50 most valuable players in MLB!

By Nate Silver
Special to Page 2

Maybe Scott Boras finds a technicality in the eighth paragraph of the fourth amendment of the collective bargaining agreement. Maybe Bud Selig and Don Fehr, dreading another round of labor negotiations, decide to call one another's bluff and blow the whole thing up. Maybe al-Qaida has invented a new, amnesia-inducing biological weapon, and for reasons unbeknownst to anyone, decides to test it on the executive offices of the 30 Major League Baseball clubs.

But here's what happens. The rosters of the 30 MLB teams, the organized minor leagues, and the professional leagues in Japan, Cuba and Korea are dissolved. All contracts are declared null and void. Everybody is a free agent. There is going to be a fantasy draft to end all fantasy drafts. And you're on the clock.

One important ground rule before we begin. Although a player's real-life contract is no longer of any consequence -- for instance, the Rockies can get out of paying Denny Neagle without having to invoke the Hooker Clause -- the current structure of Major League Baseball still applies. What that means, specifically, is that the players you draft will be under your club's control for six years of major league service time -- first under the reserve clause, then under the arbitration system. After that, they become free agents. The six years of service time don't necessarily have to be the next six years. For example, you could draft Brandon Wood, keep him in the minor leagues for two years, and then get his services for 2008-13. But it's still just six years. In other words, we're looking at the long term, but not the infinite term.

These rankings are informed by Baseball Prospectus' projection system, PECOTA. Among its other bells and whistles, PECOTA predicts a player's value not only for the current season, but also for many years upcoming. You can see, if you're really curious, how many sacrifice flies Torii Hunter is going to hit in 2009. But the rankings also take into account scouting judgments, injury reports, and a healthy dose of old-fashioned gut feel.

Pencils and scorecards ready? Here is your cheat sheet:

50. Daisuke Matsuzaka, P, Seibu Lions (25)
Rumors that he throws an unidentified flying object called the gyroball were greatly exaggerated, but the buzz surrounding Matsuzaka grew from a loud whisper into a kamikaze scream after his MVP performance in the World Baseball Classic. Matsuzaka has a fastball that has been clocked as high as 100 mph, and he's posted a 3.7 strikeout-walk ratio over his previous three seasons in Japan. Unlike other Japanese imports, he could emigrate to the United States while still in his mid-20s. PECOTA is reserved, seeing Matsuzaka as a No. 2/No. 3 guy rather than a true staff ace, but he'd likely benefit from the Nomo Effect until teams caught up with his scouting report -- and his heater.

49. Justin Verlander, P, Detroit Tigers (23)
Full disclosure: I am a Tigers fan. But this is an awfully tempting bandwagon to jump on. Among an impressive crop of rookie pitchers, Verlander is the only one who rates as major league plus in all three critical departments: stuff (he hit triple digits in his first start of the season against Texas), command (2.0 BB/9 over his professional career), and home run/fly ball prevention (just four bombs allowed in 119 minor league innings last season). Although his mechanics look a bit skittish to my eyes, Baseball Prospectus colleagues Will Carroll and Kevin Goldstein assure me that they're solid and repeatable, and much improved from his Old Dominion days.

48. Prince Fielder, 1B, Milwaukee Brewers (22)
You can excuse Fielder if he looked a bit nervous during his first dozen at-bats this season -- much has been expected of the not-so-little Prince since he started swatting home runs into the Tiger Stadium overhang while taking batting practice with his daddy at the age of 12. Fielder combines as much raw power potential as any prospect in the game with a refined hitting approach, going the other way and using the count to his advantage. Given his bubbly build, he's likely to be a better player in his 20s than his 30s, but he could easily be at 200 home runs and counting before he deposits his first free agency paycheck.

47. Jeremy Hermida, OF, Florida Marlins (22)
It's rare that you'll see Baseball Prospectus criticize a prospect for being too patient, but that may be the case with Hermida, who had nearly as many walks (111) at Double-A Carolina last season as he did base hits (113). He's likely to go through some slumps this season once major league pitchers learn to hit the corners and exploit his passivity. But Hermida projects to add enough power to his athletic 6-foor-4 frame to eventually render that a dicey proposition, tipping the scales back in his favor. A Dwight Evans-type career could follow.

