Who is the greatest baseball player of all time?

[Rad_Hazard]

Originally Posted by G1911

I agree that Brouthers is better if one does not factor in longevity and looks only at peak 3, or peak 5. I think there is a lot of value in the massive chasm between their playing time. Sabrmetrics that reward longevity agree, like WAR.

My personal bias is towards Mays of all the greats, but he did not really dominate the game. He ended up the best of his time when all was said and done and is the model of a complete position player, but I can’t see a way to pick him over Ruth who truly dominated the game on a level no one else has (except arguably Bonds, when he was on drugs).


EDIT: After seeing your edit, it appears you are ranking by OSP+. It’s a great stat I like, but if we are using it to rank and overcome even huge career disparities, it would suggest that Ruth is far and away the greatest of all time, and Mays is nowhere even close, in a distant 25th place 51 points below the Babe.

EDIT: I'm not ranking by OPS+ at all. I'm ranking by everything other than counting stats and the amount of XBH's in contrast to how many at bats it took to get there. Also SLG, On Base, etc. The quality of AB's heavily favors Brouthers, most likely due to the late career decline of Anson which was not kind to his numbers outside of his counting stats.


All-time is a much different argument and I would say that none of the 19th century guys make the cut, despite my love for the era.

I would pick Ruth 7 times out of 10, Willie 2 times, and Williams once. All 3 have compelling stories and arguments, but Ruth is king.

The argument gets much more interesting when you divide the game up into eras. Then split pitching and hitting.

If I were to pick the greatest from each of these eras (the eras themselves are up for debate as well), I would probably go...

19th Century (1871-1899) - Dan Brouthers/Kid Nichols *Cy Young 2nd
The Dead Ball Era (1900-1919) - Ty Cobb/Walter Johnson *Cy Young 2nd
The Live Ball Era (1920-1941) - Babe Ruth/Lefty Grove
The Integration Era (1942-1960) - Ted Williams/Warren Spahn
The Expansion Era (1961-1976) - Hank Aaron/Tom Seaver
The Free Agency Era (1977-1993) - George Brett (Gwynn, Schmidt, Boggs also)/Nolan Ryan
The Steroid Era (1994-Present) - Barry Bonds/Roger Clemens