Shoot. Thought this was about Gary Player.
Carry on.
Obviously we’ll never know for sure, and certainly the overall level of skill and athletic ability has consistently risen through the years, so that today’s average player probably performs at or above the level of most of the stars of the early years. But with Cobb (as well as Ruth, Wagner, Hornsby, and a few others), you’re talking about players who’d probably have outperformed most players of any era.
One evaluative measure that’s been developed by sabermetrician Keith Woolner is the inelegantly named “VORPD”, Value Above Replacement Player plus Defense. This is an attempt to measure quantitatively the difference between an individual player at a particular position and an imaginary minimally acceptable replacement (a player who could be inserted into the lineup at minimal cost) taking into account the player’s defensive ability as well. Woolner has prepared a list of players with the highest VORPD in each league through the 1995 season. These are the players who were, in a very literal sense (at least as measured by this yardstick), the most “valuable” players in their league each year. While you could no doubt argue with whether VORP really reflects a player’s value, most savvy baseball fans would find few if any surprises in this list; Norm Cash tops the AL list for 1961, which would surprise the casual fan but not the serious student of the game. DiMaggio appears only once, in 1939, but then Williams’s numbers were better for most of the years their careers overlapped.
The players who had the highest VORPD in their league the most number of times are:
[ul]
10 times: Honus Wagner and Babe Ruth
9 times: Rogers Hornsby and Willie Mays
8 times: Nap Lajoie and Ted Williams
7 times: Mickey Mantle
5 times: Ty Cobb and Mike Schmidt
4 times: Tris Speaker, Jimmie Foxx, Carl Yastrzemski, Stan Musial, and Barry Bonds
3 times: Rod Carew, Cal Ripken, Chuck Klein, Arky Vaughan, and Hank Aaron
2 times: Al Simmons, Bobby Murcer, Robin Yount, Rickey Henderson, Gavvy Cravath, Joe Medwick, Ralph Kiner, Jackie Robinson, Red Schoendienst, Frank Robinson (once in each league), Willie McCovey and Willie Stargell[/ul]
Other interesting data points from this list:
[ul]
[li]Out of the top 15 VORP seasons, Babe Ruth put up 8, Rogers Hornsby 3, Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Mickey Mantle, and Barry Bonds one each for the other four. Ruth and Hornsby own the top ten, with the highest rank by another player being Williams at number nine. Hornsby’s three top ten seasons rank third, eighth, and tenth.[/li][li]The average league-leading VORP was 77.31. Ruth’s top three seasons, 1921, 1920, and 1923, were 156.6, 144.1, and 141.1. Hornsby’s 140.5 is the only other 140+ season, and besides Ruth and Hornsby only Williams has ever broken 130, with his 130.5 in 1941.Mantle (1957) and Bonds (1993) are the only players in the last 50 years to break 120.[/li][li]In seasons when they led their league, Ruth’s average VORP was 129.75, Hornsby’s 108.03, Williams’ 103.4; they’re the only players to average above 100 in five or more league-leading seasons.[/ul][/li]
From all of this, I’d say the pool of nominees for greatest player ever comes down to Ruth, Hornsby, Williams, and Wagner, plus Mays, Nap Lajoie, and Cobb. Ruth’s numbers by this measure are head and shoulders above the rest, with only Hornsby coming close. Williams follows some way back, with Wagner having led the NL more than any other player, but by a thinner margin than the others in nearly every case. Ruth has his record as a pitcher arguing in his favor as well, and his defense (at least in his outstanding seasons in the early '20s) was above average – Hornsby and Williams were both below average defensively, though to be sure Hornsby played the more demanding position of second base. Wagner, on the other hand, was not only far above average defensively at shortstop, if his contemporaries are to be believed he probably would have been far above average at any position on the field with the exception of catcher. As late as 1902, five years into his career, he still played more games in the outfield than at any other positions, though he played second, third, and first quite a bit as well before settling in at short.
