ESPN Top 100

[Peter_Spaeth]

If already posted please delete.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/...s-all-nos-25-1

100. Barry Larkin
99. Phil Niekro
98. Jim Thome
97. Adrian Beltre
96. Charlie Gehringer
95. Duke Snider
94. Bryce Harper
93. John Smoltz
92. Roy Halladay
91. Ryne Sandberg
90. Ivan Rodriguez
89. Shoeless Joe Jackson
88. Willie Stargell
87. Carlton Fisk
86. Roberto Alomar
85. Jim Palmer
84. Paul Molitor
83. Roy Campanella
82. Eddie Collins
81. Mike Piazza
80. Robin Yount
79. Hank Greenberg
78. Chipper Jones
77. Vladimir Guerrero
76. Cap Anson
75. Rod Carew
74. Juan Marichal
73. Willie McCovey
72. Justin Verlander
71. Al Kaline
70. Harmon Killebrew
69. Ozzie Smith
68. Manny Ramirez
67. Brooks Robinson
66. Cal Ripken Jr.
65. Max Scherzer
64. Eddie Mathews
63. David Ortiz
62. Mel Ott
61. Carl Yastrzemski
60. Whitey Ford
59. Miguel Cabrera
58. Steve Carlton
57. Pete Alexander
56. Dave Winfield
55. Reggie Jackson
54. Lefty Grove
53. Oscar Charleston
52. Clayton Kershaw
51. Ernie Banks
50. Bob Feller
49. Frank Thomas
48. Nap Lajoie
47. Warren Spahn
46. Ichiro Suzuki
45. Wade Boggs
44. Tony Gwynn
43. George Brett
42. Nolan Ryan
41. Satchel Paige
40. Jimmie Foxx
39. Yogi Berra
38. Jackie Robinson
37. Joe Morgan
36. Tris Speaker
35. Josh Gibson
34. Pete Rose
33. Bob Gibson
32. Sandy Koufax
31. Mariano Rivera
30. Albert Pujols
29. Johnny Bench
28. Derek Jeter
27. Roberto Clemente
26. Alex Rodriguez
25. Christy Mathewson
24. Randy Johnson
23. Rickey Henderson
22. Tom Seaver
21. Cy Young
20. Rogers Hornsby
19. Frank Robinson
18. Mike Schmidt
17. Roger Clemens
16. Joe DiMaggio
15. Mike Trout
14. Greg Maddux
13. Ken Griffey Jr.
12. Honus Wagner
11. Pedro Martinez
10. Stan Musial
9. Walter Johnson
8. Barry Bonds
7. Mickey Mantle
6. Lou Gehrig
5. Ted Williams
4. Ty Cobb
3. Hank Aaron
2. Willie Mays
1. Babe Ruth

[JustinD]

Not a horrible list. Off hand the Yankee association really moved Jeter unreasonably far up that list, but I am sure someone will disagree. No list will keep everyone happy, but I have seen far worse. I am happy that the list writer added some history in there versus the usual of having a list of 90% players after 85'.

[Wanaselja]

Jeter at #28 is laughable (yes, I am a Met fan).

[Peter_Spaeth]

IMO Pedro, Jeter, Clemente, Rivera, Ortiz too high.

[CobbSpikedMe]

How did Pedro get #11?



.

[D. Bergin]

Finally! A list everybody can agree on!

[BobbyStrawberry]

Where is Hyun-Jin Ryu?!

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by BobbyStrawberry

Where is Hyun-Jin Ryu?!

#101 Just missed the cut.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by BobbyStrawberry

Where is Hyun-Jin Ryu?!

Fabulous question, he's sooooooo much better than Warren Spahn, right? LOL

[Tyruscobb]

Shoeless Joe Jackson is 89th out of 100? This was the biggest headscratcher for me.

[chadeast]

Jeter > Foxx and Speaker? Ummm, no.

[Fred]

Originally Posted by Tyruscobb

Shoeless Joe Jackson is 89th out of 100? This was the biggest headscratcher for me.

Yeah, head scratcher for me too... why was he even on the list?

Ha - could you imagine trying to get just a few people to agree on this list?

At least they probably have the #1 player selected correctly (well, at least for a third of the people that read the list...)

[mrreality68]

Originally Posted by Tyruscobb

Shoeless Joe Jackson is 89th out of 100? This was the biggest headscratcher for me.

+1 agree about Joe jackson

Do not understand Jeter being so high up and ahead of some greats

[oldjudge]

I can’t understand why DiMaggio ranks so low. He had a shorter career than Mantle but his batting stats per season are better and there was no comparison in the field-DiMaggio was much better.

