Rankings of Baseball's All-Time Greatest Non-Pitchers

[splitterpfj]

This is up-to-the-minute, as voted by readers at baseball-reference.com...

 

http://www.baseballintheblood.com/?page_id=357

[RockCoCougars]

Glad to see that Bonds didn't crack the Top 20.

[splitterpfj]

RockCo, those rankings change all the time...you can vote on these players. The site gives you two players at a time, and you pick one...moving one player up and one player down when you vote. I've noticed, for instance, Mantle and Speaker keep trading off the #10 spot.

[RockCoCougars]

Yeah. I've actually killed some time doing this before. I'm glad Bonds is ranked as low as he is. From reading message boards, I'd have thought that people would have put him much higher. The top three look pretty good to me (though personally I'd switch Ruth and Williams, but can't really complain about the Babe at #1). I think that Mays and Gehrig are a tad too high and Musial/Hornsby are a tad too low though.

[Schlitz001]

It's interesting that Yount is #45 and Molitor #46. Who would you vote for if they went head to head?

[RockCoCougars]

If we are going on strictly hitting, I'd say Molitor without much thought.

[Funketown]

If you assume for a moment that Bonds never did anything sketchy, he has to be soundly inside the top 20. Here are some of his all-time ranks:

 

wRC+: 3rd

wOBA: 11th

SLG: 6th

OBP: 6th

HR: 1st

 

If we're ranking purely on the basis of what they did on the major league field, I don't see how you can keep Bonds out of the top 20. But, it's completely understandable if you want to knock him down quite a few pegs for his less than savory reputation.

 

Another thing I find interesting: only three of the guys in the top 20 were in their prime from about 1975-2012. We should always remember that players from the early eras played against a significantly restricted talent pool. Just think about how much better the pitching would have been if the bottom 20% of scrub innings were replaced by the top Negro league pitchers of the day!

[The stache]

Rickey Henderson ahead of Roberto Clemente, George Brett, Albert Pujols, Al Kaline and Wade Boggs?

 

Rickey was one of the most exciting players to ever step on the field. But as a pure hitter? The players I mentioned dust him. Henderson doesn't even belong in the same breath as Clemente as far as hitting goes.

[ELCABALLO45]

Barry Bonds not being top 20 on the list makes me not even care about it.

[Baldkin]

The guy who always gets hosed is Dick Allen.

[Invader3K]

Barry Bonds not being top 20 on the list makes me not even care about it.

 

To be fair he's ranked #21.

 

Some in that top 20 have me scratching my head a bit. I know Frank Robinson and Eddie Collins were both great hitters in their day, but I never have heard either considered for the greatest of the greatest of all time before.

[JohnBriggs12]

The guy who always gets hosed is Dick Allen.

 

So does Hank Greenberg. Seriously Greenberg is #54? He belongs in the top 10. He doesn't have the accumulated numbers because he missed 3 and a half years in WW2 and another to injury, but not counting 1936 where he only played 12 games, from 1934 to 1940, he averaged 39 HR and 150 RBI, and had didn't have an OPS under 1.000.

 

Of course it didn't hurt that he had HOFer Charlie Gehringer (No 30 on the list) batting in front of him.

 

Honestly, I can't take any list seriously that has Ron Santo as the 75th greatest hitter of all time or has Sal Bando ahead of Cecil Cooper (who is really hosed on this list).

[Funketown]

Greenberg actually missed more like 4.5 due to the war, he only played 19 games in 1941 and returned in the summer of 1945, playing only 78 games that year. Those were his age 30-34 seasons, and given that he was again dominant in '46, he very well could have hit 500 HR's.

 

He often seems to be forgotten in discussions of the game's all time greats, which is really a shame. His wOBA ranks 6th all time.

 

Also, I don't think the list is just ranking hitting ability, so that could have something to do with it.

[3and2Fastball]

Rickey Henderson ahead of Roberto Clemente, George Brett, Albert Pujols, Al Kaline and Wade Boggs?

 

Rickey was one of the most exciting players to ever step on the field. But as a pure hitter? The players I mentioned dust him. Henderson doesn't even belong in the same breath as Clemente as far as hitting goes.

 

Absolutely Rickey Henderson belongs ahead of those guys, if we are looking at this in terms of Offensive Value. A guy with a .400+ OBP who is the greatest base stealer of all-time is going to deserve to be ranked way ahead of Clemente, who while he hit .319 for average, didn't have the OBP, didn't steal many bases and didn't make up for it with tremendous power.