As for the other nominees in this thread, Cobb was nowhere near the defensive player Wagner was, but he probably could compare adequately with the early Ruth and was certainly a formidable offensive force. Mays is certainly somewhere high on the list. Rose isn’t. He was a liability in the field most of the time he wasn’t in left or at first. He racked up a lot of hits, at bats and games played by virtue of sheer longevity, but in no single season was he ever the best player in his league that year. He certainly was never the best overall player in the game at any time in his career. He was very good at drawing attention to himself, which accounts for the All-Star appearances and MVP and Rookie of the Year awards, and he stuck around longer than anyone thought possible, but he was only a very good hitter who achieved what little of substance he did by sheer force of will. Most of the others, while great players, can’t really lay claim to being strongly consider the greatest ever.
All things considered, I’ll take Ruth. Though Wagner’s numbers don’t merit it, I’d put him next, ahead of other worthy candidates, for his defensive versatility, with Mays right behind. Nap Lajoie should be in there somewhere, as should Cobb, then Hornsby.
Jackie Robinson
He still put up the numbers while standing tall against the bigotry that permeated the ballparks where he played. Many times as he played the “n” word was yelled and these people meant it. Yet he played hard and played well.
Honorable mention: Harold Henry “Pee Wee” Resse
He is the player that, before the 1st game that Jackie Robinson played in, stopped the practice and put an arm around Jackie’s shoulders. Pee Wee draped his arm around Jackie in friendship and eased the acceptance of Jackie as baseball’s 1st black player. Pee Wee didn’t put up the numbers but he gets my vote for being a hall of famer as a person. Footnote: before Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee played shortstop, the position that Jackie played, Pee Wee just moved to the other side of the infield.
Hit the damned reply button before I was done.
To be honest, I am not confident in picking a fifth guy to the exclusion of all others. Five is too short a list.
Maddux would be a fine choice, as would Paige or even Brown but I already picked two dead ball era guys. Pedro is as good, right now, as any pitcher has ever been. Clemens, Seaver, Grover Cleveland Alexander - there’s lots of candidates. I’ll take Maddux if you press me.
I’ve stated elsewhere on this board that I feel it is futile to statistically compare players of different eras because of the way the game has changed. After all, you could, for example, make the argument that Cy Young is the best pitcher of all time based on his 511 wins. However, can you meaningfully argue that he is twice the pitcher that Roger Clemens is because he has only about 260?
Likewise, can you meaningfully say that Ken Williams (the slugging star of Browns in the 20s - .319 BA, 196 HR, 913 RBI) is a better hitter than Pete Rose because he has a higher average and more power?
The only way, I believe (and I’m not certain it’s really all that reliable) is to measure how much above their league averages these players were at the time they were playing. For example, Roger Connor, IMHO, was a great slugger because he hit 138 homers in the 19th century. He outpaced most everyone he played with by far.
It would be far better served, I believe, to name the best player(s) of each era (as I don’t think you can meaningfully compare pitchers to hitters).
That said, I’ll name who I think is the best in a later post (I’ve got to get off the computer now 
)
Zev Steinhardt
This is strictly FWIW, as I’m not a big baseball fan, but I’d like to toss this out for you to consider.
I’d argue for Ruth, based on his sociological impact. Arguably, he had the biggest social impact, on those who were not specifically baseball fans, of those whom we are discussing.
Certainly, Cobb, Rose, Musial, Williams, etc. were excellent players, but they don’t spring to the non-fan mind as Ruth does when you think about baseball. Anyone who has even a rudimentary knowledge of sports knows who Ruth is, while these others would be harder to place. (Sort of like this example for soccer…I ask my non-soccer liking friends, “What did Pele do?” They say, “He played soccer.” But if I ask the same question about Puskas, Bobby Charlton, Cruyff, Beckenbauer (just to use some names at random), they would just look at me with blank expressions.)
