough about his playing career, but I'm basing that on this move in the direction of character, combined with Posnanski's friendship with him.)

6. Lou Whitaker

5. Scott Rolen

4. Roger Clemens

I bet he puts Buck O'Neil at #1 and not Bonds. Still not sure who the third will be.

3. Barry Bonds

I started skimming the Bonds comments, and the thing I've been puzzling over was made clear: Minnie Miñoso will be #2.

2. Buck O'Neil

Minoso at #1? I'm surprised. Posnanski is also obsessed with Duane Kuiper, maybe it'll be him.

1. Du...Minnie Minoso

Also, there’s this: A SABR researcher named Scott Simkus added things up, and he found that when you add together Miñoso’s Major League hits, minor league hits, Cuban League hits, Mexican League hits and Negro Leagues hits, you come the staggering number of 4,073, seventh all-time. Here’s that list of players with more than 4,000 total professional hits:

1. Pete Rose, 4,769
2. Ty Cobb, 4,379
3. Ichiro Suzuki, 4,367
4. Henry Aaron, 4,245
5. Jigger Statz, 4,093
6. Julio Franco, 4,074
7. Minnie Miñoso, 4,073
8. Derek Jeter, 4,059
9. Stan Musial, 4,023

The fifth most hits ever is by a guy named Statz.

i will admit to being ignorant of all things Buck O'Neil. what's the case for him?

former NL player of middling quality but P much invented the NL HOF in Kansas City, was an advocate on behalf of all the NL greats and forgotten greats, beloved Baseball spirit, first black coach in MLB for CHI C

should be in as a builder at the very least

like, if Yawkey is in the HOF buck o'neil should be above him for so many reasons

a guy named Statz

5-foot-7, 150-pound pacific coast league legend

I think a lot of people got to know Buck O'Neil through the Ken Burns film; he's in it a lot, and he's great.

I looked up Statz this morning--four consecutive years of 240+ hits in L.A. of the PCL.

it's amazing how many games the PCL scheduled in those days -- statz played 199 games in 1926!

guess you can do that when the games don't take three hours

I think a lot of people got to know Buck O'Neil through the Ken Burns film; he's in it a lot, and he's great.

― clemenza, Tuesday, January 26, 2021 11:21 AM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

He's great in Jazz too, especially if you are familiar with Baseball. The way he talks about Henry Aaron and similar to the way he talks about Billie Holiday.

Had no idea. I have Jazz and have been meaning to start it for years.

i can't look at buck o'neil without slowing zooming and panning

"We are living in a moment where Chris Sale — one of the most accomplished pitchers of our time — goes 2 2/3 innings, allows five hits and one run, and he’s getting congratulated in the dugout like he just flew the first trans-Atlantic flight."

(I just noticed Karl's post directly above--perfect!)

In the interest of fairness, Posnanski's column is actually in praise of pitchers today, contrasting the lineup Rodriguez faced last night with a Twins lineup Koufax faced in 1965 when he pitched a two-hit WS shutout--substantially more daunting to be a starting pitcher today.

I had no idea his Top 100 book is 880 pages...I think the longest single volume I've ever read was Tom Jones in university (as opposed to, say, Stephen Ambrose's multi-volume Nixon biography). I will get this at some point when it's (much, hopefully) less than the $50 Amazon is charging right now.

Finally started in on the book; waited all year hoping for a price drop, never happened. (The paperback's slated for early next year.)

Not sharable, but an excerpt about last night's game (which I had to miss):

And that’s true, as far as it goes, but what they don’t acknowledge is that it isn’t a fair fight. If you have two great boxers in the ring, say Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, you get the Thrilla in Manilla. But what if in the third round, a manager comes in, takes the gloves from Joe Frazier, and hands them to George Foreman. And in the fourth, the manager calls for Joe Louis. And in the seventh, he calls for Rocky Marciano. And in the eighth, he calls for Mike Tyson, who gets in some trouble, so the manager stops the fight in the middle of the round and immediately brings in Evander Holyfield.

I mean, what chance does even Muhammad Ali have in a scenario like that?

...

I worry that sometimes these sorts of essays come across as me screaming at clouds and wishing to turn back the clock...but that’s not how I mean them. I’m thoroughly aware that you CANNOT turn back the clock. And I love baseball as much today as I ever have.

No, I write them more to point out what’s happening in the game because it can be super easy to miss. There are no announcements.

Did that guy know that baseball and boxing are quite different sports cos I’m worried he doesn’t.

He probably doesn't know that, no.

Sorry for the sarcasm...mounting frustration.

what on earth is he talking about there?

He's talking about how overmatched hitters are today in the middle-late innings, and making a fanciful analogy to boxing to get the point across. I'm pretty sure it's not meant to be taken literally--Posnanski's a great writer before he's anything else, I'd say. And he's observing, not complaining--I made sure to include those last two paragraphs, which appear later in the article, to head off any carping about him clinging to a game that doesn't exist anymore.

("There are no announcements": it helps to read the whole thing, obviously. It begins by contrasting football, where--according to Posnanski; I don't watch football, so I don't know--the league is very aware of what fans want, and tinker with the game to please fans, as opposed to baseball, where things just happen before fans are even aware that it's happening.)

i mean, watching the blue jays, "overmatched" isn't the word i would use for it.
does give off the impression he feels like something is concerningly wrong here tho

I'll quote the end, which reads like John Lennon's "Nobody Told Me":

No, I write them more to point out what’s happening in the game because it can be super easy to miss. There are no announcements.

