Who are the 12 (and 22) best players in the T206 set?
 

Most of us will never own a Wagner or Plank, hence my using "top 12" and "top 22" in order to find the top 10 and top 20 players that most collectors have access to.

I feel pretty confident that these are the top 10 best players in the t206 set:

Cobb
Wagner
Johnson
Young
Mathewson
Speaker
E. Collins
Lajoie
Crawford
Plank

After that, I'm not sure who the next 2 members of the top 12 would be.

Here are my contenders for those last two spots in the top 12:

Brown
McGinnity
Joss
Keeler
Walsh
Davis
Baker

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to try and work together to figure out a consensus top 12 and top 22 lists, and then maybe see some group shots of people's collections. For the purposes of this debate, I think "best players" should be a combination of career stats, longevity and skill level.

Bender and Waddell?

Where does Hal Chase fall? He was one of, if not the, best first baseman of his time. And for a guy who didn't care as much as most others, he was pretty damn good.

He was a very good hitter and a very rangy and graceful fielder, but he almost never walked (low OBP, a.k.a. made lots of outs) and he made a ton of errors, a historical total for 20th century 1B. And there's the obvious issue of how many of those errors were intentional :) If you discount his Federal League stats, the case is even weaker.

EDIT: I'd put Frank Chance well above Mr. Chase.

Best 12
 

By WAR:

1) Walter Johnson (164.8)
2) Cy Young (163.6)
3) Ty Cobb (151.5)
4) Tris Speaker (134.7)
5) Honus Wagner (130.8)
6) Eddie Collins (124.4)
7) Nap Lajoie (106.9)
8) Christy Mathewson (106.5)
9) Eddie Plank (90.9)
10)George Davis (84.5)
11)Bobby Wallace (76.2)
12)Sam Crawford (75.3)
13)Bill Dahlen (75.2)
14)Ed Delahanty (69.6)
15)Fred Clarke (67.9)
16)Ed Walsh (65.9)
17)Clark Griffith (63.7)
18)Vic Willis (63.2)
19)Home Run Baker (62.8)
20)Jake Beckley (61.1)
21)Zack Wheat (60.5)
22)Sherry Magee (59.4)

1. Walter Johnson
2. Cy Young
3. Ty Cobb
4. Tris Speaker
5. Honus Wagner
6. Eddie Collins
7. Christy Mathewson
8. Nap Lajoie
9. Eddie Plank
10. George Davis
11. Ed Walsh
12. Home Run Baker
13. Rube Waddell
14. Willie Keeler
15. Addie Joss
16. Sam Crawford
17. Mordecai Brown
18. Joe Tinker
19. Bill Dahlen
20. Sherry Magee
21. Fred Clarke
22. Zack Wheat

Pretty hard to counter-argue that line-up. I might try to move Joss up somehow, but how? Maybe Mathewson up, but that is hard to do also. I just remember that John Kieran quote, "Mathewson was the best pitcher I ever saw. He was the best anyone ever saw. Let them name all the others. I don't care. Mathewson was better."

I would go with Mordecai Peter Centennial Brown and Rube Waddell as #'s 11 and 12, with Wee Willie as #13.

Fred Clarke should be in the top twenty. He was considered one of the top three or four players in the National League at Louisville and his early years at Pittsburgh. Easily in the 3,000 hit club if leg injuries had not derailed his career, and he still ended with nearly 2700 hits. Some of his contemporaries considered him the best outfielder in the league as well.

That's kinda what I meant by saying he didn't care as much as most others. But he was very good for trying half assed. I imagine if he really tried he would've been a legend. And you're right about his errors being suspect. :)

1. Honus Wagner
2. Ty Cobb
3. Walter Johnson
4. Christy Mathewson
5. Cy Young
6. Tris Speaker
7. Nap Lajoie
8. Eddie Collins
9. Willie Keeler
10. Eddie Plank
11. Home Run Baker
12. Jake Beckley
13. Roger Bresnahan
14. Fred Clarke
15. Addie Joss
16. Sam Crawford
17. George Davis
18. Bobby Wallace
19. Ed Walsh
20. Vic Willis
21. Zack Wheat
22. Jimmy Collins

Top 9, I think, are pretty established - not necessarily in this order:

1. Cobb
2. Wagner
3. Johnson
4. Mathewson
5. Young
6. Lajoie
7. Speaker
8. Plank
9. Collins

After that it gets much more subjective and I dont feel like duking it out. However, I do note that at the time, Tinker, McGraw and Chase must have been major, as Tinker and McGraw had 4 cards (very few players had 4+ different) and Chase is the only player to have 5 cards. I think Cobb is the only other player to have 4 different cards.

I totally agree with Ryan.

Furthermore, if you've read the biographies of the Highlanders players....Chase, from 1st base, would chase a bunt down the 3rd base line and throw out the runner going to 1st base.
He was an outstanding player in the field.....and, he swung a pretty good bat.

It was plays like that, that Babe Ruth is quoted as saying...."Hal Chase is the greatest 1st Baseman in Baseball" (of course Ruth said that prior to Lou Gehrig joining the Yankees).
Babe Ruth has spoken....so who are we to judge Hal Chase.


https://photos.imageevent.com/tedzan...edHINDUx50.jpg https://photos.imageevent.com/tedzan...dHINDUx50b.jpg


TED Z

T206 Reference
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Cobb#1, and Crawford in top 12. Joe

But if you had one game to win, could you trust him? I'd take Konetchy, Chance, Merkle, Davis.... actually anybody but Chase.

Chase was the original "money" player....... but the money he was playing for was what would end up in his own pocket at the end of the day.

I wonder if at some point in the future, there will be a new number that is considered a type of completeness. Right now we have numbers like 524, 522, 521, 520, and 518. Without mentioning player names, just about any T206 collector knows what cards are missing in each of those sets. With the way prices are going, will we get to a point where a 500 card set of T206's is considered complete? Will there be 18 cards that everyone can agree on, that would make a new type of number of completeness? Maybe even 510 could be the new number. Where the 4 Cobbs, 3 Young's, and say the Johnson Portrait are eliminated. Just some crazy thought, but twenty years from now, I could see someone saying they are going after the T206 500 card set.