50 greatest players: 10-1

#10: Greg Maddux
Score: 1105.1/1399.5/24.3/0/2528.8
The #2 pitcher on the list truly has it all: great longevity, better peak, a world series ring, 4 Cy Youngs, and is a member of virtually every number "club" pitchers have. All this despite throwing considerably softer than any of the other great pitchers of his generation. Maddux threw low 90s when he was posting ERAs below two and 19/20 win seasons left and right. The only real knock on him is his lack of postseason dominance, but that's nit picking because without his regular season success, there would be no playoffs. Maddux didn't even make TSN's top 50 back in 2005 somehow ranking behind Nolan Ryan, Bob Feller, Carl Hubbell Bob Gibson, and Steve Carlton among others. WTF??? Did he not strikeout enough guys? Maddux vs. Ryan isn't even remotely close. I would take any of about 7-8 Maddux seasons over any of Ryan's seasons. Maddux has more wins, fewer losses, better ERA, waaaay better ERA+, and a better WHIP. Maddux is also hurt be the fact that his two best seasons occurred in strike years which prevented him from having gaudy counting stats

#9: Stan Musial
Score: 1383.0/1096.5/120.4/12/2538.4
Stan the Man is often overlooked because he only had good but not great home run power. He doesn't have 500 homers and he was overshadowed by Ted Williams who played in almost the exact same years. Still Musial has plus power, great contact, and good discipline and deserves to be in the top 10.

#8: Rogers Hornsby
Score: 1320.0/1372.1/89.2/0/2684.5
The last man not named Ted Williams to hit .400, and the last right handed hitter to do it. Hornsby is probably the greatest right handed hitter of all time and certainly the best hitting middle infielder. He was the first national league player to hit with regular homerun power and served as the NL version of Babe Ruth during the 1920s.

#7: Willie Mays
Score: 1410.1/1182.7/156.6/0/2686.3
Mays is in the top 2-3 of almost every list, but he simply did not have as great a peak as the guys ahead of him. He would likely move up if his fielding were more quantifiable.

#6: Walter Johnson
Score: 1397.3/1321.9/19.0/0/2738.2
Without question the greatest pitcher ever. He is the only pitcher to rival the peaks of Pedro and Maddux and has the best all around career numbers. He managed to post ERA+s of over 240 at an era where the league average was below 3.00. Now that's impressive

#5: Barry Bonds
Score: 1235.3/1477.7/145.2/-20/2764.4
Yes the steroids certainly boosted him from about 10 to here, but you can't take away all the great years he put in during the 1990s, and his steroid years, when everyone was on steroids, are much much better than anyone else's were. His 2001-2004 seasons were absolutely ridiculous. I guess that's what happen when you take the most talented player in the league and load him up on PEDs. I wonder what Williams and Ruth could have done with that kind of help. Bonds is the highest ranking player who was not a member of the all century team. Had the vote been held 2 years later, he certainly would have been on it.

#4: Ty Cobb
Score: 1488.5/1297.8/85.2/0/2768.4
The best player of the dead ball era and still the all time leader in batting average was also a very good centerfielder in the days of enormous outfields. Some of his other records have been broken, but its going to be hard for anyone to top a lifetime .366 average.

#3: Babe Ruth
Score: 1428.0/1347.8/96.6/0/2774.7
No one is going to like this. Ruth is 1 on just about every list you see, but he played against vastly inferior competition to the two guys in front of him, and he played a less than premium defensive position. Still it was very very close between the top 6.

#2: Ted Williams
Score: 1419.8/1302.0/126.7/20/2785.3
The best damn hitter who ever lived. The last man to hit .400. The all time leader in OBP. And he missed 5 years due to wars, 3 of which where he might have topped his 1941 season of .406/.553/.735. He likely would have 3500 hits and 700 homers with 5 more seasons of being Ted Williams. His lifetime on base percentage of .482 ranks first all time and is better than the career high of any current player other than Frank Thomas or Barry Bonds. It has only been topped 8 times since WWII by someone other than Williams. It would be a stretch for anyone to ever break it.

#1: Mickey Mantle
Score: 1344.9/1403.5/130.0/0/2796.2
Somebody want to explain to me how he was 19th on TSN's list? I'm sorry, but there is absolutely no argument for having Dimaggio ahead of the Mick. He is one of only 7 players with 3 OPS+s over 200 and the only one to do it post color barrier while playing a premium defensive position. If I could choose any season to have on my team in would be Mantle in 1957. 16 all star games, 7 rings, 3 MVPs. Mantle may well have been the most talented player in history but his career was hurt by an early injury that took out much of his speed, and later due to too much booze. Mantle didn't have performance enhancing substances, he had performance hindering ones. He had to overcome his drugs.

