Watching ESPN's #MLBRANK at the local VFW with some of all3's many gay friends and they got Junior in front of DiMaggio (#14 and #15 respectively). Not sure about that. Especially since DiMaggio performed so well when injured. Thoughts on DiMaggio/Griff?

I would take DiMaggio and his 3 MVPs over Griffey. Griffey did play longer. Even if DiMaggio had played every game in the seasons he lost to military service he'd be a few hundred games behind Jr. So there's that. But based on peak performance, based on the numbers - which is really all I have to go on - I take DiMaggio. I was never blown away by Griffey, even when he was dominating. There were too many better outfield bats. Frankly, I'm not sure my all time rankings would have either of these guys in the top 25. Not really sure how ESPN came up with some of these rankings. Hornsby at 25? I'd take 24 and 25 Frank Robinson and Rogers Hornsby over 14 and 15 DiMaggio and Griffey any day...

Heck, I might take 34 and 35 Josh Gibson and Tom Seaver over 14 and 15...

It's Hornsby who just might be baseballs greatest hitter - at least at his peak, but he wasn't a great fielder or hitter. For DiMaggio, he was a good athlete but not a great one. Griff was. What impresses me is that all of the great baseball minds of baseball who saw him play said he always took the best route to the ball. And though he didn't have a Dave Parker arm they said he got rid of the ball quickly and never missed a cutoff man. He was a fantastic hitter who rarely struck out. And he played hurt much of his career. The guy was a top 10 player in my eyes.

I don't give bonus points to DiMaggio or Mantle for being hurt a lot. I give a little bonus to DiMaggio for giving up prime years for military service; same with Ted Williams and a few other guys, and also to Lou Gehrig for losing a few years not far past his prime through no fault of his own. But standard injuries are part of the game. Mantle does still make my top 10. DiMaggio doesn't threaten it.

I've also never bought into Mays at #2, but a lot of people who watched him play do, so that probably means something. I just don't see how you can put Mays ahead of Williams and Ty Cobb, or Walter Johnson and Lefty Grove (who ESPN ranked ridiculously low).

I'm still ****** they got Pedro at 11. And the rank your own article had Pedro have more dislikes than likes. Pedro was a little before my time, was he a dislikable person? I pointed out that Pedro had the best 8-9 year stretch in baseball history, and did it in the middle of the steroid era. But they're too busy saying Bob Gibson is better...

How is Pedro at 11 wrong? You think that's too low?

Inning for inning, Pedro is the greatest starting pitcher in the history of Major League baseball. Almost no competition for that. But he threw under 3000 innings in his career. Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens, and Greg Maddux all pitched at around the same time, weren't all that far behind in talent, and threw far more innings. I think 11 for Pedro is fine, if anything it's a little bit high. I think if I made my own top 100 he'd be more like 16 or 17.

But they have the 2nd-greatest pitcher of all time at 48, only 2 spots ahead of Nolan Ryan. Which is utterly absurd.

Posted by dahsdebater on 7/22/2016 11:19:00 PM (view original):
I don't give bonus points to DiMaggio or Mantle for being hurt a lot. I give a little bonus to DiMaggio for giving up prime years for military service; same with Ted Williams and a few other guys, and also to Lou Gehrig for losing a few years not far past his prime through no fault of his own. But standard injuries are part of the game. Mantle does still make my top 10. DiMaggio doesn't threaten it.

I've also never bought into Mays at #2, but a lot of people who watched him play do, so that probably means something. I just don't see how you can put Mays ahead of Williams and Ty Cobb, or Walter Johnson and Lefty Grove (who ESPN ranked ridiculously low).

I give bonus points for them playing hurt AND performing. DiMaggio was more than his stats. DiMaggio finished top 10 in MVP voting almost every season of his career. A career that had Gehrig and Greenberg at the beginning and Stan Musial and Mickey Mantle towards the end. And you had Ted Williams most of the way. It was DiMaggio that was considered the best player in baseball.

Wanna go by stats only, perhaps not. Wanna go by stats... and recognition... and championships? Not even close.

If DiMaggio isn't a top 10 player for you, and isn't close, the list must be pretty far off.

Posted by dahsdebater on 7/23/2016 3:54:00 AM (view original):
How is Pedro at 11 wrong? You think that's too low?

Inning for inning, Pedro is the greatest starting pitcher in the history of Major League baseball. Almost no competition for that. But he threw under 3000 innings in his career. Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens, and Greg Maddux all pitched at around the same time, weren't all that far behind in talent, and threw far more innings. I think 11 for Pedro is fine, if anything it's a little bit high. I think if I made my own top 100 he'd be more like 16 or 17.

But they have the 2nd-greatest pitcher of all time at 48, only 2 spots ahead of Nolan Ryan. Which is utterly absurd.

Pedro was very good. Pedro was not the greatest pitcher ever. Lefty Grove was.

You mean 2nd greatest? Because that's exactly what I said. The ESPN list has Lefty Grove at 48. Which is absurd.