46. Chris Young, OF, Arizona Diamondbacks (22)
In Baseball Prospectus 2006, we made the bold claim that Young could turn out to become the White Sox' answer to Jeff Bagwell -- how'd they let that guy go? A .922 minor league OPS last season, impressive enough on its own, becomes all the more frightening once you consider that it came at Double-A Birmingham, one of the toughest hitting environments in the minor leagues. Young's only outstanding weakness is a propensity to strike out on tough breaking stuff, but he's Mike Cameron if he doesn't adjust -- and could show us what a healthy Eric Davis would have done if he does adjust.

45. Bobby Crosby, SS, Oakland A's (26)
Crosby, on the other hand, has no discernable weaknesses, save for a propensity to get himself injured in the strangest ways: an ankle that collided with Sal Fasano's shin guard last September; a hand that collided with Robinson Cano's cleat on Opening Day. If Crosby can make it through the rest of the year without having arachnoid nightmares or a truck-washing accident, he projects for several seasons of .800-.850 OPS and a closet full of Gold Glove awards at short.

44. Ben Sheets, P, Milwaukee Brewers (27)
Speaking of injury problems, Sheets' recurring back issues following very heavy workloads in 2003 and 2004 were enough to have us demote him 10 slots from where he'd deserve to rank based on his statistical record alone. Good numbers for Brewers fans: 264, 32. Those were, respectively, the number of strikeouts and walks that Sheets had in 2004. Bad numbers for Brewers fans: 49, 13. Those were, respectively, the uniform numbers of Teddy Higuera and Jeff D'Amico.

43. Vernon Wells, OF, Toronto Blue Jays (27)
Sometimes the best breakout candidates aren't players who have never been spoken about before -- but rather, guys who have failed to live up to expectations in the recent past. PECOTA foresaw this pattern last season with Andruw Jones, and it sees the same potential in Wells -- a player who, like Jones, does too many things well on a baseball diamond to settle for league-average production.

42. Dontrelle Willis, P, Florida Marlins (24)
As Bill James has emphasized, the number of productive years that a pitcher has left may be better reflected in his strikeout rate than his date of birth. On that score, Willis and his league-average strikeout rate might be more like 28 than 24, and it's telling that two of his top three PECOTA comparables are Steve Avery and Jim Abbott. Still, Willis put to rest a lot of rumors about off-balance mechanics with a couple of excellent outings during the season's first week, and last season nearly became the youngest Cy Young winner since Roger Clemens in 1986. Look further down Willis' PECOTA comparables list and you'll find Jim Kaat and Tommy John -- two pitchers who had no problems with their longevity.

41. Brandon Webb, P, Arizona Diamondbacks (27)
Almost certainly the league's least heralded great pitcher, Webb rates as the best true power ground ball pitcher since Kevin Brown -- and remember that Brown didn't really get it going until he was in his 30s. Webb's breakout could happen earlier with the addition of Gold Glover Orlando Hudson at second base, who should give Arizona its most synergistic tandem this side of Steve Nash and Shawn Marion.

40. Brian McCann, C, Atlanta Braves (22)
One of the idiosyncrasies of the prospect shell game is that players who break into the major leagues in midseason are often held in less regard than guys who spend the whole season in the minors -- making themselves eligible for the myriad top 10 and top 100 lists that dominate hot stove discussions. McCann, along with the Reds' Edwin Encarnacion and the Tigers' Curtis Granderson, qualifies as a player to watch this season. PECOTA projects McCann to develop into a .290 BA, .370 OBP, 25 HR guy within the next several seasons. Given how well the Braves develop young talent, it's easy to share in that optimism.

39. Chris Carpenter, P, St. Louis Cardinals (31)
The flip side of the Dontrelle Willis quandary. Although Carpenter has the DNA of a 31-year-old -- and the labrum of a 310-year-old -- his strikeout total last season, just three off Jake Peavy's NL-leading total, suggests that he has several years worth of ace-worthy performance left. The Cardinals' cautious approach is another point in his favor -- in spite of throwing 242 innings last season, Carpenter's highest pitch count topped out at just 120. One hopes that experiences like the Cards' April 8 loss to the Cubs -- Carpenter was pulled after six shutout innings, only to watch helplessly as the bullpen blew the game -- doesn't test the wrong side of Tony La Russa's stubborn streak.

