Baseball's Elite Eight

PED use aside, Bonds (left) and A-Rod are two of the greatest living ballplayers (NYPost)

So MLB.com is letting fans determine the four greatest living players in baseball history (a title Joe DiMaggio proudly but wrongly held from 1969 until his death in 1999). Only not really, because voters are selecting from a ballot of eight candidates, several of whom shouldn't be there. Several writers, Joe Posnanski chief among them, have already pointed out the lunacy of Sandy Koufax's inclusion, and by extension Pedro Martinez (who was a lot like Koufax, only with better developmental seasons and a handful of years tacked on at the end of his career). Johnny Bench seems to be an odd choice as well, and I probably wouldn't have given Tom Seaver much thought.

If I were in charge of creating the ballot, these are the eight guys I'd put on there:

Barry Bonds
Nobody had a career anything close to the one that Bobby Bonds's son did, which is why the most similar batter to him has a similarity score of only 761 (fun fact: it's his godfather). He leads the world in home runs and walks, has more MVPs than anybody, stole 514 bases, and was the best (or nearly so) defensive left fielder of all-time. 2000-2004 Bonds was the closest anyone has come to dominating the game like Babe Ruth since, well, Babe Ruth.

Roger Clemens
The pitching equivalent of Bonds is, in all likelihood, the best pitcher to ever grace this earth (check back with us in 15 years, Clayton Kershaw).  The crazy thing about Clemens is how he was so good for so long. He won his first Cy Young award and was named MVP in 1986 at age 23; He won his seventh and final Cy Young in 2004 at 41, was the major league ERA champion the next year, and had a 2.30 ERA (194 ERA+) the year after that.

Hank Aaron
Aaron may have ceded his title as the Home Run King to Bonds, but he's still number one all-time in RBI, total bases, and extra base hits. What blows my mind about Aaron is that he was so good for so long, drawing MVP votes every year from 1955 through 1973, but came away with only one MVP award. He finished third six times, but for some reason I'm just really surprised by that, especially since he kept raking even as offense disappeared in the 1960s.

Willie Mays
At his best, Mays was the best all-around ballplayer there ever was. He had 50-homer power, 40-steal speed, was a threat to win a batting title, and played center field better than anyone not named Andruw Jones. It's scary to think what he could have accomplished had he not lost two full seasons to military service and played in one of the worst possible offensive environments (Candlestick Park in the '60s) imaginable.

Randy Johnson
The Big Unit also had a Koufax-esque run for the ages in the late '90s/early '00s, earning four straight Cys and five in all. The nine-time strikeout champion punched up more K's than everyone besides Nolan Ryan, won over 300 games, and staked his claim as the best southpaw to ever take the bump (apologies to Koufax, Kershaw, and Lefty Grove).

Greg Maddux
Mad Dog matched the peak of Koufax (four consecutive Cys, 2.15 ERA over a seven-year stretch) while remaining healthy and durable enough to complete more than 5,000 innings. Think about it--that's averaging 250 innings per year for 20 years. Nobody today, not even of Mark Buehrle, is capable of that.

Rickey Henderson
Henderson may not have the as great as he thought/proclaimed he was, but he was still pretty damn good. Man of Steal stole more bases and scored more runs than anybody in baseball history, reached base over 5,200 times, swatted nearly 300 home runs, and swiped 100 bags or more in a season three times. Henderson, who maintained a .401 OBP over 25 seasons and 13,346 plate appearances, was also exceptional into old age, leading the league in walks and steals at 39 and batting .315/.423/.466 at 40.

Alex Rodriguez
If nothing else, Rodriguez is reminding us this year of the incredibly gifted player once considered the best all-around talent in baseball. From his Mike Trout-esque beginnings in Seattle to his towering seasons in Texas to his continued dominance in New York, Rodriguez has been a force in major league baseball for two decades now. He's done some incredible things along the way, like win five home run crowns and three MVP awards while playing top-shelf defense and stealing hundreds of bases. The sad thing is that he probably still could have done all those things without PEDs.

Of these eight, I'd vote for Bonds, Aaron, Mays, and Clemens. If the ballot could have stretched to 10 I would have included Mike Schmidt and probably Seaver, with Frank Robinson just missing the cut.

Maddux Musings

Ten thoughts on the recently inducted and much-deserving Hall of Famer Greg Maddux:

1. Maddux pitched for many great teams in Atlanta and won a ton of games--355 of them--so it's rather surprising that a) he never won more than 20 games in a season and b) he enjoyed only two 20 win seasons. Maddux managed five with 19 and two others with 18.

2. I think the most impressive part of Maddux's track record is his durability. From his second season in 1987 through his final season in 2008, he started at least 25 games every year. He topped 200 innings every year from 1988 through 2001, including the strike years of 1994-95, and missed extending that streak by two outs in 2002. He went on to compile four more 200 inning seasons consecutively and 18 in all, the last of which came at age 40. Even at 41 (198 innings) and 42 (194 in his final season) he remained indestructible. That longevity is a testament to his control and efficiency as much as it is his ability to stay healthy. He threw more than 5,000 innings in his career which, if you think about it, requires 25 seasons with 200 innings or 20 of 250. Seeing as how Maddux pitched 23 seasons, the first of which yielded only five starts and two of which were shortened by strikes, he essentially did the latter.