If you mean per inning, then I'd still take Pedro, but I wouldn't fight with you over it. They were both elite at the 2 times in baseball history when the rest of the pitchers were struggling the most.

And if you meant generally greatest pitcher ever, I think pretty much everybody gives that title to Walter Johnson.

It's probably fairly close. In fact if you take the first 4-5 they are probably all very close.

Posted by dahsdebater on 7/23/2016 3:54:00 AM (view original):
How is Pedro at 11 wrong? You think that's too low?

Inning for inning, Pedro is the greatest starting pitcher in the history of Major League baseball. Almost no competition for that. But he threw under 3000 innings in his career. Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens, and Greg Maddux all pitched at around the same time, weren't all that far behind in talent, and threw far more innings. I think 11 for Pedro is fine, if anything it's a little bit high. I think if I made my own top 100 he'd be more like 16 or 17.

But they have the 2nd-greatest pitcher of all time at 48, only 2 spots ahead of Nolan Ryan. Which is utterly absurd.

Wait hold on. Nolan Ryan isn't even a top 20 pitcher. And he's at 50? Wtf is wrong with ESPN!

The case for Nolan Ryan is complicated.

You know, one thing we talked about a little while ago (don't really remember who was involved in the discussion) is that I don't really think ERA+, in spite of being league-normalized, is really an era-independent stat. The reason for this is that there just isn't as much room for the most elite pitchers to improve in low-scoring eras as there is for average and below-average arms. At some point, your handful of mistakes will cause a few runs to be allowed at any time. It's hard for anyone's ERA to ever really approach 0 over a substantial sample size.

Consider this: Pedro's ERA over the 7-season period from 1997 to 2003 was 2.20, good for an ERA+ of 213. This is likely the best 7-year pitching stretch in history, I don't debate that. What I might debate is the extent to which it's the best. A league-average pitcher during those years had an ERA of a little over 4.4. Let's compare this to Sandy Koufax's 5-year stretch from 1962-1966. During this stretch he had a 1.95 ERA and a 167 ERA+. An average pitcher in this era had an ERA of around 3.5. An average pitcher normalized into pitching home games in Dodger Stadium had an ERA around 3.3. In order to put up the same ERA+ during that time period, Pedro would have had to maintain an ERA in the neighborhood of 1.5. Put him in 1968 and he's have to be a little bit better than that.

Do I think Pedro could put up a season ERA better than 1.5 in the mid-60s? Sure, lots of people did. But I have significant doubts as to whether any pitcher who ever lived could have maintained an ERA around 1.5 for 7 years from 1962-1968. Maybe Pedro would have been better than Koufax or Bob Gibson. I'll give him credit for that. But that much better? Knock almost 25% off Koufax's 5-year ERA when everybody at the time thought Koufax was the greatest thing they'd ever seen? I doubt it. I just don't think it's reasonable for people to consistently put up ERA+ numbers of 180 and above in eras with league ERAs in the 3s. This is what makes Walter Johnson so impressive, and it's what makes me question the size of the gap between guys like Pedro, Clemens, and Grove and guys like Gibson, Seaver, or Feller. I mean, do we really believe the gap between an average pitcher and Pedro or Grove is over twice as big as the gap between an average pitcher and Feller or Spahn?

Good points.

Comparing eras is extremely difficult. So lets ask this question -

Did Lefty Grove face better across the board talent in 1930, than Pedro faced in 1999? The assumption is if they were close statistically, then if one faced better overall players day in and day out, one would be better right?

Some things to consider. Up until at least the 1950's baseball was out and out king. Baseball was the most widely played sport in America. The best athletes played baseball with few exceptions. It took a lot to get to the BLs. Scouting was extensive. Its safe to say that the players at the MLB level were the best players in the world.... Well, no. Because blacks were kept out, you - didn't have the best athletes and players in baseball. But there were also less spots. 400 players from 1907 or 08 til 1961. 750 in 1999. You also had less than half of the 1999 population in 1930. So did Lefty Grove face better overall players in 1930? Well, most players probably played more baseball by the time they got to the majors back then. Fundamentals such as hitting the cutoff man and taking an extra base were - probably - more important back then. There were no guaranteed contracts so players - may - have played harder game in and game out back then. So perhaps Pedro pitching in 1930 would have would have faced better lineups day in and day out.

Well, maybe not. Men in 1999 were physically bigger than they were back then. Putting hitting fundamentals aside, it may be safe to assume that the players Grove pitched against were simply not as big or had the across the board bat speed as players today. By all accounts, Grove's fastball in 1930 was the fastest and had the most movement of any pitcher. He had superior command of it. If Grove's fastball was even close to Pedro's 96/97 MPH heater, I'm sure he was extremely difficult to hit. Plus, players in 1999 were probably more used to facing mid/high 90's fastballs than in 1930. Of course a lot of those mid/high 90's fastballs weren't always in the strikezone either.

I could probably keep doing comparisons, but I think its just prohibitively hard to compare something like this. So I agree.