The 200 Greatest Major League Baseball Players Ever 2011 Ed. #100-91

The previous ten, which includes #200-101, is here.

Are you ready for the 100 greatest baseball players who ever lived?  Hells yeah!

100. Dennis Eckersley RHP WARP+WAR=136.2

1975-98

Red Sox/Athletics

ERA+ 116
MVPQ none, Best season 1979 (13.4)


All 3 closers on the list are in this section; two both started and closed in their careers.  Here are my essential thoughts about closers.


1. They're overrated in the minds of the public and traditional baseball media.  
2. They're underrated by WAR, and so I'd subjectively push them up this list and maybe add a couple more.


In my previous post, I had two separate lineups, one, just going down the list for career value - which would mean that Eckersley takes the slot, albeit momentarily, as best right handed pitcher thusfar; and the second, more subjective, just asking "who would you pick" - not looking at career value, as this list is, but thinking more about peak.  Eck doesn't get near that 25 man roster.  

99. Willie McCovey 1B 136.9

1959-80

Giants

OPS+ 147
Translated BA/OBP/SLG .284/.392/.585
MVPQ 1969 (17.7)


McCovey's the fourth greatest San Francisco Giant of all time.  Here's his SFG career with WAR/WARP totals.


McCovey:                                        


1959 6.9                                          
1960 3.5                                          
1961 4.6                                          
1962 4.6
1963 12.1
1964 .2
1965 11.4
1966 13
1967 10.3
1968 14.9
1969 17.7
1970 14.1
1971 5.3
1972 -.7
1973 7.4
1977 3.5
1978 -1
1979 .3
1980 -1.4


McCovey doesn't pass McGwire on the subjective team.  Willie Mac played many more years, didn't pick up much ground on Big Mac with the glove, and didn't have the OPS+ or the slashline.  I'm all SFG, McCovey's one of my guys - he wasn't as quite as good as McGwire.  

98. Rick Reuschel RHP 137.8

1972-91

Cubs/Pirates/Giants

ERA+ 114
MVPQ 1977 (17.4), 


Yes, Rick Reuschel is massively underrated.  19 seasons, while a good number, isn't like a 26 year compilation only career.  He did have one MVPQ season and the ERA+, while putting him near the bottom of the pitchers on the list so far, matches Bunning, and beats Sutton, Tanana, and John, the guys he should most readily be compared with.  That's the company you should think of when you consider Reuschel.

97. Eddie Murray 1B 139.4

1977-97
Orioles
OPS+ 129
.301/.374/.528
MVPQ none, Best Season: 1984 (13.8)

Palmeiro is probably the best comparison; you'd put Murray behind McGwire/McCovey and I'd take Clark third for the 3/4/5 slashline.  

96. John Smoltz RHP 139.6

1988-09
Braves
ERA+ 125
MVPQ none Best season: 1996 (13.3)

He's over 200 IP in the postseason, so that's an extra year.  15-4, 2.67, 199K, 73BB.

You'd want him to have that one big year, and he just didn't - instead, it's two decades of really good baseball; you'd rank him right with Schilling.  His career looks a little like Jim Palmer's.  Ed Walsh was better.

95. Craig Biggio 2B/C 140

1988-07

Astros

OPS+ 111
.287/.370/.464
MVPQ 1997 (20.3)


What I need to do now is a list of every 20+ season after the 19th century.  Biggio wasn't as good as Jackie, and I'm going to leave Kent as the current subjective backup.


Here are the 20+ WAR/WARP seasons, non 18th century version.


Sosa 2001 (22.5)
Feller 1946 (21.3)
Marichal 1966 (20.6)
Robinson 1951 (21.7)
Walsh 1908 (22.5)
Walsh 1910 (22.1)
Walsh 1912 (22.2)
Boudreau 1948 (22.6)
Banks 1959 (21.2)
 Santo 1967 (20.5)

And then Biggio.  So, Boudreau has the top season through the first 110 players, assuming no one remaining in this section catches him.

94. Mariano Rivera RHP 140.9

1995-2010
Yankees
ERA+ 205
MVPQ none, Best season 2008 (13.3)

-Yes, that ERA+ is correct.  It's the best of all time.  Walsh has the best untranslated ERA of all time, and his 146 ERA+ is the best we've seen thusfar, right up until Rivera.

205.  It's the ERA+ equivalent of Milton Berle's dong.

While we're here, here's the postseason record:

8-1, 42 saves, IP 139.2, ERA 0.71, 109 K, 25 walks.

If Rivera's 2011 is the equivalent of his 2010, he'll finish the year in the top 75 of all time, that's how tight things still are at this level.

So, what to do with all of that?  Rivera's at 1100+ IP for his career; that's a third of the innings pitched by the guy who is coming next, Drysdale.  It's a little more than a third of the innings pitched of the guy Rivera would be replacing on my subjective list of the best pitcher on the list so far, Walsh.   Even that postseason record, which might well mark Rivera as the greatest postseason player who ever lived, is still just 139 innings of work, a really good sample for a closer - but half a season for Drysdale.  Were you arguing against Rivera (or any closer) that's where you'd point; and while many of those innings are very important innings (the average inning for Rivera more crucial than the average inning for Drysdale) the extent to which that is true is overstated (the ninth inning isn't always the most important, and a run in the second against Drysdale counts just as much as one in the ninth against Mo).

At the end of the day, where I come out is I like closers a little more than is reflected by the list.  Billy Wagner  and Trevor Hoffman could both be subjectively placed at the end of a top 200.  Eckersley could be pushed a tick higher.  And Rivera, with that 205 ERA+ should be considered one of the 50 best players ever.  Right now, I'll put him ahead of Walsh and call him subjectively the best pitcher on the list thusfar.

93. Don Drysdale RHP 142.7

1956-69
Dodgers

ERA+ 121
MVPQ 1964 (17.6)


Drysdale will finish this section as the top pitcher, for career value, on the list so far.  