Per 162 game season

Runs-DiMaggio -130, Mantle-113
Doubles-DiMaggio-36, Mantle-23
Triples-DiMaggio-12, Mantle-5
Homers-DiMaggio-34, Mantle-36
RBIs-DiMaggio-143, Mantle-102
BA-DiMaggio-.325, Mantle-.298
OPS-DiMaggio-.977, Mantle-.977

I think Joe D was the greatest center fielder ever although I can see an argument for Mays.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by oldjudge

I can’t understand why DiMaggio ranks so low. He had a shorter career than Mantle but his batting stats per season are better and there was no comparison in the field-DiMaggio was much better.

Per 162 game season

Runs-DiMaggio -130, Mantle-113
Doubles-DiMaggio-36, Mantle-23
Triples-DiMaggio-12, Mantle-5
Homers-DiMaggio-34, Mantle-36
RBIs-DiMaggio-143, Mantle-102
BA-DiMaggio-.325, Mantle-.298
OPS-DiMaggio-.977, Mantle-.977

I think Joe D was the greatest center fielder ever although I can see an argument for Mays.

And yet, Mantle is comfortably ahead on WAR type stats. 4th among CF, DiMaggio is 7th. And not just longevity, Mantle is ahead in WAR7, 64 to 52. And his dWAR for whatever reason is MUCH better 9.6 to 3.2.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/l.../jaws_CF.shtml

And FWIW, Bill James rates Mantle 6th all time, DiMaggio 13th.

[iwantitiwinit]

Too high:

Bonds
Seaver
Henderson (way too high)
Clemente

Too low:

Bench

[Lobo Aullando]

I don't know on Henderson. I'm wondering if he's a few notches too low. He was terrifying because you knew if he got on -- and he did even more with that small strike zone -- it was like it was downhill the rest of the way to home plate. (Great if he's on your team, though.)

3,055 hits, 2,190 walks, and then 1,406 steals.

Originally Posted by iwantitiwinit

Too high:

Bonds
Seaver
Henderson (way too high)
Clemente

Too low:

Bench

[nat]

"I don't think anyone thinks Schilling was a better baseball player than Dimaggio"

Nobody thinks he was, and WAR doesn't say that he was. WAR is a measure of value, not ability. If you want to measure ability you'll need something like WAR/PA or something like that. (Tricky here, since Schilling was a pitcher and DiMaggio was a position player.)

Anyway, by WAR they're tied in total career value. (The difference is less than one WAR, which is totally meaningless over the course of a player's career.) And the only reason that DiMaggio isn't ahead of Schilling is that his career was so short. He only played 13 years - or really only 12.5 since he missed half of 1949. If you want to give him any credit for the years he missed during the war, he'd pull way ahead.

The Trout rating is obviously based on some expectations of what he'll do in the future. I think it's pretty likely that he ends up being a top-20 player, although obviously he isn't there yet.

As for the rest of the list: it's so bad I'm just going to ignore it. Half of it looks like click-bait, and the other half looks like whoever put it together didn't bother to check the players' records (for example, check out how much daylight they put between Matty and Pete).

[RCMcKenzie]

I stand corrected, nat. I'm not familiar with war/pa, I'll have to check it out. I don't care for this espn list either, but it makes for fun conversation. I could argue Trout has only been the 2nd best player on a losing team his whole career. Pujols, Ohtani.

[Kidnapped18]

42 Nolan Ryan should be higher up towards the top for me

These three should be much lower towards bottom
11 Pedro Martinez
15 Mike Trout
28 Derek Jeter

No way am I putting these three ahead of some of the greats on this list

94 Bryce Harper doesn't make the cut for me

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by RCMcKenzie

I stand corrected, nat. I'm not familiar with war/pa, I'll have to check it out. I don't care for this espn list either, but it makes for fun conversation. I could argue Trout has only been the 2nd best player on a losing team his whole career. Pujols, Ohtani.

There is no way on earth Pujols on the Angels was remotely close to Trout. No one seriously disputes Trout has been the best player in baseball since he came up in 2011.

[tod41]

Originally Posted by iwantitiwinit

Too high:

Bonds
Seaver
Henderson (way too high)
Clemente

Too low:

Bench

Seaver is too low. Should be ahead of Clemons, Maddox and Pedro.

[Ricky]

No George Sisler, Al Simmons or Mickey Cochrane. What other egregious misses?

