HELP!!! -- The greatest players of all-time
by devo on Dec 18, 2006 1:00 PM EST
31 comments
Hey guys. I'm visiting from AN.
I'm putting together a list of the greatest players of all-time and as one step in the process, I'm enlisting fan support.
As members of the sportsblog community (that aren't Angels fans), you are probably smarter than most, so help me out.
Click here to see the nominees and vote on your own Top 10.
Thanks
0 recs |
31 comments
|
Email
Print
Comments
Well...
Best overall:
Babe Ruth (obviously tough to argue this one because he dominated BOTH sides of the game)
Best hitter:
Ted Williams (the guy was an absolute machine)
Best pitcher:
Walter Johnson (see Ted Williams)
Best more modern all around athlete/hitter:
Tie btwn. Willie Mays/Mickey Mantle
Best defensive player:
Brooks Robinson
Other than that, I'm not sure you can really cut and dry make a list, to me.
by djskilbr on Dec 18, 2006 1:10 PM EST reply actions
I agree, mostly
For
You can debate these things forever...
Like you said...
I'd have to agree there...
Hitters, I'm sticking with Ted. What he did in a pretty good league for hitters by dominating OBP/etc was pretty insane.
by djskilbr on Dec 18, 2006 4:30 PM EST up reply actions
Oh, and overall, again...
by djskilbr on Dec 18, 2006 4:34 PM EST reply actions
There are things...
For instance, if you take WARP, Babe Ruth is at 234 wins above replacement level and Willie Mays is at 206 wins above replacement level. That includes Ruth's pitching contributions, but it uses the rather flawed FRAR to evaluate each player's fielding. FRAR considers Ruth to have been a slightly above average defensive corner outfielder and Mays to have been a slightly above average defensive center fielder. Now, everything on Mays would seem to indicate that he was definitely better than slightly above average fielding. 28 wins is a lot, but if you consider Mays to be the elite defensive CF of all-time? That makes it pretty close.
Ya...
Just my take. As has been pointed out, we could debate these forever.
by djskilbr on Dec 18, 2006 5:03 PM EST up reply actions
I
WARP
I agree FRAR isn't the best defensive stat out there ... but, it probably is for non-modern players.
Right...
I guess I'm just saying that starting from WARP and acknowledging the limitations of FRAR, you can make a decent case for Mays being as valuable as Ruth.
I don't advocate taking WARP3
Mays averaged about 20 FRAR/yr, about 2 wins. 40 runs is about the most the perfect CF could save on average, so if we give that to him (ignoring the late career fall-off to right around league average from 68 on that FRAR shows), that adds 2 wins to his average season and 1 run to his peak seasons (which typically showed higher FRAR already)
Giving him those additions, his WARP3/154 is rises to 12.6 (Ruth 14.4, Bonds 12.55) and his best 5 years increase to 71.4 (Ruth 78.1, Bonds 75).
The only way that I see anyone other than Ruth or Bonds (with an obvious reason not to choose him) as the greatest of all-time is if you seriously subtract from Ruth's value, due to perceived dilluted competition.
Diluted
by AdamOnFirst on Dec 19, 2006 12:20 AM EST up reply actions
Uh, no
# of MLB teams: 30
Population of the US in 1910: ~92 million
# of MLB teams: 16
Population of the US in 1930: ~123 million
# of MLB teams: 16
The number of professional baseball teams has less than doubled since the beginning of Ruth's career and the population of the US has tripled.
Additionally, we now have players from Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Japan, Cuba, Canada, and other countries. And on top of that, the color barrier kept a significant portion of the US population during Ruth's day from being eligible to compete against him.
If you want to get an idea what this does to the league, consider this: take two teams from today's MLB. Now subtract everyone who isn't from the United States. Now subtract everyone who doesn't qualify because of the color barrier. Now randomly subtract two out of every three players remaining because the US was a smaller country then.
Just for kicks and giggles, let's try this out with the Twins and the Yankees. Starting with their opening day rosters, I took out players born in foreign countries and players who couldn't crack the color barrier, leaving me with 24 players. Now we adjust for the population issue and take away 16 of those 24 players. Generating random numbers with Mathematica, I'm left with the following eight players:
Kyle Farnsworth, Mike Myers, Jason Giambi, Willie Eyre, Matt Guerrier, Joe Nathan, Mike Redmond, and Michael Cuddyer. Sum their VORP from this season, and you get about 158. To fill out the rest of the roster, you're going to need to bring in some replacement-level players (even though by now it should be clear that under these restrictions replacement level should be set much lower.) An entirely replacement level team should win about 43 games, so this team of eight guys with a bunch of replacement level dudes would've won about 59 games.
And the Twins and the Yankees were two of the best teams in all of baseball! Start playing this game with the Royals and the Pirates and you're going to get some pretty ugly results.
Doubling the number of teams hasn't nearly kept pace with the expanding number of talent sources. Thank you, Jackie Robinson. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
the competition for top "players"
It's not to say the talent pool wasn't dilluted -- it likely was -- but I don't think it is anywhere near as significant as you're suggesting.
