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MLB General Discussion (Official Thread)

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Wingate1217: "Williams lost good productive years when he was off fighting a war. I also would put both Hammerin' Hank and Say Hey before Bonds."

You make some good points. However, Gehrig was better than Williams. Remember, Williams may have lost years to the war, but Gehrig's career was cut short by ALS. Its almost a wash when you say 'what could have been' with both players.

In Lou's 2nd to last full season, at age 34 in 1937 (before he was stricken with ALS) his stats were phenomena: 138 R, 200 H, 37 2B, 9 3B, 37 HR, 159 RBI, 127 BB, 49 K, .351 AVG, .473 ORP, & .643 SLG. I mean, look at that season!

In Lou's last season, at age 35 in 1938 (after he started showing ALS symptoms) he still had a great year by anybody else's standards: 115 R, 170 H, 32 2B, 6 3B, 29 HR, 114 RBI, 107 BB, 75 K, .295 AVG, .410 OBP, & .523 SLG. And that's a guy who's reflexes were slowed!

Do these two years look like a guy who was ready to walk away from the game?

As far as Mays & Aaron vs. Bonds are concerned, I tend to agree with you. I kindof haphazardly placed Bonds on the list, but I think Bonds (purely numbers-wise) belongs at # 6. I wouldn't put him ahead of Foxx (.325 lifetime avg vs. .300 for Bonds), but I had to rank Bonds ahead of Say Hey and the Hammer because their averages are equivalent (.302, .305, .300) but Bonds blows them away in power numbers, slugging, walks, on-base, and stolen bases.
 
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Sloopy,

When you look at both Williams and Gehring a baseball club would have no problem taking either of them. So I have no "heartburn" on their rankings, Barry, however is another story. Can't want to see the rest of the list.

Question: Are pitchers on this list???
 
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Wingate1217: "So I have no "heartburn" on their rankings, Barry, however is another story."

Me too. I was strongly considering keeping Bonds off the list altogether, but his profile was too tempting to write. If you want, skip Bonds and say Aaron is # 6, Mays is # 7, and so forth.

"Question: Are pitchers on this list???"

No pitchers. Only offensive players, based purely on stats. I'm also tinkering about writing up a profile on Josh Gibson, the best offensive player in the Negro Leagues & sticking him in here. But I can't rank Gibson because I don't have any solid statistics. Some people say that he hit 800+ Home Runs, but I think that total is kindof hokey. He's the only man to ever hit a fair ball out of Yankee Stadium.
 
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# 9

Number 9 is a guy who began & ended his career in St. Louis:

9. Rogers Hornsby. "The Rajah" Hornsby is generally regarded as the best right-handed hitter of all time, and the best second baseman in history. He and Ted Williams are the only players to win the Triple Crown twice (think about how hard to do that is) with .401-42-152 in 1922, and .403-39-143 in 1925. He hit over .400 three times, topping out at .424 in 1924. Had over 200 hits seven times, and usually went WAY over the 200 mark: 250, 235, 229, 218, etc. He played for the Cardinals, New York Giants, Boston Braves, Chicago Cubs, back to the Cardinals for 46 games in '33, and finished his career with the St. Louis Browns.

Stats:
.358 lifetime average, .434 OBP, & .577 SLG. Very impressive. Led the NL in OBP & SLG NINE different times, won 2 Home Run titles, and 4 RBI Titles.

Awards:
1922 & 1925 Triple Crown. 1925 & 1929 MVP. Seven Batting Titles.

Overall:
Pretty hard to argue with the numbers, don't you think? The only thing keeping Hornsby from cracking the Top 5 is that his totals don't stack up with the players before him: 2,930 Hits, 1,579 Runs, 541 2B, 301 HR, 1,584 RBI, & 4,712 TB.
 
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Well, you've maintained your baseball credibility with me by keeping Dimaggio and Mantle out of the top-10. But they didn't maintain their numbers over a long enough period to justify a top-10 spot.

Are you still planning on going through the top 25?
 
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That's reasonable... I mean it gets tougher after that...

