Greatest Living _______________

Giant: Willie Mays

Shill: (tie) Cal Ripken, Tommy LaSorda

Relief Pitcher Most Likely To Give Up Tater: (tie) Armando Benitez, Kyle Farnsworth

Eric Gagne FTW!!!!

Active Pinch Hitter: Mark Sweeney
Active Injury-Prone Player: Rich Harden
Active ROY Flash-In-The-Pan: Clint Barmes
Rickey Henderson: Rickey Henderson

gay Republican player: George Brett

But Eric Gagne was one good, whereas Benitez and Farnsworth have always been O_o whenever they were brought into games...

i disagree. look at benitez up through his age 27 season.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/b/benitar01.shtml

that being said, he's been homerriffic for almost a decade now!

Active Injury-Prone Player: Rich HardenMark Prior

"active"?

Active ROY Flash-In-The-Pan: Clint Barmes Eric Hinske

Griffey: Ken, Jr.

as long as mark prior is siphoning unearned money from a major league team's payroll he is active imo!

i'm not bitter about anything not at all

Brewer: Bob Uecker

yo fuckers, stop telling me I'm wrong WHEN I AM RITE

Red Sox: Manny Ortez

Yankee: Yogi Berra Carl Pavano

now you guys are just being smartmouths

Yeah I think that's right omar little that MLB salary payroll information doesn't reflect salary that teams continue to pay for players that are on the DL, playing for other teams or otherwise not on the active rosters.

moises alou killed mark prior

He kind of did by not catching that total remedial level grounder.

alou's overreaction + a-goner's error = psych warfare on prior's brain

moises alou killed pissed all over mark prior

Unemployed Utility Infielder Busted For Violating MLB's Banned Substance Policy: Neifi Perez

Yeah I was mad. I was hoping to get Neifi for the Yardwork No-Stars last year and then the 40-game suspension made him worthless.

Active ROY Flash-In-The-Pan: Clint Barmes Eric Hinske Angel Berroa

80 games

xp

UnOveremployed Utility Infielder Busted For Violating MLB's Banned Substance Policy: Neifi Perez

below avg #4 starter paid like future HOFer #1 starter: Barry Zito

Racist Brave: John Rocker

Negro League Player Excluding Aaron and Mays: Minnie Minoso?

Ernie Banks...

outfield: mays, aaron, bonds :(
third: schmidt
ss: gayrod
second: morgan
first: musial :)
catcher: bench

pitchers: gibson, ryan, koufax, clemens :(, drysdale
closer: roborivera, eck

Radio color commentator: Ron Santo

thats not bad! but i think ryan + drysdale can be improved upon, surely xp

randy johnson, greg maddux, pedro martinez, tom seaver = better than drysdale or ryan

backflipper: ozzie smith

feller > drysdale

Seaver, good call.

btw drysdale is dead

rip

heaven needed 58 consecutive scoreless innings

While broadcasting for the White Sox, Drysdale generated some mild controversy while covering a heated argument between an umpire and Sox manager Tony LaRussa. The animated LaRussa pulled up the third base bag and hurled it into the outfield, to the approval of the Comiskey Park crowd, and ensuring his ejection. Drysdale remarked, "Go get 'em, Dago!"

Drysdale doing the White Sox? ;_;

Drysdale, Newcombe, Podres, Maglie. How that starting pitching finished 11 games back in '57.

manager: earl weaver & dont know one question me on this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWQbN0jFo_k

That is definitely the GL Manager Meltdown That Also Functions As Overlinked YouTube (w/ Lee Elia a close 2nd).

Negro League Player Excluding Aaron and Mays: Minnie Minoso?

wtf hellz no, he barely cracks the top ten

living?

manager: earl weaver & dont know one question me on this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWQbN0jFo_k

-- deeznuts, Tuesday, 15 April 2008 00:46 (12 hours ago) Link

That is definitely the GL Manager Meltdown That Also Functions As Overlinked YouTube (w/ Lee Elia a close 2nd).

-- David R., Tuesday, 15 April 2008 03:19 (10 hours ago) Link

i'll see if i can find the story about that, but it was basically earl and the host of his call in program having a laugh. i believe it was recorded before the actual manager's corner that day and distributed internally.

