50 greatest players: 50-41

The Mission:
Upon reading lists of greatest player rankings by TSN, Bill James, and ESPN among others, I found myself frustrated by their lists as they often overrate guys who played forever like Aaron and Ryan, and underrate guys like Pedro Martinez and Mickey Mantle who were better, but did not last quite as long. My opinion has always been that 3-4 absolutely super years should trump 10 very good years. The reason for this is that the truly great years are extremely rare, and the unique ability to produce one should be rewarded. After some thinking and tinkering, I have developed an unbiased system for ranking the all time greats.

Methodology:
Positions:
First to make sure the difficulty of the position was taken into account, I created a position adjustment divider that all numbers were subjected to. This is based on which positions produce the most offense. The lower the number, the harder the position. Primary position was used except for cases where the primary position was unclear, in which case a weighted average of the adjustments was used. Anyplayer who played a considerable amount of games at positions on both halves of the spectrum was given a neutral rating of 1.00. The position ajustment does not apply to pitchers as their hitting was not taken into account. The adjustments go like this: C - 0.850, SS - 0.920, CF - 0.980, 2B - 0.981, 3B - 1.000, RF - 1.130, LF - 1.134, 1B - 1.160, DH - 1.250.

Career Value:
I took Bill James 4 HOF measuring categories (HOF Monitor, HOF Career Standards, Black Ink, Grey Ink) and coupled them with career OPS+ (or ERA+ for pitchers), All Star Game Apearences, World Series Rings, and career offensive winning % (or WHIP for pitchers) to come up with a career value stat. Ty Cobb had the highest value for this stat at 1488.5, but anything over 1000 is very very good.

Peak Value:
The heart of this number concentrates on the players 3 best full seasons of work. It takes into account the 3 highest OPS+/ERA+ years, weighting them 2.5, 2.0, and 1.5 for the 1st/2nd/3rd best. It also factors in career MVP and Cy Young shares (admittedly not a great measure of dominance, but usually you have to be pretty good to get votes in either category. Being on winning teams certainly helps, but again that's a measure of greatness. These numbers are weighted to count the same as career value. The highest number recorded was Steroid Bonds at 1477.7 with Pedro not far behind at 1449.4.

Position Dominance:
A very small part of the overall value factors in All Star Teams, OPS+/ERA+, Gold Gloves and Silver Sluggers for hitters/Years Above average (years above 100 ERA+ for relievers, and above 90 for starters) for pitchers. The highest value here was Willie Mays at 157.

Other Adjustments:
Finally an adjustment was made for war credit or steroid demerit of +4 points for each year missed due to war, and -5 points for each year that was obviously steroid enhanced. This tended to help the war vetrans more than it hurt the juicers. The hitters overall numbers came out higher than the pitchers and were adjusted to make it a level playing field.

Overall anything over 1500 is HOF material, anything over 2000 is an all time great, and anything over 2200 is a true immortal.

Everything is not apples to apples as there was no All Star game until 1933, no MVP in the early days, no CY until the '50s when there was only one, no gold gloves until the '60s, not silver sluggers until the '80s, but there were also far fewer good players so it was easier to score highly in the 4 James stats as well as OPS+/ERA+ so it about evens out. One thing that I'm not satisfied with are the lack of fielding statistics which causes players such as Mays, Johnny Bench, Brooks Robinson, and Roberto Clemente to be under valued. I also don't love OPS+ because it tends to underrate guys with less power such as Rickey Henderson. Rickey is also hurt by playing primarily leftfield, and sticking around for 4 awful years at the end of his career when his power and speed were gone. But he wasn't hurt.

In all I'm pretty satisfied with the way things turned out and I doubt things would be much different if I was ranking things subjectively. There are also no negro league players because statistics were not available.

The "bottom" 10 (scores read career value/peak value/position dominance/credit or demerit/overall):

#50: Albert Pujols
Scores: 790.8/1018.8/97/0/1857.5
Albert will certainly climb much higher in the next 10 years or so, but the fact that he's already top 50 and he's not ever 30 yet is truly a marvel. Pujols was the only player under 30 to come close to the top 50 with Johan Santana a distant second.

#49: Duke Snider
Scores: 769.8/1077.8/91/0/1885.5
The 3rd best NY centerfielder of the 1950s pales in comparison to the other two, but he comes in solidly in the top 50.

#48: Wade Boggs
Scores: 796.1/1029.6/107.5/0/1887.6
The 1980s may have been the doldrums for hitting and pitching stars, but it was the golden age of third basemen as Boggs is the first of 3 on our list. Great hitter, great on base guy, a lack of power keeps him from being one of the all time greats.

#47: Sandy Koufax
Scores: 867.6/1030.1/10.0/0/1907.7
Some will argue that Koufax at his peak was the best ever, and they have a valid point as the last 4 years of his career were incredible both in terms of quality and quantity. The problem with this of course is that the occured in the modern peak of pitching. In the late 60s, hitting reached its worst period since the dead ball era and Koufax capitalized with the higher mound and bigger strike zone. Still great years, but not as good as those by the top pitchers of the steroid era.

#46: Joe Morgan
Scores: 741.1/1118.9/102.3/0/1912.8
Good thing this doesn't take into account his broadcasting skills or he'd be WAY down. Morgan is the first of 3 Big Red Machine players on the list and he was perhaps the best hitter of the bunch during his peak.

#45: Rod Carew
Scores: 834.6/1022.5/110.5/0/1921.7
Carew seems a bit high, but the numbers play out as he was a very good hitting second baseman and later first baseman with 3000 hits, a lifetime .328 average, good on base skills, and gap power. Had he stayed at second his whole career, he'd be even higher, but his defense likely would have been awful.

#44Eddie Matthews
Scores: 810.0/1066.2/101.5/0/1927.1
For the ealry part of their careers, Matthews was acutally better than teammate Hank Aaron, and later became his version of Lou Gehrig. Aaron of course lasted much longer than Matthews and would post better years, but Matthews 2nd, 3rd, and 4th years in the league are as good as anyone ever.

#43: Cal Ripken Jr.
Scores: 811.1/1036.7/120.9/0/1927.6
The Iron Man definatly does well in the longevity, but he had an underrated peak durning the late 80s and early 90s when he was one of the top 5 players in all of baseball. He can also be credited for bringing offense back to shortstop as he was the precurser to big, strong players like Rodriguez, Garciaparra, and Tejada.

#42: Steve Carlton
Scores: 939.7/975.3/19.0/0/1934.0
Lefty Carlton is hurt mightily by hanging on too long. At the latest he should have retired after 1985 when he was 1-8 at age 40. Instead he hung on for two excruciating seasons wtih 5 different teams that drove his career ERA and WHIP up while not helping him anywhere. Without those years, he'd likely rank in the top 25. Still the last pitcher to throw 300 innings had one hell of a career.

#41: Pete Rose
Scores: 907.6/968.6/107.0/0/1934.9
The all time hits king is the second highest ranking player not in the hall. Rose Longevity is second to none among everyday players and his will to win is unquestioned. What hurts him is his lack of truly great seasons. He never hit over .350, never OPSed over 1.000 and never came close to 350 total bases.