3. I'm really surprised that Maddux "only" won four ERA titles. You look at some of his ERA numbers and think about the context, and it's hard to see how he didn't win with a 2.18 in 1992, or a 2.72 in 1997, or a 2.20 the year after, or a 2.62 in 2002.

4. It blows my mind that Maddux maintained a 3.16 career ERA considering that he started out with a 5.59 ERA through his first two seasons and finished up with 4.13 ERA. He pitched more than 1,400 innings, almost 30 percent of his career total, that weren't very good, but still managed a 3.16 ERA. In the 15 years in between (1988-2002) it was 2.68. His worst ERA during that span was his 3.57 in 1999, a year that saw two players eclipse 60 homers.

5. Maddux often helped his own cause with his terrific defense, which won him 18 Gold Gloves--the most at any position ever.

6. Even as he got older, Maddux never got hurt and never deteriorated into a poor pitcher. While his ERA was over 3.95 in each of his last six seasons, it was still four percent better than average and helped him add 13.5 bWAR to his career total. He still had the league's lowest walk rate in four of those seasons as well, which helped him remain effective even as his velocity declined and he became more hittable

7. What really blows me away about Maddux is that he only had one season where he struck out 200 batters, and even then he just barely did so (204 in 1998).

8. At his peak Maddux was unreal. From 1992 through 1998, when Maddux compiled 54.6 of his 104.6 career bWAR, he had an ERA below 2.40 in six out of seven (and in the year he missed it was 2.72) while averaging 239 innings per year. In four of those years his WHIP was under 1.00, and it stood at 0.97 for the full seven. His K/BB ratio was 4.78. It was like Pedro Martinez's run a few years later, and if Maddux had retired at the end of it he'd be the modern-day Sandy Koufax, only better.

9. Maddux was phenomenal at limiting the long ball. In the seven years I just mentioned, he allowed 66 home runs. Total. That works out to be less than 10 per year, obviously, and while the steroid era was fully underway. In 1994 he was taken deep four times. Four! And the next year, only eight. Two years later--nine. The best collection of power hitters baseball's ever seen, jacked up on Lord knows what, couldn't do much damage against Maddux at his best.

10. Maddux hold the major league record for most seasons leading the league in games started (7) and most inside the top 10 in wins (18).

Three Down, Many More to Go

Yesterday a trio of all-time greats--Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and Frank Thomas--were voted into the baseball Hall of Fame. They will be officially inducted on July 27th alongside Bobby Cox, Joe Torre and Tony LaRussa, the three unanimous selections from the Expansion Era ballot. Congratulations to all of them for receiving such a well-deserved honor.

But let's not give the BBWAA too much credit. Maddux, Glavine, and Thomas were all slam-dunks (as were the three skippers), and a failure to vote them in would have been incredibly shortsighted. Consider, though, that this Hall of Fame still has yet to induct:

• Barry Bonds--baseball's all-time home run and walks leader, as well as the only player with seven MVP awards (nobody else has more than three)
• Roger Clemens--the only pitcher with seven Cy Young awards (nobody else has more than five) also won seven ERA titles, 354 games and an MVP award
• Craig Biggio--3,060 hits and more doubles (668) than any righthanded hitter in history
• Mike Piazza--the best hitting catcher of all-time
• Jeff Bagwell--a better all-around player than Thomas and only first baseman with more than 400 home runs and 200 steals. Has the fourth highest JAWs score of any first baseman to debut after 1880
• Edgar Martinez--the sport's best DH in the position's 40-year existence as well as one of its best pure hitters with 514 doubles and a .312/.418/.515 career batting line
• Tim Raines--the best percentage basestealer in the sport's history swiped 808 bags with an 84.7 percent success rate and reached base more times than Tony Gwynn
• Mark McGwire--prolific slugger went yard 583 times in his career, broke Roger Maris's single season home run record and owns the best AB/HR ratio of all-time
• Sammy Sosa--609 home runs and the only player to top 60 in three seasons
• Rafael Palmerio--one of only four men with at least 3,000 hits and 500 home runs (the others are Willie Mays, Hank Aaron and Eddie Murray)
• Jeff Kent--MVP with more long balls than any second baseman
• Fred McGriff--one of just ten players to retire with an OPS over .886 in more than 10,000 plate appearances
• Larry Walker--MVP with seven Gold Gloves and .313/.400/.565 career batting line
• Alan Trammell--almost identical to Barry Larkin
• Curt Schilling--best postseason pitcher in history with the best career K/BB ratio since 1900
• Mike Mussina--one of baseball's 25 most valuable pitchers per bWAR

Not to mention...

• Pete Rose--baseball's all-time hit king with 4,256 base knocks
• Shoeless Joe Jackson--Deadball era legend has the third highest batting average (.356) and eighth-highest adjusted OPS (170) of all-time
• Ted Simmons--top ten catcher (per JAWs) who ranks second among backstops in hits, doubles, and RBI 

Make no mistake: the system is still broken, and there is much work to be done.