Nobody told us, “From here on in, starters will pretty much never go seven innings in the World Series.”

Nobody told us, “From here on in, you will see 16 or 17 strikeouts per game rather than the 10 or 11 or 12 that you might have grown used to.”

Nobody told us, “From here on in, teams will carry 13 or 14 or 18 or 200 pitchers, and just about all of them will be unhittable in small bursts.”

No, this stuff just happened gradually and without a vote. The great pitchers of the past — the Mathewsons and Fellers and Gibsons and Koufaxes and Carltons and Fords of history — would probably not think all that much of Framber’s 6 1/3-inning, 4-hit, 3-walk, one-run start in a crucial World Series game.

But these days, that’s about the best a pitcher can do.

I guess that either resonates with you or it doesn't.

(I do think it's a mistake for him to assume that the way things are right now is the way things will be 10 or 15 years from now. Things always change--we could have an even more extreme version of today, or that trend could gradually reverse course. I doubt we'll be at the same place.)

That ignores when managers bring in washed-up Buster Douglas (aka Craig Kimbrel, or postseason Aroldis)

Finished The Baseball 100 today. Might be the longest book I've ever read, not sure. Proust awaits.

I wouldn't say it's replaced Ball Four or The Historical Abstract (or maybe James's HOF book) at the top of my list, it's pretty great. Enough so that I think someone who doesn't know baseball that well could get a lot out of the stories and out of the writing.

I've got a friend who's always telling me he loves the aesthetics of baseball--Clemente's his favourite player, and he collects stuff from the '50s and '60s, from when he was a kid--and that he has no interest in stats. I argue that that's a false distinction: there is an aesthetic beauty to, say, looking at the first 10 years of Frank Thomas or Albert Pujols' career boxes, something I've gravitated to since I bought my first MacMillan Encyclopedia in the mid-'70s. (I like great catches and long home runs, too.) And that's what Posnanski does exceptionally well: balances the stories and the stats. You can tell he's fascinated by metronomic consistency too. Only occasionally do I think he overdoes the aesthetics (e.g., the beginning of the Mays entry--#1, so cut him some slack), which leads to the kind of Natural/Field of Dreams sentimentality I'm not big on.

He doesn't cut slack for any of the villains in the book--Rose, Schilling, Cobb, Speaker, PED guys--and they are in there. He's not an apologist, and sometimes he goes after their apologists. But, as I posted on the Jerry Lee Lewis thread, he tries to present the whole person; as he quotes Buck O'Neil (which he does often in the book), "People ain't one thing."

at the top of my list, but it's pretty great.

I got an e-mail this morning saying I can give three free subscriptions to JoeBlogs away...I've got two friends I want to give two of them to; if you want the other, send me board e-mail with your regular e-mail address.

frogsb was quick on the draw.

hell yeah

One month only, frogbs, but still free.

Another three gift subscriptions to give away. They're only for a month, but you could get a lot read in that time (plus he's doing HOF columns right now). Let me know if you want one.

You can get The Baseball 100 (paperback) for under $15.

https://bookoutlet.ca/products/9781982180591B/the-baseball-100

I like when writers revisit their pre-season predictions. Posnanski made 23; he reviews and grades them today. A mix of good ones and bad ones, and some--Shohei wins the Cy, "Aaron Judge tops 50 home runs again, maybe 60"--were actually good but derailed by injuries. (So he grades himself C for both.) My favourite:

Prediction 20: The Reds will call up Elly De La Cruz, and he will do jaw-dropping things.
Accuracy grade: A+++

It might not have been the hardest prediction to make, but I couldn’t haven’t gotten it more right.

Why We Love Baseball comes out Tuesday; Jan at the local bookstore gave me my copy today, saying something about not having signed an affidavit about letting it go, evidently something bookseller's have to do.

Will dive into it soon, but I've got to say: Posnanski has hit some kind of unbearable low the past few weeks when it comes to self-promotion. Every other column is filled with stuff about his book tour, signings, promotions, etc. This is on a blog you pay for. You still get more writing than most any other blog besides that--he churns it out, and it's always interesting--and that's a fair trade-off. But it is annoying having to wade through that stuff. This shareable column from the other day is typical:

https://open.substack.com/pub/joeposnanski/p/introducing-the-willie-stargell-award?r=1jtu0&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

The Sid Bream dash is #44 in Why We Love Baseball.

#38, the Pine Tar meltdown. Three amazing things I don't think I ever knew. The league reversed the ruling the next day--Brett's HR counted, and the game had to be resumed for the last four outs. The Yankees appealed, and it went to court.

1) Lawyer for the Yankees: Roy Cohn!
2) When the game resumed, Martin was still angry, so he played Guidry in CF and Mattingly at 2B--the first left-handed second basemen in 26 years.
3) Martin also tried to protest the resumption once it was underway, saying that, in the earlier game, Brett failed to touch first or second. When the umpires disallowed that, Martin cleverly asked them how they could ever know if they weren't there? (New umpiring crew.) So one of the umpires takes out a signed affidavit from the original crew stating that Brett had indeed touched all the bases.

Inside the top 20...I'd forgotten all about Curtis Pride--great story (if you don't know about him, gyac, you'll love it). Managed to hang around for 11 seasons, and actually did have one really good one of around 100 games with the Tigers in '96.

