50 greatest players: 40-31

#40: Mel Ott
Scores: 926.2/983.6/98.6/0/1954.8
Ott was sort of the bridge from Ruth to Williams as the best pure hitter in the game, yet his name never comes up in the same breath as those two giants. I think much of this has to due with his somewhat lackluster batting average as well as his playing for that "other NY team."

#39: Mariano Rivera
Scores: 793.8/1240.6/18.0/0/1958.0
The first of 4 pitchers on the list who could lay claim to being the greatest postseason pitcher ever. Rivera has also been spectacular in the regular season and has been perhaps the key player on the Yankees for the past 13 years.

#38: John Smoltz
Scores: 931.2/1019.2/13.0/0/1963.4
An unprecedented starter-reliever-starter run Smoltz is the only player with 200 wins and 150 saves. He won the Cy as a starter and finished 3rd as a reliever. He also has 3000 strikeouts and incredible postseason numbers.

#37: Bob Gibson
Scores: 859.9/1112.4/14.0/0/1986.3
The man with the single season ERA record had more longevity than Koufax, and at his peak may have been even more dominating. His peak was not quite long enough to put him up with Spahn/Seaver and he might be a bit overrated because of 1968, but he's a solid top 50 player.

#36: Yogi Berra
Scores: 870.5/1059.4/111.0/0/1991.6
The master of quotations comes in at the third highest rated catcher Berra is certainly helped by having more rings than anyone in history, but he was a big reason why he has all those rings.

#35: George Brett
Scores: 787.8/1158.8/105.3/0/1999.2
Helped more than just a little by 1980, Brett is probably rated a bit too high, but that does not change the fact that he was perhaps the best pure hitter of the 1980s.

#34: Johnny Bench
Scores: 782.0/1130.5/131.6/0/2004.4
The #2 catcher on the list and tops from the Big Red Machine is the first player to crack 2000. If defense were more quantifiable, he could rank as high as top 20 and would easily rank the highest of any catcher ever.

#33: Eddie Collins
Scores: 901.9/1112.6/71.9/0/2016.2
The #2 2nd sacker was a great hitter, baserunner, and fielder. Although he was on the 1919 Black Sox team, he was not one of the 8 men out and a as a result went on to have a productive HOF career. Lifetime .333/.424/.429 with 3315 hits and 744 steals.

#32: Ken Griffey Jr.
Scores: 833.8/1090.7/132.4/0/2017.0
It's true that Griffey was a truly great player at his peak both at the plate and in the field, but it is a complete fabrication of the truth to believe he would be a top 10 player had he stayed healthy. He was never as good as Mays, Mantle or Cobb, and would quickly have been surpassed by ARod had both stayed in Seattle. Griffey to me may have had a top 10 talent, but I don't believe he ever worked hard enough to keep himself healthy and reach his full potential. 0 WS rings, 0 180+ OPS+ seasons, and peaked during an unprecedented era of offense.

#31: Shoeless Joe Jackson
Scores: 833.5/1192.1/85.0/0/2045.4
Jackson is tough to rank because he was banned when he was near his career peak so his counting stats are a bit low, but his % stats are high because he had no decline phase. Still, there's no doubt in my mind he'd have ended up close to 3500 hits with a lifetime .330 average and could potentially have developed into a power hitter as the dead ball era ended.