92. Roberto Alomar 2B 142.9

1988-04

Blue Jays/Orioles/Indians

OPS+ 116
.312/.383/.471
MVPQ none, Best season 1999 (15.6)
Alomar and Biggio both appear in this section, clearly similar in both peak and career to a guy like Sandberg.  Robinson keeps his spot as the subjective best second baseman ever, his bat just solidly above everyone else in the field thusfar.  And I'll keep Kent as his backup, his bat just nudging him ahead of the pack.  

91. Gary Sheffield RF 143

1988-2009

Marlins/Dodgers

OPS+ 140
.300/.402/.550
MVPQ 2003 (16, with Braves)


If you're playing along, you know my adoration for a translated 3/4/5 career slashline, the list of guys so far carrying one adds a member with Shef.


Will Clark
Jackie Robinson
Dick Allen
Joe Jackson (3/4/6)
Elmer Flick
Edgar Martinez


It's tight, but I'll keep Flick ahead of Sheffield as my subjective all time RF thusfar.  Here are the current lineups.  First, the subjective lineup, not looking at career value, just looking at who was best.  Backups in parentheses.  It will add up to a full 25 man roster.


C Berra (Piazza)
1B McGwire (McCovey)
2B Robinson (Kent)
SS Banks (Jeter)
3B Santo (Allen)
LF Jackson (Stargell)
CF Hamilton (Snider)
RF Flick (Sheffield)
RHP Rivera (Walsh, Feller, Marichal, Halladay, Smoltz, Schilling)
LHP Hubbell (Newhouser)

And now, going off the list, here's the current all time career value roster. 


C Berra (Fisk)
1B Murray (McCovey)
2B Alomar (Biggio)
SS Jeter (Banks)
3B Santo (Robinson)
LF Clarke (Burkett)
CF Hamilton (Snider)
RF Sheffield (Walker)
RHP Drysdale (Rivera, Smoltz, Eckersley, Keefe, Schilling, Radbourn)
LHP Hubbell (Newhouser)


110 down.  90 to go.  I'm going to take next week off to just make football posts, but two weeks from today I'm back with the next ten.  Promise.

The Weekly Tendown January 16 --22 2011

Dear Internet:

A naked Lance Armstrong must mean its Tendown 61.

1. Lance Armstrong's Going to Jail.


There was a stretch in the middle of the last decade where I wrote about a half dozen letters to the editor for Sports Illustrated.  All were unpublished.  All went something like this.

Although it feels like SI, along with all traditional sports media, is speeding toward irrelevance, I would argue that talk radio, the blogosphere, and the balance of fan opinion still gets its cues from SI and ESPN.  Accepting that as true, I would like you to really reconsider the disparity in your coverage of Barry Bonds and Lance Armstrong.  A fair minded reading of the quality of the evidence against both would find  similarly strong cases, but that simply isn't reflected in your magazine.  Sometimes, within the same handful of pages, there seems a clear attempt to deify Armstrong while vilifying Bonds.  It could be, of course, that Armstrong is an innocent victim of a vast European conspiracy, and is a clean man dominating an otherwise dirty sport; and it could be that in a sport which has seen spitballs, corked bats, sign stealing, game fixing, Klansmen, segregation, xenophobia, bucketsful of clubhouse greenies and enough painkiller to dope up small countries, that it's Barry Bonds who should be expunged from the record books.  


But if it's not - you're gonna look awfully stupid in a few years.  History will not be kind to the era where we focused our national rage not on unwinnable wars, but instead on what particular athletes put into their bodies.


I kept it on my hard drive.

Here's what we now know.

 Between 2001 and 2004 the US Postal Service (that's us) spent over 30 million bucks supporting Lance Armstrong's racing team.

And that's important, because taking government money puts Lance in the cross-hairs.

From Sports Illustrated this week:

In the late 1990s, according to a source with knowledge of the government's investigation of Armstrong, the Texan gained access to a drug, in clinical trial, called HemAssist, developed by Baxter Healthcare Corp. HemAssist was to be used for cases of extreme blood loss. In animal studies, it had been shown to boost the blood's oxygen-carrying capacity, without as many risks as EPO.

(Floyd)Landis tells SI about the day in 2003 that he, Armstrong and team members flew into St. Moritz, where customs officials requested that they open their duffel bags for a search. "Lance had a bag of drugs and s---," says Landis. "They wanted to search it, which was out of the ordinary." Sifting through Armstrong's bag, agents found syringes and drugs with labels written in Spanish. As Landis recounts, Armstrong then asked a member of his contingent to convince the agents that the drugs were vitamins and that the syringes were for vitamin injections.

When Italian police and customs officials raided the home of longtime Armstrong teammate Yarolslav Popovych last November, they discovered documents and PEDs as well as texts and e-mails linking Armstrong's team to controversial Italian physician Michele Ferrari as recently as 2009, though Armstrong had said he cut ties with Ferrari in 2004.


In a letter reviewed by SI, Armstrong's testosterone-epitestosterone ratio was reported to be higher than normal on three occasions between 1993 and 1996

Stephen Swart, a New Zealander who rode with Armstrong on the Motorola squad in 1995, describes the Texan as the driving force behind some of the team members deciding to use the banned blood booster EPO. "He was the instigator," Swart tells SI. "It was his words that pushed us toward doing it."

Ten years ago, a French news crew taped Armstrong's team driving 90 miles to dump bags of syringes.  Greg LeMond, the second most famous American cyclist ever, clearly believes Armstrong to be untruthful.  Today, there is a grand jury empaneled to investigate and Floyd Landis has filed for whistleblower protection.

And maybe he's clean.  And even if he wasn't, maybe there's no reason to care.

But it would be nice to have had a different balance in the past ten years of coverage.

2. Who Got Axed This Week?

Seemingly out of nowhere, one of my favorite television hosts suddenly lost his job this week.  It really stunned and disappointed me.

I'm talking, of course, about Conor Knighton leaving Infomania.  He was the best of the hosts of those clip shows.

Oh, and MSNBC future endeavored their top rated show hours before it went on the air Friday night.

But it had nothing to do with the sale to Comcast being approved the day before.