All that said, if I was picking one player to come through and win Game 7 of the World Series for me…would Ruth have been the best choice? Perhaps that would be a harder question to consider.
It’s gotta be Babe Ruth.
There have been loads of great players, but nobody who was so utterly dominant. Even when Ty Cobb was at his peak, there were numerous other players who batted almost as high as he did. When Babe Ruth was at his peak, nobody was even close to him as a home run hitter.
Never before, and never since, has the gap between the #1 and the #2 player in any area of baseball been so vast!
The only fair comparison is to Wayne Gretzky, who (in his prime) was 100 points better than his nearest competitor.
Not only were his qualitative statistics (batting average, on base percentage, slugging percentage) superlative, even accounting for eras, different rules, etc, but his quantitative stats were very impressive, considering that most of the people who passed him in the various categories took far more career games to do so.
The kicker, of course, was that he was a hell of a pitcher. In my opinion, you could at least make an argument for a few others (though I would still go with Ruth) if Ruth were “only” an outfielder.
Sorta following zev_steinhardt’s context suggestion:
I limited the pool of players to those I have actually seen play (been watching since 1993 or so), so virtually every player already named has been eliminated.
I also factored in the success of the team the player was on. This probably isn’t fair to the player if he happens to be on a horrible team, but this is the greatest player we’re talking about here, and the greatest player would most definitely have been on a team that won a title or two. For example, I can’t consider Mark McGwire a candidate for the greatest player, despite his 70+ home-run season, because the Cards were out playing golf that October.
I’m also biased in favor of pitchers over hitters-- my reason being that a strong outing from a pitcher is likely to have greater impact on the game than a strong outing from an individual hitter.
My pick: Greg Maddux.
That just proves Ruth got more (and better) publicity. Not surprising, since he played in New York, but superior publicity is not proof of superior talent.
rackensack wrote:
Well, players do more weight training now, but I’m not sure that necessarily makes them better baseball players. I am also not as certain as you seem to be that the skill level today is any higher than it was in the days of Cobb. Your evidence?
Unless I’m reading this wrong, you’re saying Robinson played shortstop. I thought he was a 2nd baseman.
There’s two problems with that:
- Ruth really was a better player than Cobb, Rose, Musial, etc., and part of the reason he got as much publicity was that he was so great and that he changed the game so dramatically.
Before Ruth, the 20th century record for home runs in a season was 24, by a guy named Gavvy Cravath. Ruth hit 29, and then he hit 54. And then he hit 59, and he by that time was already the career home run leader as well. Beleive me, they would have paid attention to him if he played in Buffalo.
That’s the other thing about Ruth; he changed his sport. Gretzky is the Great One, but the game of hockey hasn’t changed substantially because of him. Michael Jordan did not substantially change the way basketball is played. But Babe Ruth changed baseball. Prior to Ruth, 15 homers could lead the league. It was Ruth who made the home run the cornerstone of successful offensive baseball.
- When Ruth joined the Yankees, they were New York’s lesser team; the New York Giants were the jewel in the NY baseball crown. Prior to Ruth’s arrival the Yankees had never won a pennant. And in 1920 the Brooklyn Dodgers won the pennant, so you could make a reasonable argument that the team Ruth joined was only the third-most-popular team in New York. It was Ruth who was responsible for the beginning of the Yankee dynasty that lasted, uninterrupted, until the early 60’s.
Put me in the camp of those who believe that today’s players are, on average, head and shoulders above those of previous eras.
They certainly ought to be. They’re bigger, stronger, they throw faster and hit the ball further. Throwing a ball at 100 mph isn’t that unusual anymore; usedta be that 95mph was a big deal. And today’s players take those 100 mph fastballs and turn 'em around, if they don’t have enough movement on them.
I went to an exhibition game at RFK just before the '99 season. I saw McGwire hit one in BP that went only a few feet from going out of the stadium. Back when baseball was played there, Mantle, Killebrew, Frank Howard, Reggie Jackson, and the rest of them never came close to hitting one that high and far, even in BP.
