Rob Neyer examines the ranking of Derek Jeter among the greatest shortstops of all time. I’ll let you decide if Rob is right about Jeter or not, but I did want to highlight a side argument:
Strictly by the numbers, the only “modern” players who get any real attention are Mike Schmidt and Johnny Bench and Barry Bonds. Which seems strange, doesn’t it? That most of the greatest baseball players would have started their careers before World War II, more than 70 years ago?
And I bring this up without even considering the manifest nature of this contention: Baseball players today are generally a great deal more talented than their ancient forebears. I don’t believe that Honus Wagner could win a job in the majors leagues today. I’m not sure he could play in the Texas League.
But if we head down that rabbit hole, Babe Ruth‘s not a major leaguer. Ted Williams might not be. And our discussion becomes a lot less interesting, I think, if we’re restricted to players from the 1960s or ’70s and later.
So Honus Wagner gets to stay. And I will argue that his numbers are so much better than any other shortstop’s that he remains atop the class, even if he compiled those numbers roughly a century ago.
I would not go as far as saying those players wouldn’t be major leaguers today, but they would be less impressive. As the talent level increased, it becomes much more difficult to stand out head and shoulders above your peers.
In an example from my lifetime, let’s take the bare-handed pickup and throw by the third baseman. The first person I saw do that was Graig Nettles after he joined the Yankees, so it would have been around 1973 or 1974. He ran down the third base line after a slow roller or a bunt, picked up the ball and threw it in one motion to first base, diving through the air as he made the throw. I was amazed by the play. Nettles was among the elite defensive third basemen of his era, and that play was a reason why (I’m not saying that Nettles invented the play. He was just the first player I remember seeing execute it.)
Today, every third baseman makes that play. It still thrills fans, but it no longer belongs just to the elite fielders at the position. Something that was special 40 years ago now is an expected skill.
Gehrig and Ruth were big players. Now they would be average. Lou might have trouble making the all-star team with competition like Albert Pujols and Adrian Gonzalez and Prince Fielder.
The greatest players ever are playing right now, and that statement was probably true for the 43 years I’ve watched the game, and I believe it will continue to be true as long as the game lasts.
Absolutely great article! / Where would you rank Albert Pujols all time, and, why? Mike Schmidt?
Brooks Robinson made that barehanded play brilliantly, long before Nettles came around
But, if Lou Gehrig (and others from times past) had access to the same training knowledge and routines, diet, coaching, etc., how would they compare. It is impossible to know, that is why stats are the only comparison we have. It is just as correct to say that Prince Fielder would not have made the pre-Jackie Robinson ’25 Yankees. Statistics allow us to compare a player to his contemporaries. How that person compares to players in completely different circumstances is impossible to know.
“As the talent level increased, it becomes much more difficult to stand out head and shoulders above your peers.”
Definitely right. And in part, for a non-obvious reason.
One thing that’s happened since, say, the 1930s, is that the talent pool has grown much, much faster than the total number of MLB players. This means the ‘bottom’ has been cut off. So the top players simply won’t stand out nearly as starkly. (This was the late great Stephen Jay Gould’s argument, though of course he made it much more elegantly.)
Walt in Maryland » Cool. Brooks was also one of the best of that or any era. But who else was making that play then? Mike Schmidt probably.
That play was made long before Nettles. Since I grew up in the DC area, I saw Brooks make that play routinely and also, Senator third baseman, Ken McMullen, do the same thing in the 60s.
Arguments about PEDs aside, I disagree strongly with Neyer’s argument that ARod can’t be evaluated as an all time great shortstop just because the Cult of Jeter would have had a mass hissy fit if Jeter had been displaced to center field to let an overwhelmingly superior player take over his position. Even setting aside that obvious point, his production from 1994-2003 alone would have guaranteed him a spot in Cooperstown if a bus had run him over before he ever became a Yankee, and would probably have him listed #2 on most competently constructed lists of all time shortstops. The greatest shortstop of all time is either Wagner or ARod, depending on how much weight you put on the “different times” argument (which tends to ignore that a Wagner, Ruth, or Grove brought to modern times would have the advantages of modern developments like improved nutrition, arm surgery, and better gloves). As for size and weight–Willie Mays was 5’10”, 170 lbs in his prime, and Mickey Mantle was 5′ 11, 195 lbs, playing with far more big men than Ruth and Gehrig did. It didn’t seem to slow them down much.
I think looking at players across eras particularly from before the color TV era needs context.
There is the “time machine” comparison that Neyer seems to be using which assumes that players develop, practice, and train exactly as they did and jump in a time machine to play against every player at every time to determine who is best.
The “alternate reality” comparison assumes every player has the same training practices, medical technology, and level of competition since birth as players playing today (or any era.)
Would Babe Ruth have been able to catch up to a Verlander fastball if he hopped in a time machine from 1927? Would he be as legendary if his clone had been born in Southern California in 1977? There are probably two different answers and the distinction needs to be made when discussing such disparate eras.
Plank » Agreed.
None of them could play in the majors today. They’re all dead.