Cable news cancels their highest rated show a year out of a presidential campaign all the time.  O'Reilly will probably get dropped at Fox this week.  Although, Olbermann is notoriously challenging to deal with, and its understandable if his baggage just became too heavy.  'Member how he settled a multi million dollar sexual harassment lawsuit against one of his former producers?  He really couldn't keep doing the news after that - it's a surprise he lasted this long.

Oh.  Yeah, that's right.

Here's why Keith mattered - Keith punched back.  What's always been the characterization about why talk radio is almost entirely right wing - those guys are aggressive, they hammer away at the opposition.  The left is all NPR-ish, looking for nuance and thoughtfulness and multiple perspectives.

Olbermann unapologetically went on television, every night, and called the liars, liars.  Showed contempt for the wise old men in their grey suits who lied us into war and bankrupted the country.  Look, Stephen Colbert is brilliant and I've already said Jon Stewart was the Entertainer of the Decade, but more often than not a Newt Gingrich can come plug his book and get away unscathed.  Keith Olbermann planted his feet on a truthful patch of ground and fired haymakers.

Sometimes it would make you cringe.  But sometimes it was astonishing.

Rachel's sharper than Keith and has a better show; if you promise me she slides into that number one spot on MSNBC and becomes their standard bearer, and that what this move does is open up a slot for a young progressive like Chris Hayes, then I'm cool.  I'm not on board; were I consulted (as I should be, honestly, about most things - decisionmakers really should start reading the blog; I'm hella-busy but not hard to find) I would have said there are 24 hours in the day, there's room for Keith on the channel.

But I don't think that's how it works out.  I think the wiggle room for someone who challenges corporate power as aggressively as does Keith is nonexistent, and even having the top rated show on the network isn't enough when Comcast sits in the executive suite.

It was the wrong answer, and I knew it at the time, but 11 years ago when I did my stint on ESPN and was asked who my favorite ever Sportscenter anchor was - I told them it was Keith.  One assumes this had nothing to do with my inexplicable mispronunciation of Tatupu.

3. Finally, a President Who Will Do Something About All that Regulation.
Well, here's the change I voted for.

This is a case of corporate blackmail pure and simple. The economy is sluggish because of a housing crisis that shows no sign of improvement. It stands history on its head to blame government financial regulations that had worked splendidly for six decades for the meltdown or the failure to fix a housing market that is the key to improved consumer spending.


Obama, and the party he heads, failed to provide a progressive narrative during November’s election holding the financial elite that created this mess responsible. The key issue is not big government or onerous regulation but rather transparency and fraud prevention. When you are evicted, it is a government agent, a marshal or sheriff, who will force you out, so shouldn’t the government also be involved in assuring that the consumer is protected by a properly vetted contract? Instead the U.S. Chamber of Commerce spearheaded the marketing of an alternative narrative, as successful as it was devious, by Republican candidates that held regulation—rather than deregulation—responsible for the mess. Now Obama seems poised to join their ranks. 

4. Finally, a President Who Will Get Tough on Terror
Okay, so I was being facetious in that last one; I actually think Obama's in the tank, in a Clintonian type way, for Wall St. and would not be surprised if he opens the door for the erosion of Social Security in his State of the Union.

But this one, this one I completely believe.

Aside from the repressiveness of the policies themselves, there are three highly significant and enduring harms from Obama's behavior.  First, it creates the impression that Republicans were right all along in the Bush-era War on Terror debates and Democratic critics were wrong.  The same theme is constantly sounded by conservatives who point out Obama's continuation of these policies:  that he criticized those policies as a candidate out of ignorance and partisan advantage, but once he became President, he realized they were right as a result of accessing the relevant classified information and needing to keep the country safe from the Terrorist threat.  Second, Obama has single-handedly eliminated virtually all mainstream debate over these War on Terror policies.  At least during the Bush years, we had one party which steadfastly supported them but one party which claimed (albeit not very persuasively) to vehemently oppose them.  At least there was a pretense of vigorous debate over their legality, morality, efficacy, and compatibility with our national values. Those debates are no more. Third, Obama's embrace of these policies has completely rehabilitated the reputations and standing of the Bush officials responsible for them.

5. He's Not Heavy, But Neither is he my Brother
I don't care even a little bit if the new Governor of Alabama doesn't want to be my brother.

So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister, and I want to be your brother.


I've got brothers, I'm good, thanks.  So I'm not going to wave the flag of oppression on this one.

But do me a favor the next time we go through the "there's a war on Christianity in the United States" deal the right pulls out to fire up the rubes.  Imagine a governor in the United States saying:

So anybody who still believes in ancient fables about men who live in the sky instead of living their lives according to reason, who prefer superstitions literally no more relevant to the world than Zeus or Sagittarius to facts and evidence, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister, and I want to be your brother.


Because this is that.  That's what anti-Christian bias would look like - and even then, it would still just be equivalent to the anti non-Christian bias that exists in government today.  When that speech happens, get back to me.

6. The 3/5 Clause Was Actually Anti-Slavery!
That's the argument made by the former Ohio Secretary of State, and literally not a single reputable historian ever, here.  Slavery was protected by the US Constitution, without that protection, the southern states would not have agreed to the document.  This is a closed matter. Don't let them lie to you.

7. The Entire 20th Century is Unconstitutional .
A Utah Senator said federal laws regulating child labor are unconstitutional. 

I really like this and have enjoyed this aspect of John Birch Society 2.0.  Their arguments about health care reform, for example, are the same arguments they had about Medicare, and about social security and the minimum wage and health and safety regulations in the workplace.  It has always been true that if you take right wing constitutional interpretation at face value (as Clarence Thomas might do, were he the only justice on the Court) it would repeal much of the 20th century.

