Who would you say are the three best baseball players of all time?

facts to consider! wrote:

The people that are mentioning Nolan Ryan are way off base. He is vastly overrated. if you are picking a guy to throw a no-hitter then yes he is the best ever. Just in the last 20 years there have been vastly superior pitchers like Pedro Martinez.

Ryan never won a Cy young award. Pitched many years in the cavernous Astrodome that kept many homers and runs off his ERA. His best winning percentages in any year is like 68%. You can say, "he played on crap teams" but those Astros teams weren't bad and the late 70's Angels were quite good.

He isn't nearly as good as Steve Carlton who was a contemporary of Ryan.

I agree 100% with you on this. I had to check two times to make sure I didn’t write this. One more thing on Ryan was he rarely was the ace of the staff.

coach wrote:

Yes I'm older than 50. Ruth hit the ball just as far as Stanton or Judge and had a great batting average. He was a freak who used a bat that today's steroid players can't swing. I don't buy the well he didn't play with black and latino players argument.

....and the pitchers he faced?

Ackley wrote:

Another issue with comparing players from different eras is that there are more teams and players in the league now which many feel feel has diluted the overall quality of pitching.

So it makes perfect sense that the best player to ever play the game played nearly 100 years ago?

If the talent was diluted, it isn't the current talent that is diluted.

coach wrote:

[And today's best athletes play other sports. .

Just out of curiosity what sports do today's best athletes play that they wouldn't have played in the 70s and 80s?

roach. wrote:

coach wrote:

[And today's best athletes play other sports. .

Just out of curiosity what sports do today's best athletes play that they wouldn't have played in the 70s and 80s?

I was referring to before the 70s. The best athletes of the 70s and 80s also didn't play baseball they played basketball and football. However before the 60s the best athletes played baseball. Bob Gibson, who started as a Harlem globetrotter would be an nba player today. NBA players didn't make much in the 50s. Football was not as popular, baseball is no longer America's pastime.

Vince agent scully wrote:

coach wrote:

Yes I'm older than 50. Ruth hit the ball just as far as Stanton or Judge and had a great batting average. He was a freak who used a bat that today's steroid players can't swing. I don't buy the well he didn't play with black and latino players argument.

....and the pitchers he faced?

Today's pitchers are better.

You'd think today's muscle bound players could swing a big bat and hit 500 foot shots, most can't even do it in a home run derby competition orbatting practice.

Nap Lajoie has to be the best player of all time. How many other players had a team named after them?

coach wrote:

roach. wrote:

Just out of curiosity what sports do today's best athletes play that they wouldn't have played in the 70s and 80s?

I was referring to before the 70s. The best athletes of the 70s and 80s also didn't play baseball they played basketball and football. However before the 60s the best athletes played baseball. Bob Gibson, who started as a Harlem globetrotter would be an nba player today. NBA players didn't make much in the 50s. Football was not as popular, baseball is no longer America's pastime.

Ahhh. Basketball and football. So do you feel a unwieldy 6'10" basketball player could have been a star hitter in baseball without doubt? Do you feel a 300 pound NFL player or perhaps quarterback would no doubt hit .400 and 80 homers per year had they played baseball? How are you determining athleticism? Especially when required to be specialized for a particular sport? Do you have an algorithm?

Why would today's best athletes play other sports? Baseball is one of the highest paid sports and according to some, completely unathletic and easy. Should be a cakewalk for the "real" athlete no? So why wouldn't they play baseball?

roach. wrote:

coach wrote:

I was referring to before the 70s. The best athletes of the 70s and 80s also didn't play baseball they played basketball and football. However before the 60s the best athletes played baseball. Bob Gibson, who started as a Harlem globetrotter would be an nba player today. NBA players didn't make much in the 50s. Football was not as popular, baseball is no longer America's pastime.