38. Lance Berkman, 1B-OF, Houston Astros (30)
Little-known fact: While Minute Maid Park is a fine home for right-handed hitters, it depresses the numbers of lefties to the tune of 10 to 15 percent, roughly comparable to RFK Stadium or PETCO Park. In other words, Berkman, who takes most of his at-bats (and does the vast majority of his damage) from the port side of home plate, is chronically underrated everywhere outside of the Houston Metroplex. Not that he needs much sympathy: Berkman's career OPS of .973 is the 17th highest in baseball history entering this season.

37. Ryan Zimmerman, 3B, Washington Nationals (21)
Will Zimmerman become this generation's answer to Ron Santo? He's exactly the sort of player who is liable to be underrated for much of his career, playing in a pitchers' park, and overshadowed in his own division by David Wright and Miguel Cabrera. Still, Zimmerman has done nothing but hit since switching from pinging bats to cracking ones. PECOTA identifies his No. 1 comparable as Albert Pujols, but the more likely scenario is that he settles into a Jeff Kent-type of offensive profile, with Scott Rolen-caliber defense at the hot corner.

36. Marcus Giles, 2B, Atlanta Braves (28)
Hank Aaron played most of his career at 180 pounds. Yogi Berra stood just 5-8, before accounting for his hunchback. In this sense, Giles is a throwback player, using his diminutive stature to his advantage by shrinking his strike zone and taking advantage of his short stroke. The caveat is that smaller players tend to be more susceptible to the cruelties of injury and age -- think about what happened to Chuck Knoblauch -- but for the time being Giles remains every bit as underrated as his older brother.

35. Pedro Martinez, P, New York Mets (34)
The oldest player on our list -- Julio Franco just missed the cut. A few years ago, we might have been lower on Pedro, but that was before seeing what Roger Clemens and Randy Johnson have done in their 40s. The hallmark of a truly great player is that he performs at an elite level far longer than a mere mortal could. Random overspecific prediction: When his Mets contract terminates at the end of the 2008 season, Pedro will reunite with the Red Sox and become their closer, putting together a couple of Dennis Eckersley-like seasons.

34. Victor Martinez, C, Cleveland Indians (27)
PECOTA has one particular worry with Martinez, which is the ability of a slow-footed catcher -- Martinez has swiped only one bag in his career -- to maintain a batting average north of .300. Still, it's not like we're talking about Jason Kendall. Even if Martinez' BA corrects into the .270-.280 range, he'll be vying with Joe Mauer for the AL's All-Star catcher job for years to come.

33. Travis Hafner, DH, Cleveland Indians (29)
Hafner is the Bill Pullman of the baseball world: so consistent that you might not even notice him. Since 2004, the lowest OPS that Hafner had in any full month was .810 (May 2005). So it was only fair that Hafner had a movie-star first week of the 2006 season, including a streak of reaching base 10 straight times, and four home runs in six at-bats. There is little separating Hafner from the considerably more famous David Ortiz.

32. Ryan Howard, 1B, Philadelphia Phillies (26)
Howard found himself at the proverbial fork in the road last season, with the Sam Horn Memorial Path to Nowhere on one side, and Albert Belle Boulevard on the other. Needless to say, after mashing a home run every 13.7 at-bats between the majors and the minors last season, Howard chose his course wisely. Howard stands a good chance to become the first major leaguer to strike out 200 times in a season. If he can learn to hit left-handed pitchers, he also stands a good chance to be the next major leaguer to cross the 60-home run barrier.

31. Brandon Wood, SS, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (21)
We're very excited about Brandon Wood. It's just that we seem to be slightly less excited about him than everyone else. The California League, the home for Wood's 101 extra-base hits last season, is an environment that yielded 11.5 runs per game last season, roughly equivalent to a pre-humidor year at Coors Field. Wood also needs to improve his strike zone judgment, and he's likely to move from shortstop to third base -- although that has more to do with the prodigiousness of his offense than his lack of glove. For now, our best guess is that he'll wind up with a career like Adrian Beltre's, but it won't take much more convincing -- Wood is off to a hot start at Double-A Arkansas -- to get us buying into the Cal Ripken/Mike Schmidt scenarios.

