ESPN top 100 all time list

[DrungoHazewood]

12 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

Needs Mays and Jackie Robinson.  Even ESPN couldn't snub them.

Also, it's baseball and it's a fair number of old media types, so when in doubt drop everyone who's played in the last 30-40 years and replace them with dead guys.  Wouldn't surprise me at all if no one in the top ten was active after 1990*, but Jeter and Rivera are in 10-20.

* Nolan Ryan was active in the early 90s and he always seems to sneak into these lists about 50 places higher than logic would indicate.  So maybe he gets in the top 10.

[DrungoHazewood]

15 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

Huh?

You think you could take 1923 Babe Ruth drop him onto the baseball field in 2022 and he'd do well?

You think he can turn on a 98 MPH fastball?  You think he can hit the type of breaking pitches they throw today?

As time goes on the level of play improves.

The game advances.

The quality of the players now is the highest it has ever been.

 

 

So if your definition of greatest player reflects that, I could see omitting everyone that played a century ago.

No one is suggesting that Old Hoss Radbourn is the greatest pitcher of all time.

I think Ruth could probably play major league baseball today, but even if you dropped a 27-year-old Ruth into 2022 he'd have a lot of adjusting to do.  Look at YouTube videos of him batting, he used a nearly 50-ounce bat and usually took a step-and-a-half as part of his swing like it's slow pitch softball.  The catcher would be throwing it back to the pitcher by the time he got done with that process today.

Old Ross Radbourn's twitter account suggests he's the greatest pitcher of all time.  He threw more innings the first week of August 1884 than Hunter Harvey has in his career, and that was while he had both The Consumption and Syphilis.

[DrungoHazewood]

18 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

I don't think so, it would be one that factors in the improvement of the game over time.

Do you think you could drop Babe Ruth onto a field in 2022 and have him play at a high level?

Was Babe Ruth better than say Mookie Betts (who I don't think made the list)? 

In his day, compared to his peers, he was.  But overall?

A case could be made.

What would the slope of history have to be to exclude Ruth from the top 100?  Let's ignore Ruth's pitching and defense, and just go with hitting.  This ESPN list has Jim Thome as #98.  Ruth had an OPS+ of 206.  Thome 147.  For Ruth to fall below Thome let say his timeline adjusted OPS+ would have to be lower than 147.

What if we assume baseball gets 0.5% better, more competitive every year.  So that each year after 1935, in this case, we knock off 0.5% from Ruth's OPS+ to timeline adjust it.

If you do that, you end up with a 206 OPS+ in 1935 being the equivalent of a 133 in 2022.  So I think you can make a somewhat plausible case that hitting like Ruth in his era was the equivalent of hitting like Cedric Mullins in 2022. I can believe MLB gets 0.5% better every year.  That's slow enough that you'd barely notice over a 20+ year career.

[Frobby]

5 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/33145627/top-100-mlb-players-all-nos-50-26
 

Jeter almost 40 spots higher than Ripken.  Rivera #31, higher than Koufax.

 

3 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Jeter had a better batting average, Rivera a better ERA.  Duh.

For me it’s very hard to know what to do with Koufax.  He certainly had an extremely dominant five years and exited at the peak of his game.   But, his decision to quit means we’ll never know how he would have aged, and he never had the decline period most experience. Plus, he pitched in a pitcher’s era in a pitcher’s park.   So, you could put him really high if all you consider is peak, or you could place him quite low if longevity is considered important.   

[DrungoHazewood]

3 minutes ago, Frobby said:

 

For me it’s very hard to know what to do with Koufax.  He certainly had an extremely dominant five years and exited at the peak of his game.   But, his decision to quit means we’ll never know how he would have aged, and he never had the decline period most experience. Plus, he pitched in a pitcher’s era in a pitcher’s park.   So, you could put him really high if all you consider is peak, or you could place him quite low if longevity is considered important.   

Koufax is like if someone who was just okay went to the Rockies in 1998 and hit .414 with 58 homers and 185 RBI a year for four years, then got hurt and retired.  It's hard to place that in a larger context.

Sometimes people (myself included) tends to look at HOF candidacy in terms of career value, in terms of minimum WAR.  And that doesn't really work for players who were excellent for a just few years.  Luckily there weren't many players who were unbelievable but just for a very short time, especially hitters.  I'm okay with putting guys like Koufax and Dizzy Dean in the Hall, just so long as the hagiographies don't gloss over the fact they had careers about as long as Luis Matos.