[Vintageclout]

Originally Posted by iwantitiwinit

Too high:

Bonds
Seaver
Henderson (way too high)
Clemente

Too low:

Bench

Seaver too high? Think again. One of only TWO…..yes TWO pitchers who ever won 300+ games (311); struck out 3,000+ batters (3,640); and post a sub-3.00 ERA (2.86). Walter Johnson being the other. Ranked #7 lifetime in WAR among all pitchers & #6 in JAWS (Jaffe System combining best peak 7 years & longevity). Lifetime .603 winning percentage is roughly 100 points superior to his teams Winning % & he posted 231 complete games and 61 shoutouts. Hitters posted a measly .226 lifetime batting average against Seaver - an amazing statistic. Pedro Martinez being # 11 is a complete joke - not Seaver being #22.

[molenick]

This list was discussed a bit in the "Who Are Your Inner Circle Hall of Famers?" thread but the full list wasn't posted. My initial surprise was seeing how high Pedro Martinez was ranked. He's kind of like the new Koufax in that he gets a lot of credit for his peak performance.

The thing Martinez has going for him is that more of the voters saw him pitch (to have seen Koufax we're talking about people at least in their early 60s) and he benefits from modern stats, which give him a lot of credit for pitching in a hitter's era and (at least when he was with the Red Sox) in a hitter's park. Whereas now people (some people) downplay Koufax because he pitched in a pitcher's era and park.

Of course it is impossible to have a list that everyone agrees on, but I would rank the next six pitchers (Maddux, Clemens, Young, Seaver, Randy Johnson, Mathewson) ahead of him as well Grove (54th!) and Alexander (57th!), which still makes him the tenth best pitcher (also being behind Walter Johnson who is on the list at 9) which is nothing to sneeze at. I am not sure how to weigh peak vs. career but all these guys had both great peaks and long careers.

There's an endless amount to discuss here but I will just add these observations:

Not sure how Lajoie is ranked 48th and Eddie Collins 82nd. Putting Lajoie where he is shows awareness of earlier players so I am unclear why Collins was ranked that low.

I am not a Bryce Harper hater but I disagree with having him on the list at all while leaving off Crawford, Waner, and Heilmann (as well as many other players I would choose over Harper, but I was focusing on right fielders).

All that being said, there isn't a list of 100 players any one of us could come up with that anyone else would agree with 100%. And I think this pays tribute to the history of the game while recognizing that some current or recent players are pretty good as well.

To me the list skews a little too modern but I would imagine my list (and possibly the list of others on this site) would skew a little older.

[darwinbulldog]

Personally I'd put Eddie Collins a little ahead of Mickey Mantle, but I can understand having Mantle a bit ahead of Collins. 7th vs. 82nd though just bespeaks a shameful ignorance, as does Griffey ahead of Hornsby, Jeter ahead of Speaker, Cy Young at #21...

83% of the list is reasonable, but these 17 rankings are not.

82. Eddie Collins
57. Pete Alexander
54. Lefty Grove
46. Ichiro Suzuki
39. Yogi Berra
36. Tris Speaker
34. Pete Rose
28. Derek Jeter
21. Cy Young
20. Rogers Hornsby
17. Roger Clemens
16. Joe DiMaggio
13. Ken Griffey Jr.
12. Honus Wagner
9. Walter Johnson
7. Mickey Mantle
6. Lou Gehrig

You can't put Koufax in your top 50 and leave WaJo out of your top 3.

[darwinbulldog]

I agree that Trout is too high for what he's done. However, he's too low for a reasonable projection of where he'll end up, so I think they're just splitting the difference. If he retires today I have him at #27. If he plays until he's 40 with a typical dropoff and number of games missed, I expect he'll rank in the 8-12 range at that point.

[Tao_Moko]

Originally Posted by darwinbulldog

Personally I'd put Eddie Collins a little ahead of Mickey Mantle, but I can understand having Mantle a bit ahead of Collins. 7th vs. 82nd though just bespeaks a shameful ignorance, as does Griffey ahead of Hornsby, Jeter ahead of Speaker, Cy Young at #21...

83% of the list is reasonable, but these 17 rankings are not.

82. Eddie Collins
57. Pete Alexander
54. Lefty Grove
46. Ichiro Suzuki
39. Yogi Berra
36. Tris Speaker
34. Pete Rose
28. Derek Jeter
21. Cy Young
20. Rogers Hornsby
17. Roger Clemens
16. Joe DiMaggio
13. Ken Griffey Jr.
12. Honus Wagner
9. Walter Johnson
7. Mickey Mantle
6. Lou Gehrig

You can't put Koufax in your top 50 and leave WaJo out of your top 3.

+1 No list can make everyone happy but there are some real head scratchers here. Your points were well made.