Interesting notes on my list:

Number of players on the list by primary position:
P - 16, CF - 7, RF - 6, 2b - 5, 3b - 4, LF - 3, SS - 3, C - 3, 1B - 3.

Not surprisingly, the Yankees are the most represented team with 10 players: Mantle, Ruth, Clemens, DiMaggio, Gehrig, Randy Johnson, ARod, Berra, Rivera, and Boggs. The Red Sox are next with 9 with Ruth, Boggs, and Clemens represented on both. There are no representatives for the Rockies, Marlins, and Brewers although Milwaukee can lay claim to a number of Braves.

Pujols is the youngest player on the list at 28, while Cy Young is the oldest at 141. The oldest living member is Stan Musial at 88. 21 players on the list are deceased, most recently Warren Spahn in 2003.

Every player on the list that is eligible is in the Hall of Fame, but it will be interesting to see what happens to Bonds and Clemens. Pete Rose and Joe Jackson will likely never make the Hall.

There are 9 players on the list who have not officially retired from baseball, but Clemens and Bonds both did not play in 2008. The next HOF eligible player is Mike Piazza who retired after the 2007 season and will be on the ballot in 2013. He will likely be elected in his first year of eligibility.

Pete Rose and Roger Clemens had the longest careers at 24 seasons, while Sandy Koufax had the shortest at 12.

Mariano Rivera and Pedro Martinez are the only two non americans on the list although that will certainly change.

The players who enjoyed the best peak years were Pedro and Maddux for pitchers and Bonds and Mantle for hitters. While the best longevity was enjoyed by Cobb and Ruth for hitters and Johnson and Young for pitchers.

16 of the players won at least one gold glove, and award that began being awarded in the 1950s after a good portion of the players had retired. Maddux leads the way with 17 gold gloves, with Mays topping the position players with 12. Schmidt, Griffey, and Bench all have 10.

42 of the players on the list won at least 1 world series including all the pitchers. Berra has the most with 10, DiMaggio follows with 9, 7 each for Mantle and Ruth, and six for Gehrig. The most by a non Yankee is Eddie Collins with 4. Williams, Cobb and Bonds are the only players in the top 20 with no ring. A Rod, Griffey, Carew, and Lajoie are the only players not to play in a World Series, and Lajoie the lone player not to play in the postseason.

50 greatest players: 20-11

#20: Randy Johnson
Scores: 1116.9/1146.6/19.0/0/2282.5
The Big Unit is the greatest strikeout pitcher ever. He has by far the highest number of K/9, and made numerous runs at Nolan Ryan's single season record of 383. He did so despite pitching 60-80 innings less than Ryan due to being in a 5 man rotation. There's no doubt in my mind that Johnson could have been in a 4 man rotation if given the chance. His career totals may be lacking, but much of that is due to the fact that he didn't harness his ability until he was on the wrong side of 30. Still, Johnson had 10 years that are among the greatest of all time, and he did it at the height of the steroid era. Probably the greatest pitching talent in history.

#19: Jimmie Foxx
Scores: 1105.2/1180.8/98.7/0/2312.3
Foxx was often overshadowed by Gehrig and Ruth, but he put up some serious numbers. His 1932 season is among the greatest ever.

#18: Lou Gehrig
Scores: 1160.4/1170.4/94.7/0/2349.1
Only slightly less good than Ruth, Gehrig was actually better for a few of his seasons with 1927 being his peak. Unfortunately ALS kept him from establishing truly great career totals.

#17: Joe Dimaggio
Scores: 1096.5/1199.8/111.6/12/2351.9
Joe will always be remembered for his hitting streak, but it was his unique combination of power, speed, and contact that made him so great. He almost never struck out or walked. He has nowhere near the longevity or even the peak of Cobb, Mantle and Mays, but he's the best of the second tier centerfielders.

#16: Christy Mathewson
Scores: 1199.6/1160.1/12.0/0/2371.7
Matty may well have been the greatest ever when he was on specifically his 3 shutouts in 5 games of the 1903 fall classic. His career was relatively short, but that didn't stop him from winning 373 games the third highest total in history.

#15: Cy Young
Scores: 1295.7/1072.8/19.0/0/2387.5
One record that will never ever ever be broken is 511 victories. On the other side of the coin his record for losses will also never be broken. Cy's peak was solid, but its his longevity that earns him a spot in our top 15.

#14: Hank Aaron
Scores: 1262.9/1059.8/127.8/0/2388.7
The Hammer and all time homerun king is a strange case because he has an 18 year peak where no year was anything but very good. No truly incredible seasons, but no seasons that would be considered anything less than very good. This is why Aaron is second in HRs, 1st in RBIs, and 3rd in hits, but nowhere to be found on the % stats.

