Top 200 Major League Baseball Players Ever...Additions, Corrections, Absolutions

As mentioned in the most recent post, I did a recalibration recently, and while outside of one or two, I could leave rankings 200-160 as they stand, resting on the idea that the numbers are so close, so tightly packed together in a Bush/Gore type of way, that any statistical separation is really hair splitting.



But let's split some hair.



When I finished the Top 100 movie list of the past quarter-century, I mentioned that I would be willing to warrant my top 100 baseball players on this top 200 list as the definitive, objective, statistically verifiable compilation of the top 100 major leaguers ever.



Instead of that - let's make it the full 200.




So, 5 players already listed as in:



Andruw Jones
Hank Greenberg
Joe Jackson
Mickey Cochrane
Dave Bancroft


...are now out.

Jones is still active, but I'm unwilling to give him the active player nudge, he's better positioned with Giambi, Helton, Hoffman, Posada, Pettitte, Delgado, and Tejada as guys who are just off the list; it's possible that all could be on by season's end, but possible they all continue to miss until sometime next year. Ichiro, Wagner, Berkman, Santana, Oswalt, Hudson, Halladay are on the next couple of tiers below and you could expect all to make the list by decade's end.

Duke Snider, Juan Marichal, Bob Elliott, Dizzy Trout join the other 4 players who were removed from my first attempt at this list as being just the slightest tick outside the top 200, not too far behind would be George Sisler, Bill Terry, Jim Kaat, Kenny Lofton, Wes Ferrell, Kevin Appier, Cupid Childs, Norm Cash, Omar Vizquel, Fred Dunlap, Dave Steib, Roy Campanella, Eppa Rixey, Charlie Bennett, Kirby Puckett, Don Mattingly, Dale Murphy, Red Faber, Billy Pierce, Ed Walsh, Jose Canseco, Lance Parrish, Dutch Leonard, Cesar Cedeno, Rube Waddell, Nomar Garciaparra, and Pee Wee Reese.

Just a little below are Bob Caruthers, Three Finger Brown, Carl Mays, Clark Griffith. Pete Browning, Urban Shocker, Hughie Jennings, John Franco, Gene Tenace, Brian Downing, Tim Salmon, Stan Coveleski, Jim Fregosi, Thurman Munson, Bucky Walters, Lenny Dykstra, Lee Smith, Rollie Fingers, Rocky Colavito, Darryl Strawberry, Sandy Koufax, Dizzy Dean, Charlie Keller, Kent Tekulve, Harry Stovey, Minnie Minoso, Ed Konetchy, Chuck Klein, Wally Berger, Ernie Lombardi, Vern Stephens, Eric Davis, Darrell Porter, Wally Schang, Ken Caminiti, Eddie Stanky.

Okay - so, when I gear up again, we'll have The Top 200 Major League Baseball Players Ever, version 2.0.