Between 1880 and 1900, 6.6 million American workers went on strike.  In 1900, skilled workers earned 20 cents an hour, unskilled workers 10.  Workers put in 10 hours a day, six days a week, worked literally until the day they died (which for African-Americans in 1900 was at the average age of 33).  Immigrants, veterans, children died every single day at work while the American Medici, untroubled by federal regulation, had parties in which their guests dug for jewels in troughs.  The idea that labor was a virtue to be exploited like all the other natural resources - stripmined until used up and then discarded, was viewed not just as a practical necessity, but as a moral good in a social Darwinist way.  Workers were farm animals.  We were worked until shot or eaten.  Through the mechanism of the federal government, we spent the first 80 years of the 20th century, slowly, working our way out of subordination - and then came the Republicans, and trickle down economics, and deregulation.  And now the top 1% of income earners in the US take home a quarter of all the income.  And now we don't have a political party that isn't a wholly owned subsidiary of the plutocrats.  


Maybe Obama will tell the Wall St. Journal he's not opposed to some child labor concessions.  Hey, we can't be too partisan.  Really, aren't both sides a little bit too extreme in this whole "how many hours a day should 12 year olds be working" debate?

8. I Saw the Social Network, and You Should Too.

It's like a really good episode of West Wing.  That's enough to make it the best movie I've seen in 2010.

I also saw Cyrus, which is good enough to watch.  And Youth in Revolt and An Education.  You can watch all of them.  And I read Patton Oswalt's book.  And watched the two new shows by The Onion; you should watch Sportsdome, it's funny.

Additionally, on Barefoot Contessa, Ina, in explaining that she likes a combination of high and low foods, said she liked truffled popcorn or baked potatoes with caviar - you know "nothing pretentious."

And then she threw to Mariska Hargitay who was setting her table.

'Cause what could be pretentious about caviar covered potatoes and Jayne Mansfield's daughter laying out the salad forks?


9. Thank God I'm an Atheist

Fortunately, Ricky Gervais is my brother.

If you thought he was somehow inappropriate in making pointed jokes at the expense of unbelievably rich and pampered celebrities, you are not.

10. The World Champion San Francisco Giants

You have to win 11 playoff games to win the World Series.  This was our fourth.

The fifth best regular season in SFG history (94 pythagorean wins) led to a NL West title, an NLDS win over the Braves and a matchup in the NLCS against the 2 time defending NL Champion Phillies.  The Giants came into the postseason hot, riding one of the great September pitching staff performances in MLB history - but as hot as we were - the Phils had been baseball's best team over the second half of the season, and at 95 pythag wins, the best team in the National League.

They were favored - and I picked them to beat us in 7.

I was wrong.  Fabulously wrong.

We won Game 1 4-3, our 7th straight one run postseason game dating back to 2003 - I'm saying it's a record, although, at the time of this writing, I haven't seen that articulated anywhere else.  Two time defending Cy Young winner Tim Lincecum beating the eventually named winner of the 2010 award Roy Halladay (I voted for Adam Wainwright).

We swapped third inning homers to open the scoring - Cody Ross, a surprise starter when Jose Guillen was left off the postseason roster, hit one in the top - Carlos Ruiz in the bottom - we escaped worse fate - they had two in scoring position when Lincecum struckout Ryan Howard to end the inning.  We put two on ourselves in the 4th on singles by Aubrey Huff and Pat Burrell - but a Juan Uribe groundout ended that threat.

We won the game in the fifth and sixth - Ross hit another homer in the 5th; and a Burrell 6th inning double scored Buster Posey to put us up 3-1 - which became 4-1 when Uribe singled home the pinch running Nate Schierholtz.

It wouldn't be 2010 Giants baseball without a little torture - Jayson Werth hit a two run homer in the bottom of the 6th to make it 4-3, but the Phils couldn't get a tying runner in scoring position over the final 3 innings, Brian Wilson closing it out with a 4 out save.

4 down.  7 to go.

That's all for this time.  I'll be back next time.  If there is a next time...

Your pal,

Jim

2011 NFL Playoff Picks - The Conference Championships

Not to be immodest.  I'm 7-1 against the spread in the playoffs thusfar.

NFC:  Bears +3.5 Packers (GB wins game) loss/win
AFC: Steelers -3.5 Jets win/win

I could easily lose both of those games; I pick them with little confidence.

I'm confident about the straight up winners (I'm 5-3 straight up thusfar); if you're following along with me, you'll know I picked Green Bay to win the NFC before the season started, picked them to win before the playoffs started, liked them getting the points last week in really strong terms, and I like them a considerable amount this week.  I do not believe there are many circumstances where the Packers lose this football game.

The line opened at 3.  At 3, I would take the Packers.  And if, for some reason, you have to play this game, wait, as I don't think it's going to close at less than 4.

I'm not going to give more than a field goal to a road divisional opponent in a conference title game.  And that's just how it goes.  The Packers are solidly better.  They should win.  And I am not investing in this game.  But the disciplined play here, if you're playing, is the home divisional opponent dog getting more than a FG in a conference title game.

This is a post that I'll edit, as I occasionally do, to reflect a late line shift.  I don't see a scenario where the line moves back to 3, but if it does, I'm taking the Packers.  Far more likely is it goes to 4.

And that should tell you why I'm giving the 4 in the Steeler game. (edit - as of Friday night, it's back down to 3.5)

The Steelers were the second best team in football this season, behind only New England, and solidly better than the Jets.  In this scenario - Pittsburgh's at home, and not facing a divisional opponent.

So - I give the 4.  I don't love it; yesterday it was 3.5 and it opened at 3, but even at 4, I'm taking the Steelers, and there's not really a number that it could get to (I don't think it goes higher than this) where I wouldn't take Pittsburgh.  Better team, at home, not a divisional opponent.  I'd rather just give 3, but this morning's line is 4.  If you can get less than that, as you maybe still can if you read this post Thursday morning,    and this is the kind of thing you do - then get in now, as it's going to 4.

(I'm rooting for Green Bay and the Jets).

The 200 Greatest Major League Baseball Players Ever 2011 Ed. #110-101

#120-111 is here.

110. Joe Cronin SS WARP+WAR=133.7

1926-45

Senators/Red Sox

OPS+ 119

Translated BA/OBP/SLG .280/.365/.465

MVPQ 1930 (18.2)

Cronin, like Boudreau, didn't miss time for the war, but he was a decade older, so it's unlikely it was a "shortstops are automatically 4-F" thing.  I've got two more shortstops in this block of ten; when we get through them both, I'll run down the full list.   