The first half of this, about the Dodgers, isn't all that interesting. The second half, about problems at Substack is. A friend of mine edits a Substack blog for somebody else, so just sent this to him and said I thought the writer whose blog he edits will have to deal with the same issue.

https://open.substack.com/pub/joeposnanski/p/free-friday-are-the-dodgers-cracking?r=1jtu0&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

Joe started counting down his 50 Most Famous Players of the Past 50 Years today--reader votes, and I think he has a system. Anyway, love #50: the Bird.

Any guesses as to who'll be #1? 50 years takes you back to '74, so Aaron is still around but not Mays. I don't think he'll go with Aaron, though, who's obviously a '50s/'60s guy.

Reggie? Jeter? Junior? Ohtani? Ryan?

Seaver? Yaz?

sort of feel like it’s bonds

I'd say Seaver was in the running for #1 at one point, but I'm not sure if that would have been before or after the '74 cutoff. I don't know if Yaz was ever quite Seaver/Mays/Reggie-level famous ('67 maybe?).

I wouldn't at all be surprised if he settles on Ohtani. I suspect he'll avoid Bonds, since some degree of his fame is now the wrong kind. (Ditto Rose.)

Oh sorry I totally skipped over the Famous. In that case, yeah, Bonds surely

Most famous? Could be Ichiro, Jeter, Reggie. Definitely not Bonds. But there's an argument to be made for Pete Rose. He dominated headlines for years in the 80's between setting the hits record and the gambling controversy.

I don't know if its true that the Rose scandal really affected Bart Giamatti's health, but the fact that the story is out there shows how it was viewed as an existential crisis for the game. It may have been the last time when a player was bigger than the game itself? Rob Manfred wouldn't allow a silly scandal to derail his $10B/yr machine.

Pete Rose case is especially interesting given how entangled the sport is with gambling now.

Bonds should be top 5 imo. He was MVP seven times across three decades! They literally had him drop off the ballot and he’s one of the first names that come up in terms of players that were kept from the hall of fame despite their numbers (Rose in this category too!) There’s prolonged interest in him - he still holds a number of records and HBO is producing a new documentary about him next year. And his name came up multiple times when Aaron Judge was chasing the AL record. And ofc the “issues” around him defined a whole era of the game. Plus he was kind of forced to retire early despite putting up great numbers in 2007 because SF wouldn’t take him back due to wanting to draw a line under their association with him - and then they ended up retiring his number like a decade later anyway.

Jeter is famous enough for me to have known his name growing up on account of all the celebrities he dated.

I guess it’s subjective as to the criteria.

who can tell me what all these players have in common:
Wade Boggs
Don Mattingly
Jose Canseco
Randy Johnson
Roger Clemens
Darryl Strawberry
Mike Scioscia
Ozzie Smith
Ken Griffey Jr
Whitey Ford
Steve Sax
Mark McGwire

All guested in the Simpsons?

Corect!
Wade Boggs also appeared on Cheers and was also the inspiration for an episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, centring around his greatest accomplishment; which therefore makes him the most famous ball player ever.

Jeter was in Seinfeld. Bonds has a Kanye song named after him.

Simpsons/Seinfeld factor should definitely count (SNL? Jeter, I think).

I should at least copy his criteria:

1) This is my list, based on my super-secret formula. I know there were some of you who asked me to put the formula here, but I’m not going to do that because it’s an absurd formula filled with countless illogical twists and some very bad math. I don’t care, because it spits out a list that I like very much. I’d rather you argue with me about the people than the formula.

2) People who were retired by 1974 are not eligible. Basically, there are two all-time greats—Henry Aaron and Frank Robinson--who were not retired by 1974 and, in fact, achieved incredible things in the last 50 years. So they are on the list. But Willie Mays, who retired in 1973, is not. I had to have a cutoff because I really wanted this list to cover more modern baseball, and this made the most sense to me. There is no doubt that Jackie Robinson, Babe Ruth, Sandy Koufax, Mickey Mantle and other retired giants were more famous over the last 50 years than plenty of people of others on the list. Their fame isn’t in question.

3) The qualification for being considered was simple: You had to be on the cover of Sports Illustrated since 1970. Because several non-players were on the cover--owners, announcers, umpires, etc.—they are eligible to be in the top 50 and, as you will see soon enough, at least one made it.

4) There were almost 300,000 votes in the Fame Game that I created last week, which is incredible. Those votes were technically not a component of my super-secret fame formula, but I will tell you where you ranked each person.

So if you're bad at math, you have a head start in predicting #1.

The most detailed thing I've ever read on Rose vs. Giamatti was in whichever of James's Baseball Books followed the ruling. Must have been 12-15 pages long. Typically, he reached an idosyncratic, seemingly perverse conclusion: that Giamatti was killed by the internal stress of knowing he had dealt with Rose duplicitously. I know, in light of Rose's behaviour since the ruling, how hard it is to get your head around that--worth seeking out.

I think Bonds is one of many answers that might be right, but I don't think Posnanski would ever put him #1. He's always been very fair with Bonds with regards to his greatness as a player--had him #3 in The Baseball 100--but I think subjectivity will enter there and he'll have someone most every baseball fan likes.

(Bonds was also mentioned in Salt-N-Pepa's "Whatta Man"...assume "smooth like Barry" referred to Bonds in 1993--could've been Barry Sanders.)

Barry White surely

Barry
Bo
Yeah jeets
Ohtani
Mark

In no order

Talk about subjectivity--for 30 years I've heard that as Barry Bonds, but right, it's gotta be Barry White.

Bo Jackson will be high.

"Fame" has a bit of a peak fame vs. career fame component. First sentence in yesterday's Fidrych entry: "The Bird’s fame was so intense and so short-lived that it’s difficult to fully recapture it."

