(And just who is...) The Greatest Baseball Player of All-Time?

[The Truth]

I'll go contrary and vote for Ted Williams. The 3 years he missed for the war cost him 100 HR and 600 hits.

 

While I love Ted Williams, he probably wasn't even the best player of his decade due to his defense. He even admitted such.

Williams would likely have to be a DH on this hypothetical All-Star team (though I spose Ruth might be a DH, too). Having a Willie Mays or Ty Cobb in CF might protect the weak fielding Williams, though

 

While going through some stats on Baseball Reference I noticed Tony Gwynn on the top 20 all-time for career Batting Average, not saying he's the greatest or anything but found that interesting

 

 

[Baldkin]

Surprised there's no love for Eddie Matthews at 3B, honestly, his 5-year peak was higher than Schmidt's, as was his 10 year line (53-62 for Mathews, 76-85 for Schmidt).

[The Truth]

Rank Player (age) Adjusted OPS+ Bats

1. Babe Ruth+ 207 L

2. Ted Williams+ 190 L

3. Barry Bonds 181 L

4. Lou Gehrig+ 179 L

5. Rogers Hornsby+ 175 R

6. Mickey Mantle+ 172 B

7. Albert Pujols (30) 171 R

 

Looking at that list, only Mantle and Pujols played their entire careers in an integrated league (again Barry Bonds does not exist in my hypothetical all-star team world).

 

Pujols definitely deserves big consideration as one of the all-time greatest

[GAME05]

loathe as i am to say it, i'd probably have the Pre-Roid Bonds at least on my list of top 10 outfielders.

[Invader3K]

I think Cobb may be somewhat underrated. Maybe because he was a huge jerk. But he probably could have put up more impressive numbers if he had tried to hit for power. He was regarded as fantastic defensively as well.

 

I think Ruth probably was the greatest of all time though. Just an all around amazing athlete.

[topper09er]

Babe Ruth is the correct answer and there is no room for debate. He was just too much better than everyone else he played against to not choose him. He posted 10 seasons with a WAR above 10 (Pujols, easily the most dominant player currently, has done that once. Bonds* had 7 such seasons) and led the league in WAR 2 other seasons! He also lost about 3 seasons worth of ABs due to being a pitcher and another season playing in the dead ball era (1919, when he only hit 29 HRs instead of 50+ that he hit the next 2 years). Safe to say he lost at least 50 HRs which would put him above Bonds. There have only been 34 single season SLG% posted not by Ruth that have been higher than his career .690 mark, his .474 OBP is 100 points higher than Hank Aaron's .374 career mark. He set the single season HR mark 4 different times and hit more HRs in 1927 than any other team in the AL. He also posted the greatest single season of all-time in 1921 going .378/.512/.846 177 R, 204 H, 145 BB, 44 2B, 16 3B, 59 HR, 171 RBI, 457 TB. And there is the pitching too. In 1916 (at age 20) he was the second best pitcher in the AL behind only Walter Johnson (the greatest pitcher of ALL-time). He has the record for the longest ever pitched World Series game while giving up 1 R in a 14 inning CG in 1916. His other 2 World Series pitching performances are a SHO and an 8 inning, 2 ER win. His 0.87 World Series ERA in 31 IP is 4th best all-time.

 

If you discount Bonds*, Pujols (too early, will have a decline) and Negro leaguers (not enough data) the next best hitters are Williams and Gehrig and you could have an argument for next best player between Cobb, Mays, Wagner, Williams, Musial, Gehrig, Aaron, Dimaggio, Speaker or Hornsby.

