He’s been on 5 ballots out of 9. That’s more than a little!
Ahhh. You’re right! I shouldn’t have assumed RickJay, with his voluminous baseball knowledge, would overlook such a great one. He played a good 400 more games in the outfield. Seeing that I will replace Willie Stargell with Willie McCovey. One willie for another seems fair.
pat
It’s definitely tough to pick only ten, and based on your list you seem (reasonably enough) to hold defense in pretty high regard, so I can understand your position. Still, offensively, I think that Thomas is one of the top three or four first-basemen ever, particularly as a matter of peak. His stretch from 1991 through 1997 is simply stunning…especially considering the low league-wide offense those first few years. He definitely aged since then, and his performance has had a number of bumpy spots along the way, but over a 19-year career he’s still got an OPS+ of 157, which puts him in the highest echelon of first-base sluggers with Foxx, Mize, the shortened career of Greenberg, and ugh McGwire. (Gehrig and Pujols are on a different plane, but Pujols hasn’t played long enough for his decline period to kick in, and Gehrig is Gehrig.)
Definitely defensible to leave him out of your top ten, depending on your criteria for all-time greatness, but I’m surprised at how few people are including him. (Although now I see that he’s named on over half the ballots so far, so never mind. 
)
Multi-position players: I was wondering how you would handle Molitor and Rose (I’d put Carew there as well. And Ernie Banks)… What about a multi-position round?
Had to leave off a lot of qualified players.
Lou Gehrig
Jimmie Foxx
Willie McCovey
Hank Greenberg
Harmon Killebrew
Eddie Murray
George Sisler
Johnny Mize
Orlando Cepeda
Mickey Vernon
Lou Gehrig
Dan Brouthers
Jimmie Foxx
Hank Greenberg
Johnny Mize
Frank Thomas
Jeff Bagwell
Willie McCovey
Cap Anson
Roger Connor
Regarding Frank Thomas: he’s amassed almost 10,000 career plate appearances, which is more than most “old-time” players being considered. And his career OPS+ is in the top 20 ALL TIME.
RickJay – how much commentary, particularly when it crosses over into advocacy, do you feel comfortable with in these threads?
Well. That’s sort of dumb. I left off Lou Gehrig? That was a definite error. I am going to have to remove Jim Thome (Who I only added because I had 9) and add Lou. Sorry about all my changes.
Pujols shouldn’t be on the ballot, as he doesn’t have the ten seasons required, to name just one reason (he’s not even 30 yet). Thus while he has a wonderful peak, we don’t know if he will suffer a catastrophic injury or severe decline sometime in the next year or three, drastically affecting how we perceive his peak (a la Dale Murphy).
Gehrig
Foxx
McGwire
Bagwell
Eddie Murray
Mize
Killebrew
McCovey
Frank Thomas (not the one from the 60’s)
Will Clark (another guy ignored by the BBWAA-my ballots will likely have at least one such underrated player)
Lou Gehrig
Jimmie Foxx
Willie McCovey
Hank Greenberg
Harmon Killebrew
Jeff Bagwell
Cap Anson
Dan Brouthers
Johnny Mize
Frank Thomas (The Big Hurt)
Gehrig
Foxx
Pujoles
Greenberg
McGwire
Sisler
Anson
Killebrew
Murray
Olerud
After the first 5 or so ,they blur into small differences. Could argue back and forth forever.
Lou Gehrig
Jimmy Foxx
Hank Greenburg
Eddie Murray
Bill Terry
George Sisler
Harmon Killebrew
Frank Thomas
Willie McCovey
Willie Stargell
Man, I’d love to have a light-hearted discussion about some of the reasons for people’s choices (mine and others).
Lou Gehrig
Frank Thomas (The Big Hurt)
Albert Pujols
Jimmie Foxx
Harmon Killebrew
George Sisler
Hank Greenberg
Rod Carew
Don Mattingly
Jeff Bagwell
So go ahead. What’s **RickJay ** going to do, ban you? Lists are boring and fascist–let’s chat up a storm. I’m curious what Hugh Jass would say that Mickey Vernon accomplished that Gil Hodges didn’t. Hit for a high average a few seasons, maybe?