30. Carlos Beltran, OF, New York Mets (29)
Our research for "Baseball Between the Numbers" revealed that players really do hit better in contract years, and Beltran's prolific second half in 2004 was perhaps the most well-timed contract grab since the Louisiana Purchase. Fortunately for Omar Minaya, Beltran does enough things well to provide a reasonable return on his investment, even if he doesn't quite live up to his marquee billing. Even after his disappointing 2005, our PECOTA system figures that Beltran will be worth an average of $9.7 million per season over the next five years.

29. Jake Peavy, P, San Diego Padres (25)
PECOTA regards Peavy as the best long-term pitching prospect in baseball, outpacing even Johan Santana. But our team health reports system gave Peavy a bright red light, citing a myriad of health and mechanical problems that could presage a more serious breakdown. Given Peavy's inconsistent start to the season, the red light carries the day.

28. Michael Young, SS, Texas Rangers (29)
Apart from Michael Young, the only players to win a batting title in a season in which they played primarily at shortstop are A-Rod, Nomar Garciaparra, Honus Wagner, Luke Appling, Arky Vaughn, Lou Boudreau and Dick Groat. Four of those players are in the Hall of Fame, another one certainly will be, and the other two were five-time All-Stars. So how is it that Young keeps such a low profile? He can't even take pleasure in Googling himself; the first hit that came up belongs to a Brit who designs esoteric bus shelters.

27. Howie Kendrick, 2B, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (22)
OK, so Baseball Prospectus has been beating on the batting-average-is-overrated drum since it came out of the womb. But when a player hits .360 over his first 1,200 professional at-bats, there comes a point when you just throw all that out the window, and just give credit to a guy who is looking more and more like he might be a once-in-a-generation, Tony Gwynn-type contact hitter. Or even scarier, Tony Gwynn with 20 home runs a season, and playing at a premium defensive position. Kendrick has a less risky profile than Wood, and may have just as much upside.

26. Roy Halladay, P, Toronto Blue Jays (29)
The telling thing about pitchers is that it isn't just the Rick Ankiels and Kerry Woods of the world -- virtually every elite pitcher in our top 50 is either dealing with an injury issue presently, has had a major injury in the recent past, or is an injury risk due to age or workload. Halladay's injury issues, at least, have been of a flukish nature, particularly the Kevin Mench line drive that he took off his leg last July. Considering that Halladay limited opponents to a .587 OPS last season and that his curveball buckles more knees than Tony Soprano on a coke bender, we think this is an appropriate hedge.

25. B.J. Upton, SS, Tampa Bay Devil Rays (21)
The Devil Rays are employing people such as Ty Wigginton, Nick Green and Damon Hollins in their everyday lineup, so it's fair to speculate about why they're leaving B.J. Upton in Durham. On the one hand, Upton's defense at shortstop really has been problematic, and he's already made several errors in the early going this year. On the other hand, he already has the most MLB-ready bat of any player in the minor leagues, and projects to hit like Derek Jeter within a couple of years. Managing Upton's arbitration clock might be the deciding factor. Upton had 0.35 years of MLB service time entering the season, and the Rays have strong incentives to make sure that number doesn't get beyond 1.00 by year's end. Expect a call-up in June.

24. Justin Upton, OF-SS, Arizona Diamondbacks (18)
Only two recent high school products have been talked about with the same can't-miss praise as Justin Upton. Those players are Ken Griffey Jr. and Alex Rodriguez. Could Upton turn out to be baseball's version of Kwame Brown or Ryan Leaf? Perhaps. But the Diamondbacks, a canny organization, were willing to stake big bucks on Upton's pedigree, agreeing to a record $6.1 million signing bonus. And Upton did nothing but impress during his first professional at-bats in spring training, hitting .500/.563/.857 over parts of eight games. This ranking might seem awfully high for a player with such a limited track record -- but we could find a dozen major league personnel men who would tell you that we've ranked Upton too low.

23. Roy Oswalt, P, Houston Astros (28)
Oswalt's career always has reminded me of Mike Mussina's. Appropriately, PECOTA identifies Mussina as Oswalt's No. 2 comparable (unheralded ex-Expo Steve Rogers is No. 1). In his six seasons between the ages of 28 and 33, Mussina averaged 15 wins, 195 strikeouts, and an ERA 30 percent better than the league average. You can expect similar production from Oswalt, but he's trailing well behind the Moose in the nickname department. Oswalt has always looked a bit weasely -- might we suggest the Opossum?

