Joe Posnanski's Top 100 Players in Baseball

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.