The most all-time greats at a single position active at the same time
 

Hank Aaron, Frank Robinson, Al Kaline and Roberto Clemente were all exact contemporaries, overlapping for al but a couple years at the beginning and end of their careers. From 1956 through 1972, all of them were active. All 4 of these guys are in the top 10 of any reasonable all-time RF position list. Pretty incredible for Clemente or Kaline to be merely the fourth best guy at their position. From 1969-1972, Reggie Jackson overlaps as well for a fifth guy in RF, who might be in the top 10.


Is there a greater concentration of all-time greats at a single position at the same time in baseball history? Gehrig, Foxx, Greenberg, Terry and Sisler are overlapped in 1930, but history has not been kind to Terry and Sisler and they are usually not catalogued as highly today as they were in their own time.

Does pitcher count? Johnson, Young, Mathewson, Brown, Plank, Walsh, Waddell, Joss.

His peak was brief but Nomar, A-rod, Jeter all playing short in the AL in their primes was great. Barry Larkin was still making all star teams too in the NL at the same time.

Tejada had some really big years too including that absurd 150 RBI season.

Sure, I'm not thinking of stringent rules. Pitcher is easiest with a HOF standard instead of a top 10 standard. Grover Alexander started in 1911, Young's last year, so you could get Young, Mathewson, Johnson, and Alexander all at the same time + other HOFers

Might as well throw Vizquel in there to. 11 Gold Gloves, almost 3000 hits.

Fisk, Carter, Irod and Piazza all overlap in the early 90s. There's another 4 in the top 10.

Can't get to 4 at the top tier level, but Lajoie, Collins and Hornsby were all active in 1915 and 1916, who may well be the 1st, 2nd and 3rd best 2B of all time.

At 3rd base in the 80s you have Wade Boggs, Mike Schmidt, George Brett, and Paul Molitor.

At Catcher we had Johnny Bench, Carlton Fisk, Gary Carter, Thurman Munson, Gene Tenace and Ted Simmons overlap. All Top 15 All-Time in both WAR and JAWS.

with Honorable mentions going to: Lance Parrish, Gene Tenace, Jim Sundberg, Darrell Porter. All top 25......then throw in Bob Boone for his 7 Gold Gloves.

Cheating a little, but 1951 CF DiMaggio, Mays, Mantle, Snider.

How about in one city? Multiple positions, same era?

Willie, Mickey and the Duke (who was criminally underrated for obvious reasons)

Yogi and Campy (sorry Wes Westrum, Not going to call you an All-Timer)

Resse and Rizzuto not All-Timers for me but HOF'ers and Al Dark was actually a more complete player than Rizzuto

Ripken put up a .950 OPS in 1999 if that's enough of an overlap to include him.

Don't know if this counts as active at one time, but I have never seen anything like this before.

He was playing 3B by then. But was still playing short I think when Jeter and ARod came up.

Yeah, Ripken had a really nice half season in '99. Batted .340 in 86 games. Maybe he should have taken a break more often. :D

Defensive metrics really love Cal. I think we took him for granted during his career in that aspect, but he's got a higher lifetime Defensive WAR rating then Omar Vizquel, in about the same amount of games played.

Not quite Belanger-esque...but pretty close.

HaHa, that's Great! :)

If you look at 1936, you had: Gehrig and Foxx overlapping with Greenberg and Mize.

And in the Negro Leagues, you had Mule Suttles in the same timeframe as Gehrig/Foxx and Buck Leonard in the same timeframe as Greenberg and Mize.

Pitchers, 1992 or 1993. Clemens, Maddux, Randy Johnson, I believe Pedro had started, Ryan, Glavine, Schilling.

Dwight Gooden also.

Dang how in the world can a hitter get an edge ? ... 🤔

LF has Barry Bonds, Rickey Henderson, Tim Raines and Manny Ramirez overlapping from 1993 to 2002. The first 2 are obvious top 10 LF's, and the second two are in the argument for top 10 all time. 2 lead off greats and 2 slugging greats.

Yaz, Rose, Rickey and Raines overlap from 1979 to 1983. Rose spent his LF days before this though, he was 1 1B at this time and its difficult to count him at a single position from a career perspective as he really moved around a lot.

A reflection of how weak 3B is when it comes to all-time greats, but Brooks Robinson, Ron Santo and Eddie Matthews all overlap from 1960-1968 to give us 3 that are probably in the top 10 all-time. The fourth would be Ken Boyer, Craig Nettles or Dick Allen (the one I would choose - he played more 1B in his career but he was a 3B in this period) who are all probably in the top 20, with a weak list of comparison.

Killebrew played 791 games at 3B during his career, if you want to add a 573 HR guy to this list.

I think 1975 Third Base had Mike Schmidt, Brooks Robinson, Pete Rose, and Craig Nettles

Brett.

and the tragically underrated Buddy Bell

Catcher is a light position for the HOF but assuming Posey gets in you'll have had Pudge, Mauer and Posey (all MVP winners) playing at the same time along with possible HOFer Yadi Molina, and though he isn't a candidate Jorge Posada is in there too.

Piazza retired too early to overlap with Posey.

2003 or so, Alomar, Biggio, Cano, Utley, Kent

1996 overlapping would include Ozzie Smith (1.6 WAR in 82 games), but would lose Miguel Tejada. Instead of Tejada you can add Edgar Renteria. And even Rey Ordonez, a light hitting defensive wizard. You also get a below average Alan Trammell at the end of his career (-1.1 WAR in 66 games).

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I think the position of catchers was particularly strong during the '30s since that position included such greats as Bill Dickey, Mickey Cochrane, Jimmy Foxx (albeit part-time), Gabby Hartnett, Ernie Lombardi, Rick Ferrell, and Josh Gibson, all of whom have been elected to Cooperstown.