22. David Ortiz, DH, Boston Red Sox (30)
The case against David Ortiz boils down to scarcity -- it isn't that hard to find a competent designated hitter. But how many players in the majors at any given time can mash as much as the Cookie Monster? Perhaps only Albert Pujols gives his team a bigger head start on a 900-run season.

21. Derek Jeter, SS, New York Yankees (32)
Thirty-two can be a dangerous number for a position player -- that is the age at which Dale Murphy fell completely off a cliff. But Jeter ought to age gracefully. Probably the two most favorable indicators against a slow decline are a clean bill of health and a well-rounded skills profile. Jeter has missed more than 15 games in a season only once in his 10-year career, and he practically defines the term well-rounded.

20. Andruw Jones, OF, Atlanta Braves (29)
Despite his breakout season last year, Jones is not the spry young athlete he used to be. It's been five years since Andruw stole as many as 10 bases in a season, and he's added significant weight to his 6-foot-1 frame. In short, he now profiles more like Jim Rice or Juan Gonzalez than Willie Mays or Ken Griffey Jr. He still should provide plenty of value to the Braves over the medium-term, especially since his fine center field defense always has been more the product of great instincts than blazing foot speed. But don't be surprised if his batting average settles into the .250 range before long.

19. Adam Dunn, 1B-OF, Cincinnati Reds (26)
Even the most tradition-minded fans have come to accept the importance of a high on-base percentage and slugging average. However, in spite of his excellence in those departments, there remains something of a blind spot with respect to Mr. Dunn; I expect to receive more than a few choicely worded e-mails about how such a clumsy-looking player can rank two slots ahead of Mr. Intangibles. The math here is simple -- all of Dunn's strikeouts and base-running gaffes don't cost the Reds more than a handful of runs over the course of a season, whereas his bat projects to be worth about 50 runs per year for the foreseeable future. His awkward outfield defense is a more tangible problem, but it isn't his fault that the Reds put him back out to pasture while employing Rich Aurilia and Scott Hatteberg at first.

18. Eric Chavez, 3B, Oakland A's (28)
Chavez entered 2006 in much the same way as Andruw Jones entered 2005 -- as a consistently good two-way player who has never quite had that breakout season to get him all the attention he deserves. In 2003, it was an inability to hit lefties than slowed Chavez down; in 2004, an injury; and in 2005, a horrible slump over the first six weeks of the season. At age 28, and with six home runs over his first 12 games, this might be the year that Chavez puts it all together.

17. Rich Harden, P, Oakland A's (24)
Between the 2004 All-Star break and the end of the 2005 regular season, Rich Harden went 18-7 with a 2.95 ERA over 226 innings. There's no doubt that Harden has the stuff to replicate or perhaps even improve upon those numbers over the course of a full season, so the only question is his health. Although inertia is the rule of thumb with baseball injuries -- a player who has been injured tends to stay injured -- the A's are optimistic that Harden's successful offseason surgery on his non-pitching shoulder will improve his balance and keep him on the mound for 30 good starts per season.

16. Delmon Young, OF, Tampa Bay Devil Rays (20)
Our PECOTA projection system is loathe to use major league comparables for minor league players. But sometimes, a player is so far ahead of the curve that PECOTA simply has no choice -- and so the top three names on Young's list are Ken Griffey Jr., Cesar Cedeno and Tony Conigliaro. Like Griffey (and unlike older brother Dmitri), Young is a multi-dimensional player; he stole 32 bases last year and was voted as having the Southern League's best outfield arm. Young's plate discipline will determine whether he winds up being a great player or merely a very good one.

15. Jhonny Peralta, SS, Cleveland Indians (24)
We should recognize that career years don't always come at age 27 or 28; 23-year-olds are capable of outperforming their skill sets as well. PECOTA is a little suspicious that this might have been the case with Peralta last year, and from the early returns this season, it looks like it might be onto something. Still, Peralta's career should fall somewhere within the goalposts represented by Cal Ripken and Travis Fryman. Under most of those scenarios, he'll be tremendously valuable to the Tribe.

