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.

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.