Non exhaustive list of baseball player mentions in songs

https://genius.com/Rap-genius-athlete-references-in-rap-music-lyrics

First one I thought of was Sadahura Oh...Ryan Howard was on an episode of The Office, but pretty sure he's not making the list. (He was being schmoozed by a fledgling sports agency out of Philly.)

i got mad hits like i was Rod Carew

first to my mind: got mad hits like i was rod carew!

xpost dammit!

OH jr griffey over barry maybe for top 5

Ken Griffey should be top 5. He had the Nikes and he had his own game. He had an iconic look and ofc he was very good. And he’s still involved in the game regularly.

Also, this video made me laugh. He had that personality as a player too, like when Buck Showalter said he was “disrespecting” the game by wearing his hat backwards and he was like BUCK HASN’T GOT A 24 YEAR OLD GOOD ENOUGH TO CARRY MY JOCKSTRAP.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CvIXk_2JAct/

How ya sound be? You're better off a quitter
I'm on the mound G, and it's a no-hitter
And my DJ the catcher, he's my man
Anyway he's the one who devised the plan
He throws the signs I hook up the beats with clout
I throw the rhymes to the mic and I strike em out
So it really doesn't matter on how you intrigue
You can't fuck with those in the major leagues

Unless I'm forgetting something obvious, don't think anybody in the last 50 years resonated in a pop song like DiMaggio did in "Mrs. Robinson."

don't forget about Fernandomania, Big Papi, Doc Gooden

are curt schilling and john rocker gonna make the list?

what about deion sanders?

Rickey will be on the list pretty high, I'm sure.

also Kirk Gibson of course. Sammy Sosa, too.

Pretty sure the one non-player he'll have on the list (see criterion #3 above) is Steinbrenner.

Steinbrenner was also the subject of jokes in the Simpsons and Seinfeld

national fame vs regional fame is kind of a key distinction here, probably. to me, ozzie smith is an incredibly famous baseball player. everyone around here knows ozzie smith. albert pujols. mark mcgwire in the late 90s was very famous (on a national level there, for a while, too).

i just polled a non-sports fan who grew up in kansas city. they answered "albert pujols. mike moustakis. oh, and a-rod". they recognized barry bonds name, and when i asked what they knew about him, they said "he cheated. and he took his socks off"

I think McGwire, Pujols, and Ozzie will all be on the list. Agree with your basic point. In Toronto, Moseby, Stieb, and Kelly Gruber are still famous.

I think Ozzie will make it on the strength of "Go crazy, folks!," The Simpsons, his cartwheel, and his nickname (above and beyond his playing credentials).

i wonder if george brett would make the list? pine tar + "the george brett story" on youtube

If you didn't follow baseball in the '70s, this will befuddle you (and if you did, you might hate it), but--just posted--#49: Steve Garvey. (Haven't read the entry yet.)

Brett, I'd say 100%--pine tar, chase for .400, epic post-seasons, hemorrhoids, The Simpsons, on and on.

Didn't realize he was running for the Senate in 2024. You know for which side...

https://stevegarvey.com/

I assumed he was a Republican without knowing anything about him cos most are, website confirmed that, but he could be a fairly standard democrat with those views, and the website is deceptive!

I think he's very much a Romney type of Republican, not so much a Trump guy, but in 2024, who knows. One thing I remember is him citing (during his playing days) Gerald Ford as his political hero for stepping in and (paraphrasing from memory) calming the country after Watergate. Later on that day, he went out and fathered three children.

lol

aahhh - I don't think Brett was on the Simpsons tho?

I thought he was in the Griffey/Ozzie episode, I guess not. He was in Modern Family, though.

george brett comes with a hank scorpio energy so i understand the simpsons confustion

Also Kent Brockman when he won the jackpot that time
https://64.media.tumblr.com/7fa2befb9037814a399c93853a736807/tumblr_oihjvzLbtC1uruw4so1_500.png

#48, Tommy Lasorda. I take it he doesn't consider managers "non-players"--he must have meant a separate category for people not on the field. Because surely Steinbrenner's on there, and there's no way Lasorda's the most famous manager of the past 50 years.

I mean, he's close. I'd say Billy Martin was more famous in the late '70s and into the '80s, maybe Torre, maybe Earl Weaver.

Slim fast my dudes

Sega Genesis games
Tommy Lasorda: 1
Billy Martin: 0

This was pretty famous in its day:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOVHc4hcCX4

Close call--I don't know which of the two is more famous. Maybe Lasorda just by virtue of outliving Martin by three decades.

(Also, the true trademark-owner of "You're fired.")

Can't find a clip on YouTube, but in Spike Lee's Girl 6, Lee himself plays a card collector who's planning to retire one day on all the Ken Griffey Jr. '89 Upper Deck rookie cards he's hoarded.

#47: Don Mattingly.

These are all going to be behind a paywall, but I'll post a brief excerpt each day:

In the moment, Mattingly was often called the best player in baseball--Carlton Fisk, among many others, was quoted saying that. I don’t think, looking back, that he actually was the best player in baseball, or even the best player in the league. I think, even in his prime, Rickey Henderson, Wade Boggs and Cal Ripken Jr. were definitely more valuable, and perhaps also Alan Trammell and Eddie Murray and George Brett and Lou Whitaker. Mattingly didn’t walk much, so, even though he hit for such high averages, he never had a .400 on-base percentage. And after his age-26 season, his power numbers tumbled.