109. Ernie Banks SS/1B 133.8

1953-71

Cubs

OPS+ 122

.279/.341/.531

MVPQ 1955 (17.8), 1958 (19.5), 1959 (21.2), 1960 (17.3)

4 MVPQuality seasons (seasons with a combined WAR/WARP of 16+) puts Banks in the upper reaches of this half of the top 200 baseball players of all time.  Here's everyone on the list so far with multiple MVPQ seasons.

Vance (2), Bunning (3), Wynn (2), Joe Jackson (2), Caruthers (3), Snider (2), Feller (3), Baker (2), Newhouser (3), Marichal (2), Dick Allen (3), Jackie Robinson (3), Kevin Brown (2), Ed Walsh (5), Radbourn (2), Sandberg (2).

So - the position player on the list with the most MVPQ seasons is Banks, behind only the pitcher, Walsh.

108. Ron Santo 3B 134.1

1960-74

Cubs

OPS+ 125

.283/.375/.498

MVPQ 1964 (18.3), 1966 (18.3), 1967 (20.5)

Look at the Cubs, 7 MVPQ seasons in a little over a decade.  One could, were one inclined, go through those rosters to figure out why they didn't win a title.  Santo's the only third baseman in this section.   Here's all of them with OPS+

Collins 113, Nettles 110, Cey 121, Bell 109, Boyer 116, Hack 119, Evans 119 (one MVPQ season), Ventura 114, Baker 135 (2 MVPQ seasons), Allen 156 (3 MVPQ seasons), Robinson (104) 

That's 12, that's a good number of dudes.  Brooks has the best glove; Dick Allen the best bat and by a wide, wide margin.  Santo, as reflected in this number, had the best career and given his playing just 15 years, I think he was the best player.  If you were picking teams, I think I'd take Santo by a hair over Dick Allen with Home Run Baker third.  

I don't get too worked up about the Hall of Fame and don't have any emotional attachment to Santo at all, but I assume it would have mattered to him to have been recognized, and in the strongest possible terms, what I'd like to communicate is the baseball writers who did not vote for him when he was alive do not understand baseball well enough to keep their votes.  

107. Derek Jeter SS 134.4

1995 -

Yankees

OPS+ 121

.310/.383/.456

MVPQ 1999 (16.5)

Jeter's got 600+ postseason plate appearances now, so that's a regular season worth of work.  Here's his untranslated postseason line:

.309/.377/.472

Jeter, like virtually every athlete who has a large enough postseason sample size to make a reasonable determination, is essentially the same guy in the playoffs as in the regular season.   Guys don't have magical powers in October.  

Jeter had a down 2010, his combined WAR/WARP was 4.4.  If he can duplicate it, he's 98th after the 2011 season.  

Here's all the shortstops: Glasscock (OPS+ 112), Reese (98), Ward (92), Wallace (105),  Boudreau (120), Cronin (119) Banks (122).  It's close, right?  Jeter/Banks/Boudreau?   I'll take Banks, on the strength of those MVPQ seasons and that big adjusted SLG  if I'm drafting.  He and Santo next to each other on the left side of the 101-200 infield.  Jeter's gonna move solidly through this section for career value before he's done.   

106. Carl Hubbell LHP 134.5

1928-43

Giants

ERA+ 130

MVPQ 1932 (16.3), 1933 (19), 1936 (18.9)

Hubbell's the last lefty in this hundred.  Tanana (ERA+ 106), John (111), Newhouser (130) is the balance of the list.  Newhouser and Hubbell pretty solidly the cream of that crop; I'll take Hubbell, but it's razor thin.  

105. Mark McGwire 1B 134.7

1987-01

Athletics/Cardinals

OPS+ 162

.277/.405/.650

MVPQ 1998 (16.6)

Look at that adjusted .650 SLG.  Boom.  That's the highest of anyone in the bottom hundred.  An adjusted .650 slugging percentage.  Put him in the Hall of Fame.  Here's every first baseman and everyone with a 150+ OPS+ so far.  

Killebre-w (143), Olerud (128),  Beckley (125), Clark (137), Hernandez (128), Palmeiro (132).

Jackson (170),  Allen (156), 

Mac's the best first baseman.  The bat is solidly better than his nearest competitor (unless you want to call Allen a first baseman, then it's only a little better) and that makes up for the glove deficiency.  Best both for career and if you were picking.  McGwire joins Banks and Santo in the infield.  Hubbell the left handed pitcher.  

104. Yogi Berra C 135.1

1946-65

Yankees

OPS+ 125

.287/.344/.519

MVPQ none, Best season 1950, 1956 (13.1)

Here are the catchers: Kelly (138), Torre (128), Ewing (129), Hartnett (126), Dickey (127), Piazza (142), Fisk (112).  Kelly played a lot of RF, so that's why he's lower ranked despite his bat, and Fisk played forever, boosting his value despite the relatively weaker bat.  Everyone else ('cept for the one guy) is in essentially the same spot; Yogi's defense gives him the top career spot.

But what to do about Piazza's bat?  For career value, I'll take Yogi.  But if I'm picking sides, does Piazza's bat outweigh Yogi's glove?  

I'm gonna say yes.  I know.  It's a hard call; even now, I'm considering changing my mind.  

Okay, I've changed my mind.  I'll take Yogi's glove.  Hard to do.  

103. Billy Hamilton CF 135.8

1888-01

Phillies/Braves

OPS+ 141

.315/.434/.449

MVPQ 1894 (17.1)

Only 14 years to accumulate that value; that's a helluva career.  

Here are all the outfielders with their OPS+.