In all sports where we can objectively measure the athletes’ performance (track and field, etc.), we know they’re getting better. Run a 4-minute mile? That and a dollar will get you a cup of coffee. And in the other major sports, the gap between present and past is equally clear. Red Auerbach’s Celtics didn’t have anything approaching the athleticism of today’s NBA players; the St. Louis Rams would dwarf, and crush, Lombardi’s Packers. It’s hard to come up with a reason baseball ought to be different.
Just like everywhere else, today’s MLB players are bigger, stronger, faster, more athletic. If you had a time warp, it would be cruel to match the 1998 Yankees against the 1961 or 1927 Yankees. I’m with Zev on this: when I say Babe Ruth was the best ever, I mean best with respect to his era. While comparisons across eras can’t be done with any precision, it’s easy to tell which way the overall movement is.
Here’s why baseball is different:
In all of the other sports you cite, the improving numbers can be explained by a talent pool that is ever-increasing in size. Far more people play football now than in its early years. Same for basketball, and even track. At the turn of the last century, all of those sports were (in the U.S.) the province of a few college kids in Eastern schools. Small wonder that as those sports opened up to the masses, the performances improved.
You could argue that the opposite has happened in baseball. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, baseball was virtually the only team sport enjoyed by the mass of Americans. Therefore, virtually all great athletes would have been funneled into that sport. As the years passed, baseball lost its monopoly on talented athletes. The athletes found that they could earn a living at golf, then football, then basketball, then tennis, then track. Result: The talent pool from which baseball draws its players has shrunk, while the talent pools of the other sports have grown.
The other evidence you cite, harder throwers and longer home runs, shows the impact of weight training (and in some cases, drug-enhanced performance), but does not indicate that the talent level has increased.
I couldn’t agree more. In sports where being better is clear, i.e. objective, there is no argument who is better. But people still say that Jessie Owens, Roger Bannister, Mark Spitz were great, even though now their times are relatively slow when compared to today’s standards.
Drop Carlos Delgado, or Vladimir Guerrero into the '61 Yanks line-up and they’d be legends by now.
And I still think the talent pool is larger, not smaller. If pure talent is the only criteria for being great, then this question is impossible to answer.
I have to go on the Cobb side of the fence. I believe Cobb didn’t try to hit home runs, because he just didn’t think that was the best way to play.
here’s the url by the way http://wso.williams.edu/~jkossuth/cobb/ruth.htm
Just because Ruth was a much bigger personality, and his legend has grown through the years, doesn’t mean he was a better player, or even considered better in his own era. Its obviously impossible to see objectively, but from everything thing I’ve ever heard, Cobb could do pretty much anything he wanted with a bat, or on the bases, so he gets my vote.
How about an all-time team?
Pick a team of 25 players, balancing your team just like a real team.
I’d pick:
Catchers - ** Mike Piazza and Yogi Berra ** - Piazza is the best-hitting catcher of all time, at least so far; Berra, IMO, is still the best catcher of all time, careerwise, and won more World Series than any other player. They’re a lefty/righty combo, too, so I can platoon.
First basemen: ** Lou Gehrig** was merely the best there ever was.
Second basemen: This is harder but I’ll select ** Eddie Collins and Joe Morgan.**
Shortstops: Someday the likes of A-Rod and Nomar will be on this list, but in the meantime I’ll select ** Honus Wagner and Ozzie Smith.** Wagner may be the greatest player in NL history; Smith was underrated, in my opinion, and is much greater than he’s given credit for.
Third basemen: I’ll take ** Mike Schmidt.** That’s a no-brainer.
Right field: ** Babe Ruth** is the Man.
Center field: I’ll anger the Ty Cobb fans, but I want more D out of my center fielder so I’ll take ** Willie Mays. **
Left field: I’ll take ** Barry Bonds. **
Backup outfielders: ** Ted Williams, Ty Cobb and Hank Aaron** give me backups at each outfield position, plus in Aaron I get another righthanded bat, which the outfield’s short on.