Lou Gehrig
Jimmie Foxx
Dan Brouthers
Frank Thomas
Mark McGwire
Johnny Mize
Hank Greenberg
Jeff Bagwell
Willie McCovey
Keith Hernandez
Hernandez is obviously a sentimental choice on my part. The only other two serious candidates for the spot in my head were Todd Helton, who I think has an insufficient body of work to be considered and might not be much longer for the league, and Dick Allen.
The other nine, though, I feel pretty strongly about. I genuinely think those are the nine best first basemen who ever played.
This is a cool game.
Fair enough!
storyteller, no Cap Anson?
gonzomax, why Olerud over Bagwell, Thomas, Mize, or McCovey?
It was a tough call. Mickey Vernon led in a few more categories. But I have to admit to a bias here. I was born and raised in Washington, so I’m gonna favor a Senator over someone else. In my completely unscientific opinion, what Vernon accomplished for a lousy team is better than what Hodges did with other bats in the line up. I realize and acknowledge that I am on tenuous ground with this selection. There were several players I wanted to include, but in being limited to 10, had to apply some other criteria to whittle the list down.
Like I said,throw a blanket over them. the difference is miniscule.
Anson of course has a pretty compelling case. I obviously didn’t see him play , so all I can really do is rely on the statistics. Of the 10 guys on my list, Anson would have the second lowest OPS+ (Hernandez’s was lower, but Hernandez was a game-changing defensive player and I’ve already called him a sentimental pick).
It’s tough to make an argument against Anson except by comparison to the players on the current list. Gehrig and Foxx were in their own category. Anson’s contemporary Brouthers was not just better than Anson, he was a lot better, near as I can tell. Johnny Mize lost four prime years to the service; include those, and his OPS+ (158), slugging percentage (.562), and OBP (.397), already better than Anson’s, might have been even higher.
Thomas has been as good a hitter as Mize, and over a very long period of time, with periods of unbelivable dominance. McGwire was the best hitter in baseball for a few years. Greenberg is right up there with Thomas and Mize.
Bagwell and McCovey are both statistically quite close to Anson, I guess, but I give both of them nods. So, given that I’m including Hernandez as my homer pick, who would I boot from my current list to include Cap Anson?
That is the problem for Cap Anson & Dan Brouthers. Unless you are one of the few to read accounts of the Old Game, you have no comparison except statistics and they pale compared to modern players and a Demi-God like Gehrig. I thought based on what they meant to the game, especially Cap, they should be included.
It would have been easy for me to leave Brouthers off, but nobody was great enough in the cut list except Big Mac and I won’t vote for Big Mac so I decided I would pick the second best from the 1800s.
I also chose Hernandez as he and Mattingly were the best defensively and in the long run Hernandez had the better overall career. I do value defense at first as Gadarene noted. It is the main reason why I have never warmed up to Giambi, even more than the steroids.
Actually, based on statistics alone, Dan Brouthers was by-God awesome, even in comparison to modern hitters. The dude hit .342 for his career, with an OBP of .423. He slugged .514 for his career, which took place entirely before the turn of the century. He led the major leagues in slugging percentage for six straight years. His career OPS+ - which is adjusted for league performance, remember - is 170, tie with Joe Jackson for seventh all time: better than not only Anson, but also Foxx, McGwire, Mize, Greenberg, and the lot of them. He also stole bases.
Fair enough, and I think a lot of folks will agree with you.
I just can’t justify choosing Anson over Brouthers; the latter was better in literally every facet of the game that I can observe from this temporal vantage point.
I have a particular admiration for Keith Hernandez. His book, If at First, is not only the reason I’m a Mets’ fan, it’s the reason I’m a baseball fan.
So you know, I pick Brouthers and I am pleasantly surprised by how many others did. I did not pick him purely for his stats. I actually picked him as he was described in several books I have read as the second best first baseman on the 1800s.
When I wrote my last post, I did not even notice I was responding to someone that pick Brouthers. I was actually trying to defend my obscure pick. His name rarely comes up in baseball conversations.
The voters near the time pick Cap Anson in 1939, same year as Gehrig in fact. Dan Brouthers had to wait until 1945. He was a great player, thus he made my top 10 list. However, the people of Cap’s time called him the game’s first superstar and best player.
Jim