#13: Pedro Martinez
Scores: 1038.4/1449.4/15.0/0/2502.8
At his peak in 1999 and 2000, Pedro threw the two greatest pitching seasons ever period. He made hitters look silly at the absolute peak of the steroid era, while playing half his games in a notoriously good hitters park. His 0.74 WHIP in 2000 is the all time record. His stuff was unhittable, his control unparalleled, and his attitude downright scary. I don't think many could hit him with a tennis racket. His career numbers will pale in comparison to many, but his peak is far and away the best ever.

#12: Roger Clemens
Scores: 1196.6/1307.2/22.0/-16/2509.8
I think many will end up misremembering Clemens career because of the soap opera he has become and that's sad. Clemens 7 Cys is a record that should stand for many years. Many had him ranked 2nd or 1st all time among pitchers prior to the Mitchell report.

#11: Honus Wagner
Scores: 1229.4/1304.1/81.5/0/2523.0
The greatest shortstop of all time and one of the first superstars of the American Pastime will be remembered for ever if for no other reason than the fact that he is on the most valuable piece of sports memorabilia in the world.

50 greatest players: 30-21

#30: Frank Robinson
Scores: 950.9/1065.3/100.4/0/2058.5
Though Robinson was overshadowed by Mays and Aaron, he was arguably as good as they were for the first 10-15 years of his career. His decline was sharper and he didn't hit near as many homers, but he was great at getting on base, hitting for average, and hitting for extra base power.

#29: Lefty Grove
Scores: 972.1/1115.8/14.0/0/2101.9
Perhaps the best pitcher between Walter Johnson and Sandy Koufax. Grove dominated baseball during the first offensive boom in the years of Ruth, Gehrig, and Ott. He helped lead Connie Mack's A's to 2 titles and likely would have been many more without those pesky Yankees in his way.

#28: Warren Spahn
Scores: 1160.5/936.6/17.0/12/2126.1
The most long lasting, durable pitcher since the dead ball era ended has what many consider to be the "real" record for victories at 363. Spahn lost the first few years of his career due to war and likely would have reached 400 wins with the extra years.

#27: Tom Seaver
Scores: 1088.6/1030.2/19.0/0/2137.8
The man who made the Mets matter is easily one of the top 10 pitchers ever, and could arguably be in the top 5. Why oh why did the Mets let him go? Seaver holds the record for highest percent of the vote in HOF ballot history. As a side note, the late 70s Reds check in with 4 top 50 players, most of any team.

#26: Grover Cleveland Alexander
Scores: 1080.5/1050.4/19.0/0/2149.9
Tied for 3rd on the wins list with Christy Matthewson, Alexander had great longevity but not near the peak of the best pitchers ever.

#25: Mike Schmidt
Scores: 970.2/1157.9/129.5/0/2206.3
Unquestionably the greatest third baseman of all time. Schmidt was both a great hitter and a great fielder, second only to Brooks Robinson with the leather at the hot corner. His 48 homers in 1980 were the best for the position until ARod broke it a few years ago.

#24: Mike Piazza
Scores: 852.7/1306.1/123.5/0/2227.0
Like Schmidt, there is no debate at who the best hitting catcher ever was. Piazza tends to be underrated in most people's minds because he was notoriously bad at throwing out runners. They overlook the fact that he was a good game caller, good receiver, and not horrible at fielding the ball. What no one should ignore is that for a 10 year run of 1993-2002 Piazza was one of the best hitters in all of baseball smashing 40 HRs twice and hitting over .300 9 times with a peak of .363. Terrific numbers for a first baseman or a DH, but absolutely incredible for a catcher.

#23: Nap Lajoie
Scores: 988.5/1257.6/76.5/0/2242.7
One of the kings of the dead ball era, Lajoie holds the record for batting average in a season at .426. He also hit a lot of doubles, and in smaller parks these could have become homers.

#22: Alex Rodriguez
Scores: 1058.6/1141.2/120.3/0/2261.2
The top active position player is also the only player on the list with a legit chance at moving into the top 10 in the next few years. Alex may finish with 800 homers and close to 4000 hits and still miss the top 5. It's that competitive.

#21: Tris Speaker
Scores: 1100.5/1173.6/80.6/0/2275.2
Another guy who seems to be overlooked in lists. This is perhaps due to playing most of his career in Cleveland at around the time the Babe was taking baseball over, but Speaker was a great player in his own right and still holds the record for doubles at 792 a number not likely to go down anytime soon.

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.

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.