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.

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.