LF Goslin 128

LF Cruz 120

LF Medwick 134

LF Jackson 170

LF O'Rourke 133

LF Simmons 132

LF Williams 133

LF Stargell 147

LF Burkett 140

LF Clarke 132

CF Beltran 119

CF Wynn 128 

CF Lofton 107

CF Smith 137

CF Ashburn 111

CF Jones 111

CF Snider 140

RF Bonds 129

RF Clark 137

RF Guerrero 146

RF Slaughter 124

RF Dawson 119

RF Abreu 131

RF Caruthers 133

RF Sosa 128

RF Evans 127

RF Winfield 130

RF Flick 149

RF Keeler 126

RF Heilmann 148

RF Walker 140

If I'm drafting - Joe Jackson in left.  Elmer Flick in right, just over Heilmann.  Billy Hamilton in center.  

102. Tim Keefe 135.9 RHP 

Giants

1880-93

ERA+ 127

So, who are the right handed pitchers with their ERA+?  

Vance (125), Bunning (114), Halladay (136), Mullane (118), Griffith (122), Saberhagen (126), Tiant (115), Feller (122), Palmer (126), Galvin (108), Marichal (123), Ruffing (110), Rusie (129), Sutton (108), Lyons (118), Brown (127), Walsh (146), Radbourn (120), Schilling (128).

The outlier is clearly Walsh; he's the guy you'd pick on the schoolyard without reservation. 

101. Edgar Martinez DH 136.1

1987-04

Mariners

OPS+ 147

.319/.424/.559

MVPQ 1995 (16.3)

Edgar can't fit into the groupings of position players, but he allows me to do my favorite grouping of this list - the guys with the translated .300/.400/.500 slashlines.

Will Clark

Jackie Robinson

Dick Allen

Joe Jackson (actually, a 3/4/6)

Elmer Flick.

And now Edgar.  His bat was undeniable.  

I haven't recapped second base yet (spoiler alert, it's gonna be Jackie).

Here they are with OPS+

Doerr (115), Gordon (120), Herman (112), Robinson (131), Randolph (104), McPhee (106), Sandberg (114), Kent (123)

Jackie's the best.  So - two lists here.  If you were drafting, just "who was the best player, not who had the best career"

C Berra

1B McGwire

2B Robinson

SS Banks

3B Santo

LF Jackson

CF Hamilton

RF Flick

RHP Walsh

LHP Hubbell

And then, for career value, just going off this list - here's your team.

C Berra

1B McGwire

2B Kent

SS Jeter

3B Santo

LF Clarke

CF Hamilton

RF Walker

RHP Keefe

LHP Hubbell

And here's the list.

200. Harmon Killebrew

199. Goose Goslin

198. Jimmy Collins

197. Jose Cruz

196. Bobby Bonds

195. Graig Nettles

194. Jack Clark

193. Ron Cey

192. Dazzy Vance

191. Jim Bunning

190. Bobby Doerr

189. Buddy Bell

188. Roy Halladay

187. Tony Mullane

186. Ducky Medwick

185. Clark Griffith

184. Carlos Beltran

183. Bret Saberhagen

182. Vladimir Guerrero

181. Enos Slaughter

180. Ken Boyer

179. Joe Gordon

178. Andre Dawson

177. King Kelly

176. Jimmy Wynn

175. Kenny Lofton

174. Joe Torre

173. John Olerud

172. Joe Jackson

171. Stan Hack

170. Bobby Abreu

169. Frank Tanana

168. Buck Ewing

167. Jim O'Rourke

166. Reggie Smith

165. Al Simmons

164. Richie Ashburn

163. Bob Caruthers

162. Billy Williams

161. Darrell Evans

160. Jake Beckley

159. Sammy Sosa

158. Duke Snider

157. Dwight Evans

156. Tommy John

155. Andruw Jones

154. Robin Ventura

153. Luis Tiant

152. Dave Winfield

151. Bob Feller

150. Jack Glasscock

149. Elmer Flick

148. Gabby Hartnett

147. Will Clark

146. Jim Palmer

145. Pud Galvin

144. Willie Stargell

143. Home Run Baker

142. Billy Herman

141. Hal Newhouser

140. Juan Marichal

139. Red Ruffing

138. Dick Allen

137. Bill Dickey

136. Amos Rusie

135. Pee Wee Reese

134. Keith Hernandez

133. Jackie Robinson

132. Monte Ward

131. Don Sutton

130. Willie Randolph

129. Jesse Burkett

128. Wee Willie Keeler

127. Bid McPhee

126. Mike Piazza

125. Harry Heilmann

124. Ted Lyons

123. Kevin Brown

122. Ed Walsh

121. Larry Walker

120. Brooks Robinson

119. Fred Clarke

118. Hoss Radbourn

117. Ryne Sandberg

116. Bobby Wallace

115. Lou Boudreau

114. Curt Schilling

113. Jeff Kent

112. Carlton Fisk

111. Rafael Palmeiro

110. Joe Cronin

109. Ernie Banks

108. Ron Santo

107. Derek Jeter

106. Carl Hubbell

105. Mark McGwire

104. Yogi Berra

103. Billy Hamilton

102. Tim Keefe

101. Edgar Martinez

100 down.  100 to go.  See you in a week.  

The Weekly Tendown January 9 --15 2011

Dear Internet:

I made a discovery this week.  Here's Tendown 60.

1. Torn From Today's Headlines!

You know the wedge haircut, right?  Popularized when Dorothy Hamill won the figure skating gold medal in 1976?

Here's the thing.  This week, on the Game Show Network, was an episode of Match Game '74.  One of the contestants was that woman at the top of the post.

Her name was Dorothy.

Not '76.  But 1974. I'm willing to say, right now, that it was Match Game '74 Dorothy who popularized the wedge cut.  I do not know what ever became of her; I do not even know if she won that episode, 'cause I was just hoping to see Richard Dawson (don't forget - he's still alive) make out with Brett Somers. History has forgotten her.  But now - she is redeemed.  Hell, it could be that she died in the war and Dorothy Hamill, whose real name is Dick Whitman, took her identity and married her hot secretary. 

For shame, Dorothy Hamill.  Decades of taking credit for a haircut you blatantly ripped off from Match Game '74 Dorothy.  It ends today.

2. I'm Watching, Freddie Mitchell
I don't know the percentage of Bravo's core audience with my level of sports literacy, but I'm guessing it isn't superhigh.