 

If the object of the game is to score runs, i.e. get on base and advance to home plate, Rickey Henderson is easily one of the top 20 hitters of all-time... I actually think an argument could be made to put Rickey closer to #10 or #11 rather than #20

 

A key stat with Henderson is Total Bases Plus Steals Plus Walks: Henderson had 4,588 Total Bases plus 2,190 Walks, plus 1406 Walks for a Complete Total of *8,184*

 

Barry Bonds had 9,048

 

Hank Aaron had 8,498

 

Ty Cobb had 8,000

 

Babe Ruth had 7,978

 

Willie Mays had 7,868

 

Stan Musial had 7,811

 

As best I can tell, Henderson is #3 All-Time in Total Bases plus Walks plus Steals

 

Henderson ranks 4th all-time in Times on Base behind Rose, Bonds, Cobb. You add in the Stolen Bases and he's ahead of all those guys except Bonds

 

Someone like Pujols may have a credible argument to be ahead of Rickey, based on his .417 career OBP and 1.026 career OPS and 42 HR's per 162 games (!), however Pujols is "unproven" in terms of the All-Time greats, i.e. we don't know how steep Pujols' decline will be....

[3and2Fastball]

Bill James' "Runs Created" stat has Rickey Henderson at #10 http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/RC_career.shtml

 

Henderson is #1 All-Time in Runs Scored http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/R_career.shtml

[RockCoCougars]

I think that this rating encompasses everything, basically it's a 'best position player' rating. If that's the case, Rickey should be right up there. He was an absolute game changer at the top of the lineup.

[HiAndTight]

Rickey Henderson ahead of Roberto Clemente, George Brett, Albert Pujols, Al Kaline and Wade Boggs?

 

Rickey was one of the most exciting players to ever step on the field. But as a pure hitter? The players I mentioned dust him. Henderson doesn't even belong in the same breath as Clemente as far as hitting goes.

 

 

I don't agree with this at all.

 

Clemente had a career line of .317/.359 /.475 with an OPS of .834

Henderson had a career line of .279/.404/.419 for an OPS of .820

 

I think Henderson had a much greater impact on the game, and his overall numbers took a big hit because he wanted to play so long. But the guy scored more runs, stole more bases than anyone and was the greatest leadoff hitter of all time.

 

6 times in the top 10 in MVP voting, 3 times in the top 3 including 1 MVP.

 

 

Now take this into consideration.

 

Clemente tragically died when he was 37 years old and started playing when he was 20 years old.

 

Henderson started playing when he was 20 years old. If you just take Henderson's career through age 20, it looks like this'

.287/.406/.435 OPS of .842 with 244 HR's and 1186 SB's.

 

So the exact same OPS, a couple more HR's, about 1140 more SB's(which I realize doesn't fall under the best "hitter," of all time, but I think it needs to be taken into consideration how often a walk was a double to Henderson).

 

Given the choice to play for my team for their entire career, I'd take Henderson. Clemente wasn't really a power hitter and he was a #3 hitter while Henderson was a leadoff hitter who hit about 60 more HR's and from ages 20-37 were nearly identical players.

[HiAndTight]

I think that this rating encompasses everything, basically it's a 'best position player' rating. If that's the case, Rickey should be right up there. He was an absolute game changer at the top of the lineup.

 

 

Agreed. You put him on base, and if the average times a team will score with a man on 1st and 0 outs is lets say 28 pct(and I'm not sure if that's the actual number, but lets just say that is it). With Ricky on 1st that had to be 15-20 pct higher.

[JohnBriggs12]

The title of this thread is misleading. The list is of "All Time Greats". It doesn't specifiy hitting. Taking walks obviously adds to offensive value but it's not purely hitting. When I think of greatest hitters, I don't consider the ability to crouch under pitches and make your strike zone miniscule as Henderson did, as hitting. Stat wise a case can be made for him certainly as an all time great, but his skill wasn't purely hitting.

 

Still there is no way Santo for instance was a better offensive player than Billy Williams, but he's ranked higher on this list. So obviously the rankings include not only other offensive skills than hitting, but defensive value as well.

[splitterpfj]

Hi Briggs. The title of the thread is not misleading, I named both the thread, and the page where you're reading the rankings, that's on my website.

 

Baseball-reference.com, which is conducting the voting, has called the non-pitchers list, "batters", so I did too in this thread. I'm going to add the pitchers list to my site as well, when I do, I'll change that page to "All-Time Hitters."

 

Take a look at how the voting works. http://www.baseball-reference.com/friv/elo.cgi

 

You'll see, two players are compared, and the viewer sees traditional counting stats, awards such as All-Star, Gold Glove, etc, and also career WAR. Most of these stats are strictly based on offensive totals....you'll notice, no one is instructed as to which stats to base their votes on.

 

Some people are likely basing this on counting stats, some on WAR, and of course, emotion is in the mix, as is clearly the case with Barry Bonds.

 

The best way to impact this list, of course....is to vote your opinion. These rankings update all the time. Mantle and Speaker have traded the #10 spot many times, and Molitor and Yount keep leap-frogging one another.

