Comments on Baseball's Best 1,000 (Part 1)

I recently picked up the 2008 edition of Derek Gentile's fun book Baseball's Best 1,000: Rankings of the Skills, the Achievements, and the Performance of the Greatest Players of All Time. Apparently he had a 2004 edition as well, though somehow I missed that. It seems this edition's rankings are based on stats/etc. up through about mid-way through the 2007 season.

The author notes that he doesn't have an overall single statistic approach, as other authors have used. Rather, he considers all the common statistics, as well as awards, all-star appearances, and so on -- taking into account both the absolute numbers and the era-relative comparisons as well. I prefer this kind of approach to these kinds of "all-time" questions in baseball, though I also enjoy the attempt to create a single overall, cross-era-comparing equation (like TPR or WIn Shares or whatever).

The author also does his best to include players from the Negro Leagues, though with incomplete data this isn't easy to do. Because of this, and because my own knowledge of the Negro League players is not very strong, I won't comment on any of them in what follows (except to indicate "*" in each case).

Any two baseball fan's top-10 all-time player's list will vary, and even more so their top-100 list. So naturally a top-1000 list will vary a great deal indeed. While no one rank Rich Dauer (his #1000) over Babe Ruth (his #1), there is a lot of room for healthy debate in such a ranking project. What follows are my disagreements with his listing -- in some cases I have questions or just mild disagreement, but in other cases I am baffled as to how the author could rank the player there instead of much higher or lower.

When I refer to other rankings, these are:

• TSN - 1998 book "The Sporting News Selects Baseball's Greatest 100 Players"
• James - 2001 book by Bill James "The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract

I'll only comment on the players where I have something significant to say: lack of comment doesn't imply I necesssarily would rank that player in that exact spot, I just don't disagree enough to say anything.

In this post, I'll start with consideration of his top-50:

1. Babe Ruth
2. Willie Mays
3. Honus Wagner -- interesting to see him this high, before his contemporary Ty Cobb. He was sometimes referred to as the "Cobb of the NL", but was Cobb ever called the "Wagner of the AL"? TSN ranks Cobb 3rd and Wagner 13th (a bit low). In 2002 Cobb ranked 2nd all-time in Win Shares while Wagner came in 3rd. However in James's own top-100 list... he ranks Wagner second, ahead of both Mays and Cobb.
4. Ty Cobb
5. Walter Johnson
6. Barry Bonds -- tough to rank him, given his possibly (likely?) inflated numbers from steroids. And yet his numbers are mind-boggling.
7. Mickey Mantle -- this is the first big disagreement I have with Gentile. I don't see how Mantle could be this high -- over Ted Williams even?. TSN ranked him 17th, which might be a bit low but seems closer to the mark than 7th. But Gentile is in good company, as James ranked Mantle 6th (right after Cobb and before Williams). One can feel for Mantle's late-career injuries, but what about Williams lost years to the war?
8. Ted Williams
9. Josh Gibson*
10. Stan Musial
11. Joe DiMaggio -- Exactly where TSN had him ranked too. James listed him 13th -- and I prefer to see Speaker rated over Joe D.
12. Tris Speaker -- See above. Also, TSN ranked Speaker only 27th -- a travesty!
13. Lou Gehrig -- I'd rank Lou ahead of Joe D. as well, though James did not. TSN ranked him 6th -- surely too high.
14. Hank Aaron -- I'd rank him ahead of Joe D. as well.
15. Lefty Grove
16. Grover Cleveland Alexander -- I disagree with Alexander appearing so far ahead of Christy Mathewson. TSN agrees, as they have Mathewson as high as 7th, with Alexander at 12th. James seems to agree with Gentile though, ranking Alexander 20th and Mathewson 42nd.
17. Satchel Paige*
18. Eddie Collins -- Whenever I see him ranked this high I question it, but then after some thought, I tend to agree. TSN had him a bit lower at 24th. James flips Collins (18th) and Morgan (15th) amongst 2B. I'm conflicted though -- what about Rogers Hornsby? I still think of him as the greatest at the position (TSN ranks him 9th overall, while James has him 22nd).
19. Joe Morgan
20. Roger Clemens -- if you believe the steroid accusations, you might adjust down. He and Maddux were the best of their generation, but with Maddux you don't have the clouds overhead.
21. Rogers Hornsby -- see Collins discussion above.
22. Oscar Charleston*
23. Cy Young -- I'd probably nudge him up a bit. TSN had him 14th overall, James had him 23rd.
24. Mike Schmidt
25. Rickey Henderson -- Good to see. TSN totally messed this up by ranking him 51st. James is on target by rating him 26th.
26. Jackie Robinson -- Hard to rank him, because of his short career. Obviously, in terms of importance to the game, he is at or near the top (with Ruth and few others). TSN ranked him lower, at 44th place. James liked him at 32nd place.
27. Jimmie Foxx
28. Pete Rose -- another player who is hard to rank. Not only is their the distaste over his gambling, his attitude about his gambling, and his banishment from the game, but he also was a unique type of player and his lifetime numbers don't compare easily with other greats. TSN put him 25th, James had him 33rd, and I think somewhere around 25-35 is about right.
29. Frank Robinson
30. Eddie Mathews -- I don't like seeing Mathews ahead of Brett.
31. Pop Lloyd*
32. Mel Ott
33. Carl Yastrzemski -- seems about right, while TSN definitely does Yaz wrong by ranking him 72nd, below the likes of Pie Traynor!
34. Warren Spahn
35. Nap Lajoie
36. Yogi Berra -- the first catcher in the list (other than Josh Gibson of course). James also rated Berra top amongst catchers, and 41st overall. TSN went dramatically the other way, rating Bench 16th and Berra 40th -- surely there isn't that much distance between them.
37. Tom Seaver
38. Bob Feller
39. Roy Campanella -- I don't think he should rank ahead of Bench, and James lists him third amongst catchers as well.
40. George Sisler -- This is in line with TSN's view of Sisler (33rd), but I agree with James that he is overrated. James goes so far as to rate him 24th among 1B, and therefore not in his overall top 100 at all.
41. Christy Mathewson -- I really don't see how you can have this much space between Mathewson and Alexander, as their career numbers and achievements are quite similar. I'll admit that TSN's ranking of him as 7th ia a bit high, but I think Mathewson, Alexander, and Young should all be in the 10-20 range.
42. Turkey Stearnes*
43. George Brett -- I would have rated him higher than Mathews, and both TSN and James agree.
44. Johnny Bench -- see comments on Berra and Campy above.
45. Charlie Gehringer -- a bit high in my view. TSN has him 46th, but I like James's ranking of him at 59th.
46. Kid Nichols
47. Sandy Koufax -- a hard one to rank, due to his short career. TSN had him higher (26th), but I like him in this 40-60 range.
48. Eddie Murray -- my initial reaction was that this is too high, and that TSN's ranking at 77th is better. But upon reflection, I think somewhere in the 45-55 range is good. James rated him at 61.
49. Harry Heilmann -- Too high. This is similar to TSN's 54 ranking, but James considers him like Sisler (as having numbers aided by his era), and hence not worthy of even a top-100 spot.
50. Ernie Banks -- Gentile nearly splits the difference between TSN's ranking (38th) and James's (77th). I'd put Banks a bit closer to the lower end of this range.

I plan to look at the 51-100 ranked players next time, then more superficially comment on the remaining 900 in a third post.