But such stats might cause people to miss the larger point of Don Mattingly: He was both this larger-than-life ballplayer and the guy who lives next door. He was this extension of Yankees royalty--a direct descendant of Gehrig and DiMaggio and Mantle--and also a reminder of what the Yankees used to represent. People love to talk about the meaning of the pinstripes. Well, the pinstripes did look right on him.

#46: Jim Palmer. (With the headline "A Good Head of Hair"--before I scrolled down, my first thought was "Seriously? Oscar Gamble?!")

Over the last 100 years, here are the lowest WHIPs—walks and hits per inning pitched—in high-leverage situations:

1. Jim Palmer, 0.993
2. Sandy Koufax, 1.007
3. Tom Seaver, 1.029
4. Juan Marichal, 1.032
5. Mariano Rivera, 1.070

Now, here is the career WHIP for each of those pitchers:

1. Jim Palmer, 1.180 (118th all-time)
2. Sandy Koufax, 1.106 (30th)
3. Tom Seaver, 1.121 (40th)
4. Juan Marichal, 1.101 (24th)
5. Mariano Rivera, 1.000 (4th)

You explain that. You explain how Jim Palmer had the lowest WHIP ever in high-leverage situations--when the game was basically on the line--and a less-than-legendary WHIP the rest of the time. It’s not like Palmer was especially skilled at preventing baserunners. He did lead the league in WHIP once, late in his career, but he also walked 100-plus batters three times (and 99 batters once) and four times was among the top 10 in most hits allowed.

What allowed him to turn it up when the heat was at its highest?

Just skimmimg, there's no mention of Baltimore's legendary defense. I realize that's part of the answer, but I also think Palmer really was the rare player who, over a very large sample size, was "clutch." Like the famous stat where he never gave up a grand slam in 213 bases-loaded situations; obviously, that had nothing to do with his defense.

What allowed him to turn it up when the heat was at its highest?

the flexibility and breathability of jockey men's briefs, of course

I'm surprised he didn't use one of those ads for the accompanying photo--pretty close!

https://i.postimg.cc/v8gtRPNB/palmer.jpg

(Having read it now, there is brief mention of the Orioles' defense--including Palmer getting angry at DeCinces for not getting in front of the ball, a feud, and then Palmer later apologizing that he'd been spoiled by Brooks Robinson.)

Palmer is also famous for hardly ever giving up grand slams but also walking home more runs than other good pitchers. The guy knew what he was doing

Interesting. That would more go along with what I meant--not that he had some magical ability to get out of jams, more that he was a smart guy who could weigh the possible outcomes and would concede a run to avoid a big inning (and his defense definitely would have helped there, giving him the confidence that walking a run in was okay).

In the future, everyone will count down famous baseball players for 15 minutes...seems to have stalled for some reason.

Bizarre--literally two minutes after posting that, the new one showed up.

#45: Kirk Gibson

Gibson’s fame was certainly mixed. He never played in an All-Star Game. He played 140 games in a season only three times. He hit 255 home runs and stole 284 bases—when he retired he was one of only nine players to have 250 homers and 250 steals—and yet there was always this sense that his career was a disappointment, that it had fallen short of what might have been. But I tend to believe careers are often what they’re supposed to be, and I’m not sure that a mercurial player like Kirk Gibson—who played with such wild abandon—can stay healthy or be metronome consistent. He was a bright-lights performer. He was a ferocious competitor. He was a football player. Had he stayed in football, who knows, his bust might be in Canton right now. But baseball wouldn’t have been the same.

I don't know if it was the only time he was on the cover of SI, but the issue accompanying the piece is early:

https://i.postimg.cc/zDK1P1mT/kirk.jpg

how do you do that, win an MVP, and *never* make the all star team?!

I don't know if he's the only guy ever to accomplish that, but definitely strange. I thought he would have been part of the '84 game, but he did get off to a so-so start: .273/.349/.483, 12 HR, 46 RBI. (The Tigers were 57-27 at the break.)

(Chet Lemon made it; .307/.377/.540, 12 HR, 51 RBI. Close, but clearly better.)

Gibby w/o a moustache is so weird

Typical Posnanski: he starts the most-famous countdown, gets six entries posted, then begins a pre-season countdown of the teams, #30-1 (for me, not nearly as interesting; there are a zillion pre-season rankings). So he seems to have put most-famous aside for at least three weeks. He did that a few times with the Top 100--took him three or four years to complete.

Resumption. #45, Manny:

He was supernatural with two outs and runners in scoring position. The highest OPS ever in such situations with at least 1,000 plate appearances:

1. Babe Ruth, 1.203
2. Ted Williams, 1.128
3. Lou Gehrig, 1.065
4. Jimmie Foxx, 1.056
5. Manny Ramirez, 1.050

And when asked how he did it, MannyBManny said: “I don’t know. I just hit.”

He did just hit. The rest of the game held little interest for him. But in that way, he wasn’t really much different from another Red Sox leftfielder named Ted Williams. He was flakier than Ted and less profane than Ted and just plain odder than Ted. It’s unlikely that Ted Williams would have delayed a game looking for his diamond earring in the infield dirt or smiled after getting picked off in the World Series or left the outfield in the middle of the game to go the bathroom or run back to first base after stealing second or dived to cut off Johnny Damon’s throw for no apparent reason or kept a water bottle in his pocket...

Millar: (Julian Tavarez and Manny) had this drink. It was like whiskey and it was this Latin cocktail they’d shake up in this old bottle, like a big old Perrier bottle. They put all this stuff in it: a shot of whiskey, honey, lemon. Well, Manny had the idea of throwing in Viagara pills and didn’t tell anybody. We were all taking shots of this stuff and it was like: “Let’s go play!”