Then you've got to start making those tough distictions between the great old timers (Wagner, Speaker, Lajoie type guys), the later more power era guys (Mantle, Dimaggio, Banks, Maybe Frank Robinson) Maybe Consider the guys who had brilliant but shorter Careers (Greenberg, Kiner, Clemente)... And try to work in some of the Newer Guys... (Where's Rickey?... Ken Griffey, Mike Schmidt... whoever you like)
 
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BB73: "Well, you've maintained your baseball credibility with me by keeping Dimaggio and Mantle out of the top-10. But they didn't maintain their numbers over a long enough period to justify a top-10 spot."

I think Joe D & Mickey should crack the Top 20, but I'm not sure yet. I haven't looked at it close enough.

"Are you still planning on going through the top 25?"

Yes. I threw together a bunch of players on an Excel sheet & plan on going through it. Its going to get a lot tougher from here on out, however.

I was also toying with the idea of a Top 25 Pitchers list.

AKAK: "Then you've got to start making those tough distictions between the great old timers (Wagner, Speaker, Lajoie type guys), the later more power era guys (Mantle, Dimaggio, Banks, Maybe Frank Robinson) Maybe Consider the guys who had brilliant but shorter Careers (Greenberg, Kiner, Clemente)... And try to work in some of the Newer Guys... (Where's Rickey?... Ken Griffey, Mike Schmidt... whoever you like)"

Wagner, Speaker, and Lajoie will make the next ten, for sure. Robinson and Rickey will also be somewhere in there as well.

Like you said, its going to be difficult to make distinctions. For the Top 10, its relatively easy: you pick guys with dominance AND longevity, and now you're making trade-offs: Joe D was dominant for a short time, while Frank Robinson maybe wasn't as good, but he did it for a longer time.
 
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AKAKBUCK said:
That's reasonable... I mean it gets tougher after that...

Then you've got to start making those tough distictions between the great old timers (Wagner, Speaker, Lajoie type guys), the later more power era guys (Mantle, Dimaggio, Banks, Maybe Frank Robinson) Maybe Consider the guys who had brilliant but shorter Careers (Greenberg, Kiner, Clemente)... And try to work in some of the Newer Guys... (Where's Rickey?... Ken Griffey, Mike Schmidt... whoever you like)
Click to expand...
Frank Thomas, Tadahito Iguchi, Michael Jordan,...
 
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One thing that's interesting about the list, is that only 1 of the top 6 guys (Cobb) has 3,000 career hits.

AKAK has a good list for additional guys; I think that Mel Ott and Mark McGwire also need to be considered. I think my boyhood hero Al Kaline will miss out.
 
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bb73: "I wonder if we'll be leaving that town for pick number 10?"

Staying in St. Louis, MO for Player # 10, we have none other than:

10. Stanley Frank Musial. "Stan the Man." Musial was an offensive machine. There's really no other way to put it. I think I'm gonna get carpal tunnel typing this write up:

Stats:
Wow. 1,949 Runs (9th All-time), 3,630 Hits (4th), 6,134 TB (2nd), 725 Doubles (3rd), 177 Triples (19th), 475 Homers (23rd), 1,951 RBI (5th), 1,599 Walks (11th), & a .331 lifetime average (30th). Musial led the National league in OBP, SLG, Hits, & Total Bases 6 times each, Runs & Triples 5 times each, Doubles EIGHT times, RBIs twice, and Bases on Balls once. Interestingly enough, for all his greatness & 475 Homers, Stan never won a Home Run Title. Hm.

He had over 100 runs 12 years in a row, 200+ hits six times, 10 seasons with 100+ RBI, and hit .300 or better in 17 seasons. What more can you say? Musial even lost a year of his prime in 1945 to military service.

Awards:
20 time All-Star, 3 time NL MVP ('43, '46, & '48), 7 time Batting Champion, & 2 time TSN Player of the Year ('46 & '51).
 
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A long time ago, I read this interesting trivia. Let's see if anyone can get it..

We all know that the defense needs to get 3 outs in an inning. But there's a situation (probably more than one situation, in fact) where the defense should prefer to get 4 outs in the inning. The defense can get the 3 outs and say "all done!" but getting the 4th out saves one run or more. Does anyone know of this situation?
 
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