Best Lineup of all time..

[HiAndTight]

Kinda a spinoff of the Baseball Reference ranking of best players of all time list.

 

A little more goes into this for me because Ricky Henderson played the OF...which would normally make it impossible to crack, but as the best leadoff hitter of all time, I have to put him up there.

 

I HAD to go with AL rules and play with the DH to get Ricky in there however otherwise you're leaving out Mays/Williams or Ruth. Just not plalusible.

 

OF-

Ricky Henderson/Willis Mays/Ted Williams

IN-1B-Gehrig, 2B-Hornsby, SS-Arod(I know he's not "popular," but you cannot deny how great he's been. 7 seasons in which he challenged for 10 WAR), 2B, Roger Hornsby, 3B Mike Schmidt.

C-Yogi Berra

DH-Ruth

 

Italics mean hit left handed....

1-Ricky Henderson LF

Most runs scored, by FAR most stolen bases, and a OBP of .404, and played very good defense.

2-Ted Williams

Greatest hitter of all time IMO. If not for some jerk named Hitler I think he finishes with 4200 hits and 750 HR's.

3-Rogers Hornsby 2B

Hit .402/.474/.690 with an OPS of 1.164 over FIVE SEASONS. Seriously, that's 5 YEARS with 615 RBI's and 598 runs scored and 42 and 39 HR's in there.

4-Babe Ruth DH

C'mon, nuff said.

5-Lou Gehrig 1B

The iron Horse, the greatest 1B of all time, never missed a game and put up video game like numbers. Underrated IMO only because he played with Ruth.

6-Willie Mays CF

660 HR's, one of the best defensive OF'ers ever as well.

7-Arod

Could easily end up breaking the all time HR record, and for an 11 year stretch hit .308/.392/.598 with a .977 OPS while playing very good defense at Short and won 3 MVP's in that stretch, runner up twice and a 3rd place finish once. Also hit 513 HR's in that stretch, and stole 46 bases in one season. Find a SS that can contend with that..

8-Mike Schmidt

The greatest SS of all time IMO(unless you compare him to Arod, as much as I dislike him, Arod does beat him in total WAR, counting numbers and rate numbers). But 10 GG, 15 ASG's and just a great all around player.

9-Yogi Bera

10 World Series Wins. 7 years in a row in which he finished top 3 in MVP voting, and was a very good defensive catcher.

 

 

Rotation

Cy Young-Most may go with Walter Johnson, I'll go with Young.

Walter Johnson

Bob Gibson

Satchel Paige(I don't care that most of it was in the negro leagues, he was a good pitcher as a 46 year old in the big leagues. He gets a spot for me).

Greg Maddux-Normally I don't like the soft tossers, so I'd have gone with Randy Johnson, but Maddux is the exception to my rule(though if the first two played today they'd both be very soft tossers).

 

CL-Mo

Eckersley

Fingers

Wilhelm-First great "reliever."

Randy Johnson-Loogy(I know he wasn't a reliever, but imagine him coming in vs lefties...he was scary).

Sutter

Gossage

 

 

 

I'm sure there will be scores of those who disagree with Ricky Henderson being among this group, especially with all the power, but a guy like him who got on base like he did, turned it into a double like he did, turned it into a double consistently or even a triple, leads the league in runs and SB's all time.

 

I'm thinking LINEUP. Not GOAT. Otherwise, Speaker, Aaron, Cobb would get the nod. So I'll be prepared to be alone in that one.

 

 

Thoughts?

[topper09er]

Rickey Henderson is only the best leadoff hitter of all time because he was the best hitter to bat in the #1 spot. The real best leadoff hitters would have been the guys with the highest OBP, like Ted Williams. Ty Cobb would have been a much better leadoff hitter than Rickey also with his .433 OBP and nearly 900 SB.

[Baldkin]

Let's see what I can come up with, with your cast offs. Not having Ruth, Gehrig or Williams really hurts, however.

 

CF - Cobb

2B - Collins

RF - Mantle

DH - Bonds

LF - Aaron

3B - Matthews

1B - Foxx

SS - Wagner

C - Bench

 

Eddie Collins was really, really good. I'd probably tinker with the batting order a bit, depending on the opposing starter, but.... yeah. There's a lot of really good baseball players out there. Beyond 2-3 deep at some positions you really run dry in a hurry, however.

 

Toughest choice: Foxx or Musial and Collins vs Lajoe.

[3and2Fastball]

My starting pitchers would be:

 

Randy Johnson

Pedro Martinez

Satchell Paige

Babe Ruth (allowing me to have Ruth hit and put Ty Cobb in the OF)

 

I cannot go along with A-Rod because of the Roids. My SS would be Honus Wagner though I'd be tempted to put Hornsby at SS in order to make room for Jackie Robinson or Joe Morgan at 2B

 

I'd go with Mickey Mantle over Mays in CF, a much higher OPS+ and OPS and OBP and I believe Mantle was a better overall hitter.

 

I think there are better options at 1B than Gehrig. I know Gehrig was great but I think Mantle, Mays, and Aaron were better and proved it in much tougher, integrated leagues and all played 1B enough to handle it on my All-Time team....

 

My Catcher would be Josh Gibson. A .362 career BA in the Negro Leagues and Babe Ruth level power at C.

[3and2Fastball]

btw I'd agree completely with Rickey Henderson hitting leadoff, even over Ty Cobb.

 

I'm a big believer in the Total Bases + Walks + Steals stat and Rickey was stellar in that department. A Rickey rally with Hornsby or Cobb and Ted Williams and Ruth or Mantle coming up behind him? Yeah I could deal with that!

[1992casey]

Total Bases + Walks + Steals

 

Shouldn't caught stealings be subtracted? Maybe even caught stealings times two?

[topper09er]

TB+BB+S/162 games

 

516 Babe Ruth

490 Ted Williams

431 Mickey Mantle

430 Rickey Henderson

428 Ty Cobb

422 Rogers Hornsby

[RockCoCougars]

Loved Rickey, but I'm going to think outside the box a bit on this one. What about The Ignitor to DH and bat leadoff? I think that you'd be hard pressed to find a better hybrid pure hitter/leadoff hitter/ability to DH/base stealing threat/smart baserunner in baseball history. Molitor was a better pure hitter than Rickey, and without all the injuries in his prime, he'd probably be at least Top 3 all time in hits. I also believe that he could have stolen many more bases had the Brewer philosophy been different during the late 70's/early 80's. I've certainly never seen a better base runner.