[HiAndTight]

The title of this thread is misleading. The list is of "All Time Greats". It doesn't specifiy hitting. Taking walks obviously adds to offensive value but it's not purely hitting. When I think of greatest hitters, I don't consider the ability to crouch under pitches and make your strike zone miniscule as Henderson did, as hitting. Stat wise a case can be made for him certainly as an all time great, but his skill wasn't purely hitting.

 

Still there is no way Santo for instance was a better offensive player than Billy Williams, but he's ranked higher on this list. So obviously the rankings include not only other offensive skills than hitting, but defensive value as well.

 

 

Are you really suggesting that talking walks is more a result of your stance than your ability to take pitches outside the zone and have a good eye at the plate?

 

And it has nothing to do with how he starts his stance. It's about where he is when he's ready to make contact with the ball.

 

Otherwise wouldn't everyone come out and get into some type of yoga stance?

 

I mean, I don't think I've ever heard a more ridiculous idea for dismissing a players ability to draw walks, especially one of the greatest in the history of the games at doing so.

[3and2Fastball]

A few of the players who are poorly ranked in this list are Brooks Robinson & Alfonso Soriano

 

Brooks was an incredible fielder and a good hitter who was very good in the World Series, but if you start looking closely at his numbers, no way does he deserve to be in the top 75. Maybe an argument could be made for Brooks, the complete player including his defense in the top 100 (similar to Ozzie Smith)

 

Alfonso Soriano, while we still don't know how steep his decline will be, had a rare combination of power and speed. 5 seasons of 35+ HR's and 4 seasons of 35+ stolen bases plus averaging 40 doubles per 162 games. If you start looking at Soriano's total bases (including stolen bases and walks, although Soriano hasn't walked much) he begins to compare to players like George Brett and Joe Morgan and no way does he deserve to be ranked as low as he is in the 400's. Soriano has averaged 34 HR's and 26 stolen bases per 162 games during his 14 year career. One of the very few 40/40 players and I think he deserves to be in the Top 100. Seriously. http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/soriaal01.shtml

[3and2Fastball]

Tony Gwynn is a tough player for me to rank, and I think he's probably about where he should be at #55 although I'd probably move him up into the Top 40. On the one hand he hit .338 in a modern integrated league and the only season that he hit under .300 in his 20 year career was his rookie season, which is truly remarkable. Because of this I might be inclined to put him in the Top 25.

 

But Gwynn basically was a singles and doubles hitter. His OBP was only 50 points higher than his BA, too. Rarely hit HR's but did average 36 doubles per 162 games. Missed a lot of time due to injuries. He did have some speed in his early career and stole quite a few bases but didn't really sustain that beyond 5 seasons. Because of all that it is very tough for me to rank him in the Top 25 even if he has the 10th highest career batting average in the modern era.

 

If I was managing a team of All-Time Greats though, Gwynn would sure be a great choice as a pinch-hitter off the bench vs a RHP when you really needed a hit (career .345 BA vs RHP). Gwynn also had a .375 career BA in the World Series

[3and2Fastball]

Looking at it further, Tony Gwynn had the highest career Batting Average among anyone who played their entire career in an integrated league. For that reason alone he probably deserves to be in the Top 25

[JohnBriggs12]

The title of this thread is misleading. The list is of "All Time Greats". It doesn't specifiy hitting. Taking walks obviously adds to offensive value but it's not purely hitting. When I think of greatest hitters, I don't consider the ability to crouch under pitches and make your strike zone miniscule as Henderson did, as hitting. Stat wise a case can be made for him certainly as an all time great, but his skill wasn't purely hitting.

 

Still there is no way Santo for instance was a better offensive player than Billy Williams, but he's ranked higher on this list. So obviously the rankings include not only other offensive skills than hitting, but defensive value as well.

 

 

Are you really suggesting that talking walks is more a result of your stance than your ability to take pitches outside the zone and have a good eye at the plate?

 

And it has nothing to do with how he starts his stance. It's about where he is when he's ready to make contact with the ball.

 

Otherwise wouldn't everyone come out and get into some type of yoga stance?

 

I mean, I don't think I've ever heard a more ridiculous idea for dismissing a players ability to draw walks, especially one of the greatest in the history of the games at doing so.

 

 

I'm not dismissing his ability to take walks. I'm explaining some of what made him exceptional at it. You ask pitchers that faced him and they'll say how hard it was to get a strike called on him. He was such a threat on the bases, that a walk was equivalent to a double. He certainly knew this and made an art out of taking walks. He was a very good hitter too, of course, but not an all time great when actually swinging the bat. I think as a all time offensive player, he certainly ranks up there with the all time greats. Just pure hitting ability is a little different skill set though.