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

Mariano Rivera right immediately ahead of Bob Gibson and Sandy Koufax?? What a freaking joke of a list. Now with Koufax there could be arguments about career longevity, but his WAR is with 3 of Rivera with a much shorter career.

But there's no way I can buy an argument on Gibson ranking below Rivera. 

[Frobby]

I hadn’t heard about the Posnanski book - sounds like something I must acquire.   I fondly remember that Maury Allen wrote a book called Baseball’s 100 that included Mark Belanger.  His explanation was he felt there should be one player on his list who there was there solely because of his defensive excellence.  If that was a valid way to look at it, then you really can’t argue with Belanger as his choice.  

[OriolesMagic83]

David Ortiz ahead of Jim Palmer, Brooks Robinson, and Cal Ripken. 

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

2 minutes ago, OriolesMagic83 said:

David Ortiz ahead of Jim Palmer, Brooks Robinson, and Cal Ripken. 

Ortiz got extra credit for smashing a dugout phone. 

[Moose Milligan]

On 2/1/2022 at 1:41 PM, Sports Guy said:

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/33138638/top-100-mlb-players-all-nos-100-51
 

What an absolutely horrific job they did so far.

Ripken and Beltre are top 30 all time in WAR and you have David Ortiz and Winfield ahead of them?  Lol

 

It would be a layup to just look at WAR and say these are the top 100 guys.  And list them in the order of WAR.  

That's kind of what sucks about it, there's no room for nuance.  Every baseball argument these days is, "This guy has a higher WAR, therefore he is better."

I wouldn't put Ortiz and Winfield ahead of Ripken, possibly Beltre though.  Just because it's fun and I can see why someone would make an argument for it.

But this is what they want.  Clicks (so I'm refusing to click on it) and arguments.  Job well done, ESPN.  

[Sports Guy]

23 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

It would be a layup to just look at WAR and say these are the top 100 guys.  And list them in the order of WAR.  

That's kind of what sucks about it, there's no room for nuance.  Every baseball argument these days is, "This guy has a higher WAR, therefore he is better."

I wouldn't put Ortiz and Winfield ahead of Ripken, possibly Beltre though.  Just because it's fun and I can see why someone would make an argument for it.

But this is what they want.  Clicks (so I'm refusing to click on it) and arguments.  Job well done, ESPN.  

No, you can’t just look at WAR.  I wouldn’t have Cal as one of the top 25 ever even though that’s what his WAR was.

Posnaski had him 44th.  Somewhere in the 35-50 range makes sense to me.  Would have to delve into further for the exact spot but I think his ranking is a much better barometer.  He had Jeter in the 70s I believe.

[Moose Milligan]

26 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

No, you can’t just look at WAR.  I wouldn’t have Cal as one of the top 25 ever even though that’s what his WAR was.

Posnaski had him 44th.  Somewhere in the 35-50 range makes sense to me.  Would have to delve into further for the exact spot but I think his ranking is a much better barometer.  He had Jeter in the 70s I believe.

Posnanski also had Palmer outside the top 100.  So, I dunno.

But I'd agree, somewhere between 35 and 50 seems about right.

[Frobby]

29 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Posnanski also had Palmer outside the top 100.  So, I dunno.

But I'd agree, somewhere between 35 and 50 seems about right.

I think modern wisdom is that Palmer, while great, was not quite as good as his raw numbers suggest because he was backed by really great defensive teams.   On that basis, I could see him being outside the top 100.    

[Moose Milligan]

3 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I think modern wisdom is that Palmer, while great, was not quite as good as his raw numbers suggest because he was backed by really great defensive teams.   On that basis, I could see him being outside the top 100.    

There is a sizable gap between his ERA and his FIP. 

[Frobby]

Just now, Moose Milligan said:

There is a sizable gap between his ERA and his FIP. 

Yep.  I’m not a huge fan of FIP, which is a very blunt instrument, but it certainly supports the argument about how the defense helped Palmer.   And as an O’s fan, you really can’t have it both ways.  You can’t on the one hand say that guy like Brooks, Belanger, Blair and Grich were some of the best defenders ever, and then say that Palmer didn’t benefit from that.