Arroyo: Manny loved a laugh.

Leskanic: You know how they have the Silver Slugger award? I told him that this year they were going to give out a Silver Glove award. So we all spray-painted his glove silver and hung it in his locker. He said: “Lesky, I told you I was going to win the Silver Glove award!”

McCarty: For all the s— he took about his defense, he really worked at it.

Garciaparra: Manny put in the work.

Leskanic: We would go out and have some drinks together. All his drinks had Red Bull. I’d say: “Manny, every time I see you, you’ve got a Red Bull in your hand. Why do you drink so much Red Bull?” And he would say in his dreams he could take longer batting practice because of the energy.

Millar: Only Manny.

Arroyo: Manny was so cheap, when we would check out of a hotel, all his incidentals he would freaking send to Edgar Rentería’s bill every time. You’d see Edgar arguing with the hotel manager that he didn’t have all this food.

Leskanic: That’s true! Terry Adams was checking out, and I was right behind him. Terry was like: “I didn’t get four massages. I wasn’t even here for four days, how the hell would I get four massages?” Manny put it on his bill!

Foulke: Manny would do the same thing to Julian (Tavarez). Julian knew him really well. He’d go into his wallet and get money out.

Leskanic: Schilling made these “why not us” T-shirts. Manny took them all, put them all in his locker, 25 shirts, and he wore a different one home every night.

Arroyo: Manny would open up his man purse and he’d have $10,000 in there.

Leskanic: I just loved the guy.

Most of today's entry was about how little MVP support he garnered during an astounding seven-year run.

I often think of Manny as my favourite player

Why do you drink so much Red Bull?” And he would say in his dreams he could take longer batting practice because of the energy.

In his dreams

he is batting practice viking

manny ramirez (best player)

Down to #6 on the pre-season rundown that put the famous-player countdown on hold (I get the feeling he was rushing to get rundown finished before Opening Day and missed). In his Astros entry for today, there's this little bit--I've had this same theory for a while and have posted about it somewhere on ILX:

OK, I’ve been wanting to unveil this thought I have about 1970s sitcoms, and maybe I can pull it off here. Maybe not. But I’ll try. So you probably know that 1970s sitcoms were, pretty much without exception, filmed in front of a live studio audience. Well, one of the features of this is that after a show had been on the air for a while, the studio audience would cheer the mere appearance of Fonzie or Latka or Laverne.

But what struck me, even as a kid, is that the longer the show would go on, the more characters the studio audience would cheer for simply showing up. I mean, it was one thing when the audience cheered for the Fonz. It was quite another when they cheered for Ralph Malph. That, to me, that was living proof that a show was going on too long--the fans started applauding simply because they recognized someone from the old show. Hey, look, it’s Chachi!

this is a classic clemenza post, ty <3

but has joe posnanski ever been in a live studio audience? i mean, they literally prompt you to applaud! also does he really think 70s sitcom producers adhered strictly to audience reactions rather than using canned laughs when it suited their purposes?

Happy Days was the worst offender by far.

The first two seasons of Happy Days (1974–75) were filmed using a single-camera setup and laugh track. One episode of season two ("Fonzie Gets Married") was filmed in front of a studio audience with three cameras as a test run. From the third season on (1975–84), the show was a three-camera production in front of a live audience (with a cast member, usually Tom Bosley, announcing in voice-over, "Happy Days is filmed before a live audience" at the start of most episodes), giving these later seasons a markedly different style. A laugh track was still used during post-production to smooth over live reactions.

A laugh-track, yeah, but I don't know whether the entrance applause for characters was coaxed or not. It's almost a moot point as to how embarrassing it was to hear that watching at home.

It lives (77 days dormant, according to Posnanski): #43 on the fame countdown, Clayton Kershaw. (I messed up somewhere above.)

On hold again for something called "Revising Greatness":

We’re counting down the Hall of Fame plaques, 270 to 1, based on how well they tell the story of the player and how many emotions they summon from baseball fans, both young and old. When a plaque is marked “ASNC,” that stands for “All Stats, No Cattle,” meaning the plaque has too many boring statistics and not nearly enough about what actually made the player special.

Honestly, it's the most pointless thing he's ever done.

Wow--he resumed the Fame Countdown today and did what he probably should have done from the beginning: much shorter entries, so he reeled off 13 today. (I was born to complain; maybe a little too short--about 60-70 words per player.)

#42, 41, 40 -- I swear he messed up and forgot these numbers (unless I missed a post, which I don't think I did).

#39 - Yaz
#38 - Gary Carter (in terms of fame, not value, strongly disagree with this; Carter spent his greatest years anonymous in Montreal)
#37 - Maddux (in ILM parlance, too low! Maddux is legendary, and even has something named after him)
#36 - Morgan
#35 - Fernando (when a first name is enough, you're famous)
#34 - Gooden
#33 - Vin Scully
#32 - Trout
#31 - Canseco
#30 - Pedro
#29 - Judge (hard to gauge someone in his prime...)
#28 - Sosa
#27 - Rivera

It's been so long since this thing started, I forget him timeline...I think it was postwar players? (Or maybe even '62 expansion forward.)