 

Position by position you could argue any of these top tier guys could represent their position:

 

C: Bench, Berra, Gibson

1B: Gehrig, Foxx, Greenberg, Pujols, McGwire

2B: Hornsby, Collins, Morgan

3B: Schmidt, Mathews, Brett

SS: Wagner, Rodriguez

LF: Williams, Musial, Henderson, Bonds

CF: Cobb, Mays, Speaker, Dimaggio, Mantle

RF: Ruth

RF2: Aaron, Robinson, Clemente

 

I would go:

1) Cobb CF

2) Hornsby 2B

3) Williams DH

4) Ruth RF

5) Gehrig 1B

6) Musial LF

7) Rodriguez SS

8) Schmidt 3B

9) Bench C

[sbrylski]

It's almost impossible to not vote Ruth here.

 

C Gibson

1B Gehrig

2B Hornsby

3B Schmidt

SS Wagner

OF Williams

OF Cobb

OF Bonds

DH Ruth

SP W. Johnson

[Never Outhustled]

As mentioned earlier, Ruth once outhomered every other team. To put that in perspective, to accomplish the same feat last season, a player would have needed to hit 245 homers.

[homer]

Ruth was the Don Hutson of baseball.

[topper09er]

Jerry Rice was the Don Hutson of football.

[homer]

Don Hutson had no peers in football.

[davego]

I get the majority for Ruth, only counter I'll put up is the 3 years of projected numbers that Ted missed out on due to WWII. Prime of his career.

[Funketown]

C: Johnny Bench

1B: Lou Gehrig

2B: Rogers Hornsby

SS: Honus Wagner

3B: Mike Schmidt

OF: Babe Ruth

OF: Barry Bonds

OF: Hank Aaron

[The Truth]

No stats to back it up unfortunately, but I do believe Josh Gibson was the greatest catcher ever

[TwinsBrewersWorldSeries]

Joe Mauer http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif ... kidding

[topper09er]

davego[/b]]I get the majority for Ruth, only counter I'll put up is the 3 years of projected numbers that Ted missed out on due to WWII. Prime of his career.

Ruth lost 3 years due to being a pitcher and playing in the deadball era. And Ted Williams missed 5 years due to service, 43-45 for WWII and 52-53 because he was an experienced fighter pilot that they were short on for Korea, he actually flew like 30 missions in live combat in Korea. WWII was in his prime but he also led the league in OPS the year before and after he served in Korea.

 

 

[Ennder]

Lets be honest here, OPS+ is a fun stat and all but it really isn't a very accurate one for comparing players. Ruth played in an era where the average hitter was Craig Counsell. Yeah he was a men amongst boys but the quality of players at the time really inflates his stats. You can't really compare players across eras using statistics. To use a silly example, if baseball had a strike and all of the current players were replaced by scabs except Pujols who kept playing for some reason, his OPS+ would skyrocket even though he didn't suddenly become a better player.

[DuWayne Steurer]

Lets be honest here, OPS+ is a fun stat and all but it really isn't a very accurate one for comparing players. Ruth played in an era where the average hitter was Craig Counsell. Yeah he was a men amongst boys but the quality of players at the time really inflates his stats. You can't really compare players across eras using statistics. To use a silly example, if baseball had a strike and all of the current players were replaced by scabs except Pujols who kept playing for some reason, his OPS+ would skyrocket even though he didn't suddenly become a better player.

Ruth literally changed the way the game was played.

 

Let's take OPS+ out of the equation.

Ruth .342/.474/*.690/1.164

Pujols .332/.426./.624/1.050

 

This is before Pujols will have had his end of year "declining" statistics figured in.

 

Pros and cons

 

Ruth didn't have to play against black players, but the league was also only half the size it is now.

Ruth didn't have anywhere close to the same medical and training and facility advancements that Pujols does now.

Ruth had to travel by train, meaning west games (St. Louis, Chicago) were LONG trips.

 

The big capper for me, is that the stadiums back then were for the most part, HUGE.

 

In the AL, Griffith, Yankee, Shibe, and Comiskey were massive, massive parks. Yankee was only 296 down the right field line, but it instantly swung out, and it's over 400 to RC.

Cleveland's League Park was also, simply huge.

 

You put the players of today in those parks, and you're going to depress homerun totals by a good 15-20% I'd wager, if not more.