To that end, sometimes, Bravo maybe tries to slip some nonsense past its viewers.

But I'm out there, Andy Cohen.  I'm watching you.

On multiple episodes of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills this season, one could have found Faye Resnick (and also Kato Kaelin) as Kyle's "longtime friend" - with the only scandal attached to her being an apparent appearance in Playboy (did Faye Resnick get naked?  Was there a particular clamor for that? Here's how big that trial was, a juror, and not even one who made it all the way through, also wound up in Playboy).  The words "Columbian necktie" did not play a part in her scene with Frasier's soon to be ex-wife's psychic buddy (my question would have been "When's the L.A. DA's office going to charge Mark Fuhrman, who took the 5th amendment on the question "did you plant or manufacture evidence in this case" with perjury?").

I gently raised my hand during these scenes.  I see you, Faye Resnick (but not naked, no, no, no.)

This week, Millionaire Matchmaker's season ended with Freddie Mitchell, former NFL player "looking to get back into the league."

Fred X's last season was 2004.  He had 5 career touchdowns.  The only way he's getting back into the league is if there's a lockout in 2011 and he's dropping passes from Keanu Reeves.

I'm out here, Bravo.  I'm your sports reference goalie.

(I also watched the Barefoot Contessa go to a farm this weekend called "Amber Waves"; I'm going to guess she didn't get the Boogie Nights reference.  I can't be the Food Channel goalie too; I'm only the one dude.  However, were any of the powers that be to be interested in a suggestion - it would be that the simile "it's like ______ in my mouth" just has got to go.  Even if it's really a subtle prompt to watch more Match Game '74.)

3. Does This Mean Duchovny's in Middle Relief?  Or that Travis Ishikawa Will Get a Cross-over on Nurse Jackie?


Coming to Showtime in 2011 - your World Champion San Francisco Giants.

Really?  Not the Red Sox?  Or the Cubs?  My baseball team?  On premium cable?

Sports has gone weird.

4. But, My Picking Games Correctly - That's Not Weird at All.
I finished 21-12-2 picking the college bowls against the spread.  I'm 5-1 against the spread so far in the NFL playoffs.  My Golden Globes picks (I'm guessing a little bit with TV, I might sweep the board with movies) are here.

5. Who Can You Trust?
So, maybe you come to Tendown not for the football picks, but for the politics - but maybe I'm not around when you need some insight.  Via The Nation, here are the top 30 lefties in today's media. I'd drop all of the TV people, save Maddow, about ten slots each.  On that list, find Chris Hedges, who wrote this:


There is no major difference between a McCain administration, a Bush and an Obama administration. Obama, in fact, is in many ways worse. McCain, like Bush, exposes the naked face of corporate power. Obama, who professes to support core liberal values while carrying out policies that mock these values, mutes and disempowers liberals, progressives and leftists. Environmental and anti-war groups, who plead with Obama to address their issues, are little more than ineffectual supplicants.


Obama, like Bush and McCain, funds and backs our unending and unwinnable wars. He does nothing to halt the accumulation of the largest deficits in human history. The drones murder thousands of civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as they did under Bush and would have done under McCain. The private military contractors, along with the predatory banks and investment houses, suck trillions out of the U.S. Treasury as efficiently under Obama. Civil liberties, including habeas corpus, have not been restored. The public option is dead. The continuation of the Bush tax cuts, adding some $900 billion to the deficit, along with the reduction of individual contributions to Social Security, furthers a debt peonage that will be the excuse to privatize Social Security, slash social services and break the back of public service unions. Obama does not intercede as tens of millions of impoverished Americans face foreclosures and bankruptcies. The Democrats provide better cover. But the corporate assault is the same.


See, you can use sharp language to criticize today's politics without advocating shooting anyone.

6. If Ballots Don't Work, Bullets Will.

Does language embolden violence?

It's exhausting to unpack all of the nonsense from this week's reaction to the Arizona shootings.

The element of the right's reaction to the suggestion that maybe some of their rhetoric could be dialed back that was interesting to me is best seen in Palin's "blood libel" comment (no, I don't think she knows what it means, no I don't think she cares what it means). Her argument is "using just words, the left is creating an atmosphere where Republicans may be harmed."

And her evidence for that is the left saying "using just words, the right is creating an atmosphere where Democrats may be harmed."

See what they do?  Conservatives threaten people's lives.  That's not a problem.  But when you say "hey, conservatives are threatening people's lives" - then you are not only wrong, you're equated with the level of harm that conservatives are actually causing.  And then what we have is a "debate" - and the result of a debate has to be, of course, that "both sides" are really wrong, and our national consensus finds the phony "middle."

This should seem familiar.

It's similar to the way the right thinks about racism - it's not racism that is the problem - what's the problem, the problem is when you call attention to that racism.  Because then you become the moral equivalent of the racist.  And now your charges of racism lose their force in our need to find "common ground".  

Or class warfare.  There isn't anything more important than the wealth shift over the past 30 years.  And when you point out the following -

In 1979, the richest 1 percent of Americans earned 9 percent of all US income. Now they earn 24 percent of US income. 


Then you're the one accused of class warfare.

The truth isn't somewhere in the middle.  Conservative economic policy, embraced by the two corporate political parties, has served to shift wealth from you and me to the wealthiest among us.  The right wing, since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, has specifically adopted a "southern strategy" to stoke white racial anxieties for electoral gain.  And the right, as overtly as possible, has been asking its constituents to go shoot Democrats.

Just from my own district came conservative radio host Joyce Kaufman, at a 2010 Tea Party rally "if ballots don't work, bullets will."

Kaufman was then named chief of staff for my new Congressman, the conservative Allen West.

She didn't last a week, but it wasn't due to West's, at any point, repudiating her comments.  In fact, West said the following about his congressional opponent, the Democrat Ron Klein:

"Let me tell you what you've got to do," said West, a retired lieutenant colonel. "You've got to make the fellow scared to come out of his house. That's the only way that you're going to win. That's the only way you're going to get these people's attention."

And this week, what was West's response to suggestions that right wing rhetoric had gotten out of control?