14. Grady Sizemore, OF, Cleveland Indians (23)
We defer to Mark Shapiro in appointing the chief of the Three Little Indians -- and it's instructive that Sizemore received a more lucrative contract extension than either Peralta or Victor Martinez. Of the three, Sizemore also has the most room for growth, particularly if he can add more home run power to his frame. Think a left-handed version of Andre Dawson.

13. Derrek Lee, 1B, Chicago Cubs (30)
The Cubs' self-image always has depended greatly on the presence of a superstar hitter -- first Ernie Banks, then Ryne Sandberg, then Sammy Sosa. And so it was appropriate that the very year that Sosa was run out of town was the year that Derrek Lee emerged. Lee, in fact, turned out to be a better representative of the City of Big Shoulders than Sosa ever was: confident but not flamboyant, well-rounded, never misses a day of work. Those same characteristics ought to ensure that Lee provides plenty of value to the Cubs over the course of his new $70 million deal.

12. Miguel Tejada, SS, Baltimore Orioles (30)
Rafael Palmeiro's unfortunate attempt to scapegoat his teammate added a dark shadow to the doubts raised by Tejada's slump in the last two months of the 2005 season. So it's relieving that Tejada has gotten off to a good start in 2006, putting most of those guilt-by-association scenarios to rest. Although Tejada's best years are likely behind him, he remains ahead of Derek Jeter's pace at the same age, having accumulated 48.8 Wins Above Replacement (WARP) through age 29 to Jeter's 44.9.

11. Carlos Zambrano, P, Chicago Cubs (25)
Three years ago, there was a consensus among everyone from scouts to analysts to blue-blooded Cubs fans that Zambrano was far more likely than Mark Prior to injure himself, on account of his bulky frame, heavy workloads and propensity to over-exert when tired. So much for the wisdom of crowds. Zambrano has made it through the injury nexus, and it might be that the better adjective for his 255-pound body is "sturdy" -- how often has Roger Clemens been on the DL? In any event, the focus can now be on Zambrano's pitching, which is some of the most entertaining in baseball as well as some of the best.

10. Vladimir Guerrero, OF, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (30)
Guerrero is an object lesson in how there's more than one way to skin a horsehide. Until relatively recently, statheads found room to criticize Guerrero for his trigger happiness, and lack of unintentional walks. Now, with one MVP-caliber season after another to Guerrero's credit, we better understand that the real objective of a plate approach is to leverage a hitter's strengths, which in Guerrero's case means using aggression to take advantage of his unparalleled combination of bat speed and plate coverage.

9. Jason Bay, OF, Pittsburgh Pirates (27)
There's growing evidence that Canadian players, facing a weather-shortened season as amateurs, develop on a different schedule than their south-of-the-border counterparts. Matt Stairs didn't become a big-league regular until 29, Larry Walker peaked in his early 30s, and Eric Gagne looked like a quad-A player until he donned his closer goggles at 26. PECOTA thought that Bay's 2005 was a career year, but it has no variable to account for longitude; we think that it's the start of something big.

8. Felix Hernandez, P, Seattle Mariners (20)
My first memory of Felix Hernandez is from a promotional event that Baseball Prospectus conducted at a Chicago pizzeria in the summer of 2004, which happened to coincide with the date of the Futures Game. About an hour into the event, we realized that our guests were looking right through us and toward the dusty, 16-inch TV in the corner of the restaurant. King Felix was pitching, and it wasn't long before we had given up on maintaining order, and were staring slack-jawed at the spectacle too. My immediate reaction was that I'd never seen pitches move like that without being scuffed. The only reason Hernandez isn't rated higher is that there's virtually no precedent for the way that he tore through the minor league hierarchy.

7. Mark Teixeira, 1B, Texas Rangers (26)
T-E-I-X … as a baseball writer, I have a vested interest in seeing that Big Tex becomes famous enough that his last name is added to the Microsoft Word spell-check dictionary, like Steven Spielberg ("i" before the "e") or Gerard Depardieu (French). If Teixeira can continue to combine an Eddie Murray-like bat with a Keith Hernandez-like glove, he should be well on his way.