Yeah, that's what I heard, too. If it's not a piss take, then the host is the greatest straight man of all time.

xp: yes, a pre-show stunt. Earl as greatest living manager?

Here's the long awkward thing I meant about Minoso: I can't think of any other living players who spent a SIGNIFICANT piece of their prime in the Negro Leagues; Banks, Mays and Aaron didn't. Minnie was 26 (we think) when he made his MLB debut.

randy johnson, greg maddux, pedro martinez, tom seaver = better than drysdale or ryan

OBVIOUSLY! Dead Don Drysdale isn't the worst pitcher in the HOF, but Blyleven and Mussina have been better.

It's hard to argue against Bench among living catchers, but Fisk (esp for the durability) and Berra aren't far behind.

(also, Gary Carter)

Player Career Peak JAWS

Johnny Bench 122.2 73.7 98.0
Gary Carter 117.8 68.9 93.4
Ivan Rodriguez 120.3 63.1 91.7
Yogi Berra 116.2 66.0 91.1
Carlton Fisk 118.3 59.5 88.9

Player Career Peak JAWS

*making up

He's making them! At the Baseball Think Factory.

happy 90th (yesterday) to Stan the Man!

Neyer weighs in on greatest living players:

http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/6379/hard-choices-about-living-players

Tough to argue with any of Neyer's lineup, except for possibly Seaver.

I'd take A-Rod over Ripken too.

Not sure if this is the right thread, but here's a bracket where you can vote for the greatest hitter season ever:

http://espn.go.com/sportsnation/feature/sweetspot/2012/sweetspot

Down to four: Ruth's 1921 vs. Mantle's 1956, Musial's 1948 vs. Williams' 1941. It'll be Ruth vs. Williams, and I imagine Ruth will win 60/40 or something.

so griffey '97 wins out over bonds '01

Yeah, I took notice of that. My conclusion: while you may disagree (I think almost everyone on this board does), when the sportswriters shut McGwire and Palmeiro and whoever else out of the HOF, they're not unilaterally driving the debate--they're reflecting public opinion.

dunno how much of the public knows that sportswriters are mostly idiots

ie, this:

http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/21431/easier-to-put-up-big-numbers-in-old-days

Not quite sure what you're saying here...The biggest blind spot in over-valuing old players has always been hitters in the '30s--but then the same over-valuation applies to hitters in the '93-'03 window. For me, the biggest mitigating factor in terms of Ruth--not his fault--is that he played in a segregated league; I'm going to vote for Mantle's '56 for that reason. "Sportswriters are mostly idiots" is a pretty sweeping indictment. There are lots of fine sportswriters, even among those who haven't jumped on board with current dogma.

when the sportswriters shut McGwire and Palmeiro and whoever else out of the HOF, they're not unilaterally driving the debate--they're reflecting public opinion.

chicken vs egg. It's not as clear cut as you're making it out to be.

Putting aside the steroid issue for a moment, Bonds was probably the most dominant player in baseball history, when you take into account how much harder it is to dominate now than it was in the 20's.

Agree completely, but I see where it's kind of hard to put that issue aside though since those outsized years at the end of his career are really what made him the most dominant player in baseball history. The pre-2000 Barry is only one of the ten, twenty best position players.

Not sure how many voters paid attention, but they did post WAR numbers alongside all the slash and Triple Crown stats--WAR presumably adjusts for all those things like era, position, park, etc. The one thing it doesn't adjust for: this guy is playing in a league alongside all the best players in the country (plus many from other countries), while this other guy is playing in a league where many of the country's best players are relegated to a separate league.

I'm not sure, actually, whether voters were instructed to vote for the best offensive seasons period, or whether relative positional value was supposed to be part of the equation.

"WAR presumably adjusts for all those things like era, position, park, etc"

It does and for this question you can focus entirely on oWAR which lacks the controversy of dWAR. That said, I'd agree that you'd probably not care about position in a this particular question so even oWAR (which weighs position heavily) is pretty useless. There really is no good statistical tool for comparing players across different eras.

I was close: Ruth won the final over Williams 70-30.

Stan Musial at 91:

http://a.espncdn.com/photo/2012/0413/mlb_g_musial11_576.jpg