The Best 100 Position Players of the Past 50 Years

[Curmudgeon]

Well, Bernie had some poor post seasons late in his career, but his 80 RBIs and 51 extra base hits in the postseason are major league records. Plus he had an ops over .900 in ten separate post-season series.

I can understand your omission of a guy like Hamilton because he hasn't played very long. You should have set some sort of arbitrary cutoff, just as you did with the year 1960, such as by limiting your list to players with at least 10 major league seasons.

As for talent, IMHO the following players on your list do not belong in the top 50:
Edgardo Alfonso, Roy White, Chase Utley (who has only played 8 years, three of which, including last year, were completely ordinary), Lenny Dykstra, Robin Ventura (I'm on the fence about him-- his ops is inflated becase he walked alot), Chuck Knoblach (short career that ended badly, unimpressive ops), Buddy Bell (he played a long time, but not that well), Norm Cash (he had one great year, the rest was bleh), Lou Whittaker (managed to hit over 300 exactly once), Sal Bando (overrated because he played on great teams. Look at the numbers).

Who should have been on the list? I've already mentioned a few. Hee are some others: Jim Rice (glaring omission) Harvey Kuenn (who played 10 years after 1960 but only 8 years before it), Miguel Tejada (assuming you are steroid neutral), Juan Gonzalez (2 MVPs). Jose Canseco (his numbers are way better than Bando's)

[bigboy1234]

Kuenn?!??! Really? He wouldn't have made it if he was eligible (more of his career came before 1960).

Joe Mauer and the likes made the list based on what they have done, that is the cutoff, what you have done.

Utley in a 5 year span (2005-2009) put up 33 WAR, that is pretty damn good.

Alfonzo and Dykstra didn't even make my list...and White, Ventura, Knobs, Cash were in the 90's. They wouldn't make my top 50 either!

Bando put put 7 seasons of 128+ OPS+ and two of those were over 150, while being a slightly better than average defensive player.

Buddy Bell made the list, not really for his offense, obviously, but because he was a great defensive player.

OBP and bad defense keep Juan Gone off, I could careless what awards someone got.

And just too lazy to respond to the other guys you mentioned, if I get bored later I might.

[Curmudgeon]

I meant top 100, not top 50. I guess I got this confused with basketball.

[Curmudgeon]

Some other glaring omissions, apart from Jim Rice:

1. Kirk Gibson. Let's compare his stats to Robin Ventura's, who is on your list.

Gibson: career .268, 255 HR, 284 SB, career ops .815
Ventura: career .267, 294 HR, 38 SB, career ops .806.

Ventura has more HR and RBI, but he also had 2,000 more plate appearances. Plus Gibson was excellent defensively until he got hurt. He had great foot speed for a man his size. Plus Gibson gave us one of the great moments in world series history, and hit a career .282 with 7 HR in the post season. Ventura, who had 61 more post season plate appearances than Gibson, was .171 lifetime in the post season with 3 HR.

2. David Ortiz. Yes, he can't field, but neither could Edgar Martinez, who is on your list.

Let's compare Ortiz' numbers with Ventura's numbers above. Ortiz: career .281, 349 HR, 1170 RBIs, career ops .920. And that's with about 1,500 fewer plate appearances than Ventura.

3. Kevin Youkilis, Career .294, ops .891. Oh, and a gold glove caliber defender at two positions. He also has 110 HR and 470 RBIs in 5,000 fewer plate appearances than Ventura.

4. Mark Teixiera Career .286, 275 HR, 906 RBIs (in 3,000 fewer plate appearances than Ventura) career ops .913, 4 gold gloves.

I could give other examples, but IMHO your list is deeply flawed.

[bigboy1234]

Gibson wasn't a good defensive player in his career, he was an average corner outfielder(Gibson was a good fielder up until he turned like 26, by which he accumulated a total of 835 PA!), meanwhile Robin was a great fielding 3B. That is a HUGE difference. Then Kirk's offensively peak was only very slightly better. You would have to be insane to think Gibson was better.

Then are you out of your mind, comparing a DH's and great fielding 3B offensive numbers? WTF. Ortiz was truly a great player between 2005-2007 where he was twice the offensive player Ventura was, but even with that he was only just as good as Ventura because of Ventura's overall ability as a player and Ventura did it longer. Then to compare Edgar vs. Ortiz, Edgar had 90 more "runs batting" in their 5 best years respectively, that is a lot and the gap only gets bigger more years you use.

Teixeira came very close, I could definitely see him in a top 100 and with just a couple more years he will be in mine unless he turns to crap for some reason.

Sorry, your way of evaluating a player is deeply flawed. Your dream team would include 8 players who can't field at all.

[Curmudgeon]

Ventura was a good fielder when he played for the White Sox; not so good with the Mets and Yankees (where if memory serves he played little or no third base). And there weren't many other good 3rd basement in the AL when he won those gold gloves. He was the only game in town. We'll just have to agree to disagree on some of your selections.

If defense is so important to you, I'm suprised that Frank White wasn't on your list, while Roy White (who was a below average outfielder with a terrible arm) was. And how can you put Roy Whilte ahead of guys like Curt Flood and Paul Blair?

[bigboy1234]

The difference is Frank was an average offensive player at his best. And in those 4ish average offensive seasons his defense really isn't much better if at all then Ventura's. Ventura was still a good defensive 3B with the Mets, he became averagish when he got to the Yanks.

And it's not about defense being so important to me, it's about know what wins baseball games. Defense is quite important. To me Roy White was a average corner outfielder defensively, how good your arm is may be one of the more overrated attributes as an OF in my opinion. White was much better than Flood offensively, and I'm a Cardinal fan and while Flood was a great CF, I don't think it makes up for the difference in offense. Think you also have to remember I had White at 99, so it's not like I love him or anything and could have easily left him out. The difference between the 90th and like 110th guy isn't much.

[Curmudgeon]

Many of the baseball stats that purport to capture "what wins baseball games" are not very good. I'd like to see Berri and his crew (the folks who wrote "Wages of Wins") have a shot at baseball. Maybe they can do better.

Corner outfileders who can throw, particularly right fielders, do win baseball games. I haven't seen a stat on all the extra bases that are taken on outfielders with bad arms, but someone has those numbers.

There is also no stat that captures "clutchness," the ability to make the big play in the big game at the right time. The sabermetricians will tell you that there are stats to capture this (leverage indexes and the like), but I have no confidence in those approaches.

Maybe you should look at the players who did, in fact, win, and who performed on big stages, and give those numbers more weight. That's why post season performances mean alot to me. That's when hitters are facing the best pitchers and vice versa. That's when the pressure is on.

[bigboy1234]

There are ARM rankings on THT. But the difference between an average arm and the best arm in a full season is very little.

There are clutch stats all over the place.

There are plenty of stats guys already in baseball, don't need Berri at all.

The more "clutch" the situation you want to look at the smaller the sample size is and you are just looking at noise/luck.

[Curmudgeon]

The more "clutch" the situation you want to look at the smaller the sample size is and you are just looking at noise/luck.

I've heard that argument many times, but I don't buy it.

So, are you going to come up with a list of the 100 best pitchers? I'm sure I'll have fun with that one too.