“One of the concerns I do have is the political opportunism that has come out of this. That’s kind of deplorable and unconscionable what some people are doing. This is not the time to start looking for grandstanding and things of that nature,”


That's right.  It's not "if ballots don't work, bullets will" that is "deplorable and unconscionable" - it's pointing out that his chief local media cheerleader/turned chief of staff had threatened violence if he lost the election that is deplorable.  Not violence in metaphor.  Not "grab your musket" - but actual "if we lose this election, let's go shoot people" threats.  Apparently in case Sharron Angle's "second amendment remedies" was insufficiently clear.

This is what they do.  It's not that "both sides are really wrong and the problem with this country is that both sides have gotten too extreme and what we need are regular, middle ground, common sense Americans to come together and agree on things."  That idea, that drive to moderation, that "third way" that both Obama and Clinton and the mainstream media (and I think, now, Jon Stewart) bends over backward to find, has the appeal of making a lot of well meaning people nod, and it is entirely a falsehood and feeds this problem.

That's how the right works the discussion.  It's why the country has moved rightward over the past 30 years. And that process is why we are here, in the death throws of the American dream.

7. Go Read This


Here are the best pieces about the Giffords shooting from the week.


Here's Eric Boehlert, who should be in that top 30.

And from Shakespeare's Sister.

And from Talking Points Memo

And from the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.

8.  I've Written About All this Before.

The reason why so many conservatives applauded Obama's speech this week is he let them all off the hook.  I started writing about right wing eliminationist talk back in 2009.

A year and a half ago, I wrote this.

A month after that, this.

And the day after my 39th birthday, this.  The next time you hear a "both sides do this stuff, that commentator in the Daily Kos said Giffords was "dead to me".  What about that?  Hmmmm?  Hmmmm?  The next time you hear that - feel free to quote me:


In July of 2008 it was the shootings in the Tennessee church, the murderer leaving behind a four page letter explaining how the church was too liberal in its teachings, that all liberals should be killed because they were ruining the country, that they had ruined every institution in America: 

"If decent patriotic Americans could vote three times in every election we couldn’t stem this tide of liberalism that’s destroying America. Liberals are a pest like termites. Millions of them. Each little bite contributes to the downfall of this great Nation. The only way we can rid ourselves of this evil is Kill them in the streets. Kill them where they gather"

Among the literature in his home, Michael Savage's Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder.  From another Savage book, Savage Nation, came this:

"To fight only the al-Qaeda scum is to miss the terrorist network operating within our own borders… Who are these traitors? Every rotten radical left-winger in this country, that’s who.”

Savage isn't alone in this level of violent talk. 

Here's Sean Hannity:

I’ll tell you who should be tortured and killed at Guantanamo: every filthy Democrat in the U.S. Congress.

Here's Rush Limbaugh:

Liberalism is the greatest threat this country faces.

I tell people don't kill all the liberals. Leave enough so we can have two on every campus -- living fossils -- so we will never forget what these people stood for.

Here's Ann Coulter:

We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too.

And here's Simple Jack:

I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I'm wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could.

Where are the similar quotes from the stars of the left?  These aren't random blog comments; these are highly compensated superstars of the right, highly advertised and supported through corporate dollars and outlets.  A 10 million dollar sexual harrassment lawsuit payoff here and a drug conviction there notwithstanding.

See, 'cause that's how this gets framed - that somehow "both sides" say extreme things, "both sides" have radical perspectives, that the hatred of Bush was expressed in ways similar to the hatred of Obama.

Where does Michael Moore threaten to kill Republicans?  There are lots of movies, plenty of interviews - where are the death threats?  Keith Olbermann did lots of passionate anti-Bush commentary, where's the clip where he said he should be assassinated?  Ann Coulter said "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building." in which of his books did Al Franken express a wish that Fox News would be blown up, its employees killed in the explosion?

There's a term for this sort of rhetoric - Eliminationism, where a democratic exhange of ideas is replaced by violent rhetoric designed to close the discussion of those ideas.  Where an "enemy within" is framed as evil, as needing to be eliminated.  Perhaps you recognize this in the tactics from the town hall debates - designed not to foster discussion - but to end it.  Guns brought as shows of force, of intimidation - implicitly saying shut this debate down, my guns are more important than your ballot box.

Conversation is needed in democracy; one should feel able to freely exchange ideas - once those ideas are threats that speech is no longer geared toward flourishing ideas but ending them.  Conservatives take cover under the first amendment while their words are geared toward ending discussion. 

And when the next shooting happens, I'll link to this post too.

The President, much praised though his speech was, is wrong.  We don't need a more civil tone in our political discussion.  We need conservatives to stop explicitly asking for Democrats to be killed.

9. Don't Worry, None of It Is Real Anyway.
People freaked out a little bit about losing their zodiac sign this week.  Sort of like if your pet rock died.

10. Your World Champion San Francisco Giants

You have to win 11 playoff games to win the World Series.  This was our third.

Young Madison Bumgarner beat the Braves on the road to give us the clincher.  They loaded the bases in the second, but Lowe flied out to right; that was a precursor to the third - they got 3 singles and scored Infante on a McCann sac fly.  With those two rough innings and our not getting even one hit things felt a little shakier than that 1-0 margin until Cody Ross homered to tie it in the 6th.  They got the lead back immediately with a McCann leadoff homer in the 6th.

Down 2-1 going to the 7th.  Following a Sanchez groundout...

Huff walked.
Posey singled to chase Lowe.  Moylan came on and got Uribe to hit to short - but Gonzalez's throw was bad,  everyone was safe, scoring Huff to tie the game - and an out later, Ross singled off Venters to score Posey and set us up for the short relief to knock them out.

Casilla got 3 up, 3 down in the 7th; then sandwiched a McCann single around two 8th inning outs; Lopez struck out Heyward to get us to the ninth.  Wilson walked two - but got Infante and Cabrera to strand the runners and send us to Philadelphia for Game One of the NLCS.

3 down.  8 to go.  That's all for this time.

I'll be back next time.  If there is a next time....

Your pal,

Jim