6. Joe Mauer, C, Minnesota Twins (23)
Mauer suffers from the Felix Hernandez problem: He's such a special player that there's nobody to compare him to. Start with catchers who became big-league regulars before they turned 21. That alone is a pretty small group. How many of those guys could hit a little bit? Perhaps Ivan Rodriguez, Ted Simmons, Joe Torre … that's about it. And how many of those guys were legitimate base-stealing threats? And stood 6-4 and weighed 220 pounds? And played Gold Glove-caliber defense? As Bill James has pointed out, the truly greatest players are often the most unusual. I look at Mauer and think of Rickey Henderson.

5. Johan Santana, P, Minnesota Twins (27)
This was the year I expected Santana to go all Bob Gibson on the league. You know, 27-4, 1.56 ERA, 345 K's -- that kind of stuff. Santana is statistically and existentially comparable to Pedro Martinez. Like Pedro, there's something so wizardly, ephemeral, almost alien about how Johan pitches when he's getting it done that it's invariably disappointing to see that he's terrestrial after all, as he has been so far this April. The magic will be back soon enough. And perhaps in the meantime, Santana can learn to emulate Pedro's second gear, making up for those evenings when he doesn't have his best stuff.

4. Miguel Cabrera, 3B-OF, Florida Marlins (23)
What Cabrera has done might have received more attention if Albert Pujols hadn't beaten him to the punch by a couple of seasons. But consider Cabrera's top 20 PECOTA comparables. Five of them (Frank Robinson, Eddie Murray, Hank Aaron, Johnny Bench and Orlando Cepeda) are already in the Hall of Fame. Another three (Pujols, Vladimir Guerrero and Ken Griffey Jr.) are well on their way. Two more (Jim Rice and Dick Allen) are more likely than not going to join the group someday. Cabrera has fewer than 1,600 big-league at bats to his name -- and yet we can say that he's an even-money shot to make the Hall of Fame. That doesn't happen every day.

3. Alex Rodriguez, 3B, New York Yankees (30)
PECOTA predicts that, at the end of his age-34 season in 2010, Alex Rodriguez will have hit 614 big league home runs. That's approximately 100 home runs ahead of the pace of Babe Ruth (516) and Hank Aaron (510), and 169 ahead of Barry Bonds. I know that rooting for Alex Rodriguez is a bit like rooting for Wal-Mart, or the Brazilian soccer team, or … well … the New York Yankees. But if Bonds passes Henry Aaron, what is good for A-Rod might be good for the country.

2. David Wright, 3B, New York Mets (23)
The only downside to being this good this young is that it isn't easy to get a whole heck of a lot better. Our WARP system says that Willie Mays' best year came at 24, as did Mickey Mantle's. Stan Musial's was at 22. Cal Ripken had four of his five best seasons by the age of 25. The characteristic of great players, rather, is that they sustain a very high level of performance for 10 or 15 or 20 years. But Wright's capacity for growth is so great that he must have some fruit-fly DNA. In 2004, Wright was expected to barely hold his own in the Eastern League -- and he had become one of the better third basemen in the National League by year's end. In 2005, he improved his OPS from.839 before the break to .991 afterward. And then this year, Wright has decided to stop striking out, correcting perhaps the biggest remaining weakness in his game. I don't know where this is going to lead, but George Brett's 1980 might be a good start.

1. Albert Pujols, 1B, St. Louis Cardinals (26)
What I remember most about Albert Pujols' young career isn't that he hit a home run against Brad Lidge in Game 5 of the NLCS, allowing the Cardinals to cash in on what must have been a 500-to-1 comeback shot. It was how far he hit that home run. Carlton Fisk and Kirk Gibson and Joe Carter -- their home runs seemed to suspend themselves in the air for about 30 seconds, long enough for the requisite preening and posing and multiple camera angles and Bob Costas soliloquy.

But Pujols' home run was like the strobing cross-section of memories you get after a night of heavy drinking. Hanging slider … ZIP! … Cardinals dogpile … ZIP! … falling asleep on the couch watching QVC. Pujols has done to the Best Player in Baseball debate what he did to Lidge's slider. Eighteen months ago, there was a healthy argument going between A-Rod and Barry Bonds, with Pujols just hanging around taking his cuts in the on-deck circle. Now, Pujols has passed them both, and it isn't even close.