Ahhh. Basketball and football. So do you feel a unwieldy 6'10" basketball player could have been a star hitter in baseball without doubt? Do you feel a 300 pound NFL player or perhaps quarterback would no doubt hit .400 and 80 homers per year had they played baseball? How are you determining athleticism? Especially when required to be specialized for a particular sport? Do you have an algorithm?

Completely disingenuous of you to choose "unwieldy 6'10" basketball player" and "300 pound NFL player or perhaps quarterback" for hypothetical baseball capabilities rather than 215 lb defensive backs, 225 lb running backs, 250 lb linebackers, 6' 3" point guards, 6' 6" and 6' 7" wings. The only possible conclusion is that you lack all integrity. You are at your essence nothing more than a lying sack of sh!t. Certainly not worth paying attention to.

Try honesty and integrity. It doesn't hurt. Honest!

Babe Ruth

Willie Mays

Mickey Mantle.

Pete Rose, Barry Bonds, and Sammy Sosa.

I have to split into three categories:

Category I) Best vs (the lesser competition of) the era in which they played

1. Babe Ruth -- best power hitter of all time, decent pitcher

2. Cy Young -- GOAT pitcher...511 wins. -- 94 more than the next best

3. Ted Williams -- best pure hitter. all team leader in OBP. last man to hit 400.

These guys were amazing compared their peers but it's unlikely they could have put up these stats in the modern game.

Category II) Best in a relatively modern game (league includes Black and international players, 5-pitcher rotations, closers, etc.)

1. Mike Trout -- best active player. statistically best start to career at young age since Ty Cobb

2. Pedro Martinez -- at his peak the best pitcher of the modern era

3. Albert Pujols -- pure hitter like a modern-day Ted Williams combing power and OBP

with apologies to players like Hank Aaron and Willy Mays who's eras weren't quite modern but fall just outside the top three in Category I. If I had instead created these categories by splitting the last hundred years into 30-year chunks, they would have made one of the lists.

Category III) Best known PED users

1. Barry Bonds

2. Roger Clemens

3. Arod

All where probably pretty good before the 'roids but we don't really know when they started juicing. Two of the players in Cat II played in the steroid era but never tested positive so the boundary between Categories II and III is partially unknowable.

Ok,

back to the OP.......3 players:

I would take Pete Rose, Doc Gooden, and George Brett just for the entertainment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbEHAsZxRYo

Willie Mays Hayes

Ricky 'Wild Thing' Vaughn

Clu Haywood

of all the great baseball players over the last 120 years you guys are picking honus wagner in your top 3?? gtfo

LTCM wrote:

Willie Mays Hayes

Ricky 'Wild Thing' Vaughn

Clu Haywood

well played

cant recall my handle wrote:

Ackley wrote:

Another issue with comparing players from different eras is that there are more teams and players in the league now which many feel feel has diluted the overall quality of pitching.

So it makes perfect sense that the best player to ever play the game played nearly 100 years ago?

If the talent was diluted, it isn't the current talent that is diluted.

I agree - think about the three biggest determinants that should give rise to the best players ever:

1) The total pool of players involved in playing the game (the more people playing the better the odds of finding an outlier) - the number of players today and in the last 25 years is many times the number playing in those early days

2) Training of player (just like in track the better the training the better the player) If you took the best runners from the 20's - the 40's and without changing their training - even with all the equipment improvements - they would get beat (in many events by a lot) by today's world class runner.

3) Strategy and tactics - There is a lot of money (much more so than at any other period in the game) so the tactics have likewise evolved as the reward for doing so (or just staying even) increases.

Given all the above - it is highly unlikely that the best players came from the first 60 - 70 years of baseball, when all three of the above inferior to the last 50 or so years. Now a player that would be very good to great today (say Trout) would stand ever so much taller in those previous periods as the depth of competition would fall off after the few very top (esp in pitching) . This explains much of the very best of that era - just think of all the tactics Ruth would have to deal with today from shifts, to pitch placement, etc etc etc)

Its easy just to look at the stats but context matters.

Pitch placement and shifts aren't th hat new. Ever hear of the William's shift? He still managed to hit well