Utility player: Jackie Robinson Yes, this is partially a hero vote, but Robinson was a magnificent player, and his career would look even more impressive if his skin colour hadn’t kept him out of the majors until he was 28. If you can imagine Roberto Alomar wth better defense and more plate discipline and higher batting averages playing with Pete Rose’s intensity, you’ve got Jackie Robinson. And he did play well at many positions so he’a a good utility guy to have.
My pitching staff would be:
Starter 1 - Walter Johnson (417-279)
Starter 2 - Lefty Grove (300-141)
Starter 3 - Christy Mathewson (373-188)
Starter 4 - Sandy Koufax (165-87)
Starter 5 - Greg Maddux (221-126 up to 1999)
Relievers - they’re mostly starters but it’s my team, so nyah nyah.
Closer: Pedro Martinez
Setup: Roger Clemens
Setup: Hoyt Wilhelm
Long Man: Tom Seaver
Swing Man: Warren Spahn (I need more lefties.)
To get back to the OP, in order for a player to be the best player of all-time he must be the best player on his team. Pete Rose was the third best starter on the Red’s of the '70’s. Joe Morgan and Johnny Bench were better. Bench was the first excellent defensive catcher who combined hitting and speed. Joe Morgan was simply the best second baseman who ever played the game. Most of Pete Rose’s records happened because he stuck around a lot longer than he should have. Oh, yeah, Babe Ruth was the greatest player ever, not only for his hitting stats, but also his pitching ablility. I think a lot of people discount Ruth because he was fat and ran funny.
Keith
Ok, here’s mine:
Catchers - ** Johnny Bench and Yogi Berra ** - Piazza may be the best-hitting catcher of all time, but Bench is the best catcher, period. Berra is too good to pass up, but he’d still be Bench’s back-up.
First basemen: ** Lou Gehrig** was merely the best there ever was - no argument there.
Second basemen: Rogers Hornsby. One of the greatest of all time.
Shortstops: ** Ernie Banks and Ozzie Smith.** Banks I think speaks for himself, a power threat at shortstop who always wanted to play two. I admit, growing up in St Louis makes the Smith choice a little bit of hero-worship, but he isn’t called The Wizard for nothing.
Third basemen: ** Brooks Robinson.** There’s enough offense on this team, let’s get a glove in there that essentially makes the third base area a black hole for line drives.
Right field: ** Babe Ruth**. DUH!
Center field: ** Willie Mays. ** Hits for average, hits for power, speed on the bases, cannon for an arm, what the hell else is there?
Left field: **Stan Musial. ** I admit some hero-worship here. But I also believe he is one of the most underrated players IMO. Seven National League batting titles, the second highest total in M.L. history; Topped the .300 mark in batting average 17 times; Set a major league record with five home runs in a doubleheader; Became the first player to appear in more than 1000 games each at two different positions, first base and the outfield; Gathered 1815 hits at home and 1815 hits on the road in his career; represented the National League in 24 All Star Games, tied for the most appearances in history; Never struck out more than 46 times in a season averaging 33.14 strikeouts a year in 21 full seasons.
(Sorry about that, is it painfully obvious who my favorite player is?)
Backup Outfielders Ted Williams, Lou Brock, and Hank Aaron Two great power hitters, all three can hit for average (take away all of Aaron’s homeruns, and he STILL has more than 3,000 hits!), and tremendous speed in Lou Brock
Utility players: Jackie Robinson and Cal Ripken Jr.
My pitching staff would be:
Starter 1 - Sandy Koufax
Starter 2 - Nolan Ryan
Starter 3 - Lefty Grove
Starter 4 - Bob Gibson
Starter 5 - Warren Spahn
Closer: Pedro Martinez
Setup: Roger Clemens
Setup: Greg Maddux
Long Man: Randy Johnson
Swing Man: Dizzy Dean