Pedro too low. Order off the top of my head for that era

Pedro 1A
Randy 1B
Clemens (i think. His Ny years were kinda wack and Im a steroid agnostic ymmv) 3
Maddux 4 (emotional 1C. His 3rd act was admittedly kind of a drag)

Ranking those four is really tough. My sense is that Maddux is the most famous because of the "chicks dig..." commercial and because of "he threw a Maddux," but Pedro has the Zimmer fight, Johnson has the two ASG slips with Kruk and Walker, and Clemens has a mountain of infamy. (Trying to gauge their fame independent of pitching value.)

slips = clips

Randy made the bird explode

Randy is very tall too

The bird, yes--he and Dave Winfield both score high on the dead-bird component of fame.

One thing I'd factor in is "How long is your Wikipedia entry?" A quick look tells me that Clemens wins that one going away.

Does Michael Jordan count as a baseball player?

I doubt Posnanski will count him. (That reminds me of some kid a few years ago--after I'd moved from full-time to supply--doing some survey and asking me "Do you count as a teacher?")

Was going to suggest an Immaculate Grid component too, but that might be an inverse relationship since most players are looking for rarity.

As someone pointed out, these new shorter entries are clearly meant to dovetail with that other countdown of his, the HOF plaques. Which is strange.

#26 - Harper
#25 - Schmidt
#24 - Bo Jackson
#23 - Rickey
#22 - Ortiz
#21 - Johnson
#20 - Clemens
#19 - Seaver
#18 - Ozzie
#17 - Strawberry
#16 - Bench
#15 - Brett
#14 - Pujols
#13 - McGwire

I'd quibble with Schmidt--whose greatness exceeds his fame, I'd say--and Strawberry, maybe; not sure his fame has endured over the years.

He might be talking about fame at the time they were playing, to an extent. Schmidt qualifies in that way, every time your team faced him back in the day, you were well aware of that he was by far the greatest slugger of his era. In terms of length of career and absolute clockwork like consistency, no one else was really close. Reggie overlapped a bit but his greatest seasons didn't coincide with Schmidt's peak, Murray was a consistent 25-30 hr kinda guy, Murphy had a brief peak, Winfield and Dawson had their big slugging years but didn't ascend nearly as high as frequently, etc. Schmidt was practically the Aaron Judge of the '80s in terms of power dominance. I do think that like a lot of players from that time, he's just not nearly as appreciated now as he was then of course so that point is correct. That's a baseball fan I'd probably consider Strawberry to be a decent pick but I'm really not sure about that placement, there's no way he was higher on the fame chart than Schmidt and Rickey.

*as a baseball fan

TIL schmidt is a 100 war guy

mike schmidt was a god to me. on the same level as like burt reynolds and george brett and sylvester stallone and chuck norris.

We all agree that Schmidt was godlike as a player; I'm just suggesting that his fame didn't match his ability. It was really only when--sorry, but true--James started hyping him in the Abstracts that he started to get his due. Up till at least '78 or '79, I think most fans actually thought Steve Garvey was a better player than Schmidt because Garvey got 200 hits every year and Schmidt was a .250 hitter.

The other thing I'd say is that except for his four-HR game, I'm sure Schmidt had the kind of stories that make someone famous with a broader spectrum of the public. Brett is the obvious comparison: the pine-tar game, the quest for .400, legendary post-season HR, the hemorrhoids. Maybe I'm forgetting stuff, but I don't remember Schmidt being famous in that way.

Seriously--I'm in NO way trying to diminish him as a player.

I'm sure = I'm not sure

just to be clear i'm not making a case for burt reynolds or chuck norris' abilities with a baseball bat

mike schmidt had a movie star like aura to me, and i think to a lot of people

Interesting--never heard that before.

Reggie overlapped a bit but his greatest seasons didn't coincide with Schmidt's peak

In my mind, Reggie has to be top five on this countdown.

Thinking of the top 10, I might go with:

Either Mays or DiMaggio #1.

Williams, Aaron, Koufax, Mantle, Reggie near the top.

Bonds and Ohtani somewhere in there.

Which leaves one other spot for whoever I've egregiously overlooked.

Maybe Clemente or Jeter or A-Rod for the other spot.

Ha! "Egregious"--if it's post-war, I'm thinking Jackie Robinson just might be Top 10 (could conceivably be #1, even).

Bob Gibson has at least three big fame markers: 1.12, his post-season heroics, and his reputation (exaggerated, I've read) for being willing to throw at his own grandmother.

Yogi Berra could crack the Top 10 too.

Headline on today's blog post: "Nothing Beats a Great Pennant Race. Here's Why."

Is nothing safe from this kind of thing? Better than "Nothing Beats a Great Pennant Race--and here's why that's bad for Harris," but not by much.

so wait, is that not ok?

Posted some "fine start"-related stuff in the HOF thread the other day. Tom Tango's hopped on--couple of follow-up notes.

1) Now has a better name: "Nolans." (Game Score of 58 or better; Clemens actually had a few more than Ryan for his career.)

2) The opposite--not-so-fine starts--also has a name now: "Moyers." (Game Score of 40 or less.)

3) Tango, because he’s Tango, figured out Wins Above Average based on Nolans and Moyers, and here are the 10 best seasons since 1969:

Pedro Martinez, 2000, 8.3 WAA
Dwight Gooden, 1985, 7.6 WAA
Roger Clemens, 1997, 7.6 WAA
Randy Johnson, 1999, 7.5 WAA
Pedro Martinez, 1999, 7.5 WAA
Pedro Martinez, 1997, 7.2 WAA
Mike Scott, 1986, 7.2 WAA
Greg Maddux, 1995, 6.9 WAA
Steve Carlton, 1972, 6.8 WAA
Randy Johnson, 2001, 6.8 WAA

Neat seeing Mike Scott there--he was indeed awesome in '86.

mike scott had a weird career -- an even more extreme jake arrieta

Read up a little bit, trying to understand what happened to him in '86--thought maybe that was the year he developed his spitter. His Wikipedia page twice makes reference to rumors of scuffed/doctored baseballs.