It's not a matter...
I
Five arguments
- Diversity. When Babe Ruth was growing up, everyone played baseball. But only the white Americans made it to the Major Leagues. By the time I was growing up, the best players were about equally split between whites, blacks and Latinos. So even though not everyone plays baseball in this country anymore, it's more than made up for by the infusion of other races into the sport.
- Economics. When the Babe played, baseball players were near the bottom of the salary scales in the US. Guys played for the love of the game, not as a ticket to prosperity. Now they're at the top of the economic food chain. The chance for a big payout is a powerful incentive to play for more than the love of the game.
- War. When the Babe played, most of the best men in the country either were at war or had died on the battlefiled. Soon after he retired, the whole cycle repeated itself. The population of males did not fullly recover until towards the end of the baby boom.
- Scouting. When the Babe played, guys tried out at dedicated events to try to win jobs in baseball. Teams might have had two or three scouts, but that was it. And they had no technology with which to help them evaluate players and communicate their findeings with a huge scouting staff on each of the 32 teams. Now scouts scour every nook and craney of the globe looking for baseball talent, and communicating about every find on the same day.
- Development. When the Babe played, the minors was a loosly configured association of Class B teams, and most college programs were club sports. Now those who dedicate themselves to babseball have unprecedented access to facilities and instruction.
There are all sorts of rules issues that differentiate the Babe's game from ours. The fact that he hit something like 500 home runs in the dead ball era combined with the fact that talent in his day was nowhere near talent of today overall suggests that he was without a doubt the best player ever. He was like Gretsky or Jordan or Armstrong in the sport of baseball. It's ironic he was called Babe because he was a man among babes.
Therest
And for:
"How many hitters could launch homer after homer in batting practice?"
For most of his career, the Babe and only the Babe.
by AdamOnFirst on Dec 19, 2006 11:48 AM EST up reply actions
In his time
BTW, I urge anyone in the Twin Cities to check out the Baseball in America exhibit at the Minnesta History Center. Among other things, you can compare the Babe's bat to that used by McGuire. And you can compare the balls used in the dead ball era to those used today.
2. Economics
You might recall that in 1931, Babe Ruth sought a salary of $80k, more than President Hoover received.
Of course, today, any player who has reached arbitration or free agency makes more than the President ($400k), but that was still a very large sum of money for 1931.
In Ruth's time...
In the 1920s
By contrast, in 1924 (I would guess this is a fairly decent estimate of what the average would have been for the '20s' but feel free to adjust slightly) on average:
a bricklayer made $3,432
a plumber made $3,146
a carpenter made $3,004
keep in mind, those are highly skilled professions, most folks worked in these fields:
a manufacturing worker made $1,300 (1925 figure)
a farm worker made $2,500 (including board)
While major leaguers certainly weren't rolling in dough the way they are now. If they had to work a second job, it was because of lifestyle choices more than a low income.
So you're saying that
I don't know how Ruth would do against today's competition. But he sure destroyed the competition of his time like no other baseball player has in the history of the game.
But
huh?
If I can make $8,000 as a baseball player instead of the $4,000 I can make as a brick layer, the long road to the majors doesn't sound that great. With a wife and children and such, there's a powerful incentive to start making a living wage sooner rather than later, considering the payout at the end is uncertain and only twice what you would make.
Far from being a "false" argument (I think you mean "valid," but I'll let that go), it's just the kind of reasoning people go through when they consider career choices, or investments, or any kind of decision that involves balancing risks and rewards. The risks of going for a career in baseball are great (think Chris Weinke). The rewards better be pretty good at the end. In Ruth's time, they were twice what ordinary folks make. In our time, they're 50 times what ordinary folks make. If you can't see that difference, you can't be convinced of much.
Several
So while they make a lot more money now, a lot of the advantages you try to present really weren't there. The original argument was that baseball players didn't make enough money, so people wouldn't want the job. Well, as we've seen, baseball players made great money at the time, so the majority of people would happily travel around the country in the minors for a few years to earn fame playing a GAME (I think there was more realization that it was a GAME people were paid for back then) they loved. Most people wouldn't quite just because they were making merely times what they could in a factory.
Also, it is worth noting, as we said Babe Ruth DID make 80 k a year, so the best players still made in excess of 50 times what the average factory slob made, so the huge economic difference was thee to an extent.
You forgot one...
In every sport, humans are better now than they were eighty years ago. We're bigger, stronger, faster, and we can jump higher. No one wonders whether Jesse Owens or Michael Johnson was the faster runner, we know that Owens wasn't even close.
It's really pretty delusional to think that the top players from eighty years ago are anything close to the top players today. It's a matter of taste whether or not you want to hold that against Ruth, but it's there.
Ruth
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Certain photos copyright © 2010 by Associated Press or Getty Images. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of Associated Press and Getty Images is strictly prohibited.