 

For every pro for Ruth, there's a con.

[Ennder]

I'm not specifically singling out Ruth here, he was just an easy example, I'm just saying that OPS+ might be fun but it really isn't very accurate. If you magically moved Ruth or any player of his era into today's game his OPS+ would go down almost without a doubt. His OPS would probably go down a lot less than his OPS+ did.

[mletto157]

So are we just saying best baseball player of all time, or are we considering the time he played too. Because one has to think that baseball has just gotten more and more talented year-after-year (as with any sport). So if we're just saying best of all time, and no considering era, than most likely players in the last decade or two are probably MUCH better than the older players were. If you throw the Pujols of now in Ruth's era, I would think he would just completely and utterly destroy those players. His only downfall in the comparison is he can't pitch.

[thebruce44]

Ennder[/b]]I'm not specifically singling out Ruth here, he was just an easy example, I'm just saying that OPS+ might be fun but it really isn't very accurate. If you magically moved Ruth or any player of his era into today's game his OPS+ would go down almost without a doubt. His OPS would probably go down a lot less than his OPS+ did.

In my opinion, comparing players by using their value over peers is the most accurate way to compare them. If Ruth played now and had the advantage of a weight room, creatine, and whatever else players are sneaking through the tests these days who knows how good he would be. I doubt he was out homer every team in the league as there is probably some diminishing return, but I have to think his numbers would still be astronomical.

[topper09er]

Ruth played in an era where the average hitter was Craig Counsell.

What? This is just totally incorrect. It was still 60'6" to the plate and Walter Johnson could throw 95 MPH+. Do you think if Craig Counsell was born in 1880 he would have been better than Ty Cobb? Not a chance, in fact considering the league was only half as big Counsell probably never would have made it at all.

[Ennder]

Ruth played in an era where the average hitter was Craig Counsell.

What? This is just totally incorrect. It was still 60'6" to the plate and Walter Johnson could throw 95 MPH+. Do you think if Craig Counsell was born in 1880 he would have been better than Ty Cobb? Not a chance, in fact considering the league was only half as big Counsell probably never would have made it at all.

Do you consider Ty Cobb an average hitter? The league OPS in the NL when Ruth played was under .650 and it wasn't just because of pitching, it was because the majority of the players in the game were slap hitters.

 

To answer the other statement, I think comparing players to their peers is a pretty terrible way to define a player. The wider range of players in the league at any given time the more the best players stand out using a comparative measure like OPS+ or ERA+. Babe Ruth wasn't a better player because the league was full of slap hitters. I don't think stats before like 1950 are really comparable to today's stats in any meaningful way. But again I'm not really trying to make this about Babe Ruth, you could insert any of the old time greats into this and I'd feel the same way.

[GAME05]

Cobb didn't think there was much of an art to the homerun and almost chose not to hit them. Until Ruth, i don't think the HR was really valued as much as it is today. that Ruth hits 10x as many HRs as the next best player can't make him 10x better than that player. the only way i would start to judge Ruth against his peers is much later in his career when so many other players started to emerge and also try to hit HRs. until then, Ruth didn't have any 'peers,' if anything, because he didn't have any peers--nobody else was trying to do what he did. Ruth was just too unique for the time that he first emerged, and i'm not sure any other time in history really compares--maybe the invention of the slider??

 

although the problem i have with ranking everybody on the basis of only ERA+ or OPBS+ is because of the tendency of baseball throughout history to adjust for hitters or pitchers becoming better as a group. Plain statistics don't take into account ballparks universally getting shorter, strikezones changing from the letters to the belt, change in mound height, pitch inventions, etc.

[Baldkin]

OPS+ shows how well a player did compared to his peers in a given season and is park adjusted.

I really think it's about the best way to compare hitters of different era's. As for voting for Ruth, well... as good as he was, compared to his peers.... none of his seasons compare to Bond's 3 best.Yes, they were steroid enhanced, but, so was everyone else, and Bonds was STILL that much better than league average.