Ugh: spitter = splitter.

Joe writes about the Red Sox (long) and Kershaw today. I think this takes you to where you can subscribe for free:

https://www.joeposnanski.com/subscribe?ref=NtRLktbp1q&_bhlid=bf7a73b936aab597b0df9777ef50b28c5a049d32

You can read it here - https://www.joeposnanski.com/p/the-red-sox-did-what-6110

Nothing very enlightening imo. Joe speculates that the FO intended Devers to get disgruntled in order to give them an excuse to get out of his contract.. seems a little 5D chess to me

May or may not work: Zack Wheeler as a possible HOF'er.

https://www.joeposnanski.com/subscribe?ref=NtRLktbp1q

You can read it here - https://www.joeposnanski.com/p/the-red-sox-did-what-6110🕸

Nothing very enlightening imo. Joe speculates that the FO intended Devers to get disgruntled in order to give them an excuse to get out of his contract.. seems a little 5D chess to me

Nah I think he’s dead accurate here

In my mind, they KNEW that Devers would be furious about being moved to DH. They knew EXACTLY what promises had been made by the organization. They were more than happy to let him hang himself in the court of public opinion by saying so. I think they wanted all along to get rid of Devers and dump that salary … and if they got a couple of prospects they could hype in the process, all the better

He was getting straight up hate from all sides during spring training until he eventually came out and said he’d DH and he even said the fear of being thought badly of was an influence on his behaviour. Meanwhile every dog in Boston was barking with the fury of the so called fans and what they were lining up to say about him.

At least SF isn't nearly as racist as Boston. I feel like Red Sox players of color have additional hurdles to clear outside of the usual fanbases.

Correct

On the Zack Wheeler question, I think he’d have to do a bit more to get in there. I don’t see him at this point as being someone who’s accomplished more than Dave Stieb in terms of career achievement, he’s no Corey Kluber in terms of peak (not far off but Kluber had five legit seasons), he just seems like the hall of very good. He could age really well and put up three or four more seasons like this and then it could happen, if he’s like Verlander then maybe it’s pretty likely. But right now, if after this season he was not a HOF level guy, I just don’t see it.

he claims he's gonna retire after 2027, which would hamper him. if he keeps this level up, he'd finish with 50+ fwar, which is just below the hall threshold for healthy players

Can you imagine the Giants 2014 SP rotation if they hadn't traded Wheeler away?

Madison Bumgarner
Jake Peavy
Tim Hudson
Matt Cain
Zach Wheeler
Ryan Vogelson
Tim Lincecum

Wheeler's a super longshot for sure. But I like that he threw the idea out there. The HOF is about career and peak. For the longest time--except for Koufax, Dizzy Dean, and a few other cases (and certainly players held back because of segregation)--career was much more important. The relative importance of each is clearly in transition now, moving towards peak. So I just took the column as, Wheeler's taken care of the peak part, now he has to pitch well till he's 40 and get to the bare minimum that would take care of the career part.

Preemptive and (obviously) speculative, but Posnanski thinks if it were 1977, Raleigh would edge out Judge for MVP:

2) I’ve been thinking about how the American League MVP voting would go if this was, say, 1977. It seems to me that MVP voting in those days came down to (A) How well the team did, (B) Batting average, (C) RBI, and (D) Did that player win the MVP last year because the voters didn’t like repeat winners, and maybe (E) Catchers getting a slight bit of extra credit for being catchers.

3) With that in mind, you look at Judge v. Raleigh — (A) the Yankees and Mariners have roughly the same record and are both currently in the wildcard race, (B) Judge’s .355 batting average would be a huge factor, Raleigh is hitting just .259. (C) Raleigh’s lead in homers and RBI would certainly be taken into account. (D) Judge DID win the MVP last year and also two years before that, and (E) I think Raleigh would get some credit for being a catcher, especially because he won the Gold Glove last year but I don’t know if the voters would have given him the full “Thurman Munson Leader” bonus.

4) And in the end? Whew, it’s SUCH a tough call. On the one hand, Judge’s batting average seems to me the decisive factor. The voters rarely gave the MVP to a batter who hit less than .300 (or thereabouts) and NEVER gave the MVP to someone hitting .259. On the other hand, they did give the MVP to Johnny Bench in 1972 when he hit a mere .270, and I really think the voters would have gone to extremes not to give yet another MVP award to Judge.

5) In the end, I’m going to guess: Assuming that Raleigh is leading the league in homers and RBI at the end of the year AND the Mariners make the postseason, the 1977 voters would have given him the MVP award.

What about the 1974 voters? What about the 1975 voters? What about the 1976 voters? What about the 1978 voters? What about the 1979 voters? What about the 1980 voters? What about the 1981 voters? What about the 1982 voters? What about the 1983 voters? What about the 1984 voters? What about the 1959 voters? What about the 1961 voters? What about the 1905 voters? What about the 1923 voters? What about the 2020 voters? What about the voters beaming in their opinions from 2172?

On the one hand, Judge’s batting average seems to me the decisive factor.

tell me you wear readers without telling me you wear readers.

WmC -- I assume by 1977, he picked a year that stood in for a 15- or 20-year window.