Who is the Greatest Player of All Time

[Ramp]

also, while stadiums like the Polo Grounds had a ridiculous 483 to dead center, they also had just 279 and 258 down the lines

[Fish Tank Frenzy]

Me and my buddy were talking about this earlier today kinda funny this came up here. We said Babe Ruth is the greatest ever then we said what about players we saw play and we both agreed its Bonds hands down.

How about greatest pitcher ever? Best overall career not including Cy Young and if you had to pick one pitcher to win a game?

I said greatest overall is Nolan Ryan and if I had to pick one pitcher for one game it would be Pedro Martinez in his prime.

[Chewford]

Ruth was stupid good. He was an ridiculously outstanding pitcher and then became the best hitter in the game, and it wasn't even close. I mean, when Ruth started playing, the career record for homeruns was 138. He hit 714.

[emkayseven]

Babe Ruth, for reasons already stated. He was head and shoulders above his competition.

#2 is Hank Aaron and it's a shame he doesn't ever get more respect in these sorts of conversations. The man owned two thirds of a lifetime triple crown till Bonds came around, and I know those are counting stats, but there is something to be said about playing at such a high level for so incredibly long.

Mays, Williams and Bonds round out my top 5. Mantle and Clemens are just outside looking in. Yes, Roger Clemens. Cobb, Honus Wagner, Musial and the previous two round out my top 10.

If I go to top 15, it's Rickey Henderson, Tris Speaker, Alex Rodriguez, Lou Gehrig, and then like a 40 way tie for the 15th slot. I don't know, this stuff is hard.

[Namaste]

Ruth has the best WAR, correct?

I'm sorta cool with that but did they factor era into that?

Of the 9 HOF pitchers in Ruth's era, 4 of them were on Ruth's team.

[DColts]

We should do a greatest players by position poll.

[Namaste]

We should do a greatest players by position poll.

But not in this thread.

[CrimsonCane]

My vote goes to Ted Williams. I will have a more well-reasoned response in the next few days.

[Namaste]

Yeah, I've been to busy to really get into this. Maybe later on tonight.

[Ramp]

I wait with baited breath. baited. (or is it bated?) either way, my breath is b-ted

[Namaste]

I was wrong about Mays. He's absolutely top 5 ever but not the greatest.

It's Williams or Bonds.

What stats are out there that show how much better Bonds was defensively than Williams?
And base running too. How do we quantify it?


Williams has a pretty substantial OPS advantage.

[Ice]

Latroy Hawkins.

[Branch]

I'm with CC, it's Ted Williams. He may not have the highest career numbers in every category but when you sacrifice some of the prime years of your career that's to be expected. There's never been anyone like him since.

/slight homer

[Bobbob1313]

I'm with CC, it's Ted Williams. He may not have the highest career numbers in every category but when you sacrifice some of the prime years of your career that's to be expected. There's never been anyone like him since.

The "losing the prime years" thing only really affects the counting statistics, though. Maybe his rates would be better (due to more weight being given to elite years as opposed to decline years), but it likely wouldn't made a gigantic difference. I could be wrong.

Noticed something interesting when comparing Bonds and WIlliams by era.

League BA during careers
Williams: .277
Bonds: .263

Leagues OBP
Williams: .356
Bonds: .333

Leagues SLUG
Williams: .409
Bonds: .410

Almost identical slugging percentages for their leagues, with much lower OBP for Bonds'.

Not really making a point, just a discrepancy I thought was interesting.

League OBP was above .360 six times in Williams' career. Highest it ever was in Bonds' was .344.
--------------------
When you compare them to the leagues they played in, the seemingly gigantic gap in William's OBP lead is much slimmer.

Williams' OBP was 1.35x higher than the league for his career.
Bonds' was 1.33x higher than the league for his career.

As for power:

Williams' ISO was 2.19x higher than the league average.
Bonds' ISO was 2.10x higher than the league average.

And then there's good old OPS+, which has Williams at 190 and Bonds at 182.

Really close between the two of them, across the board. Biggest gap is due to BA. But Bonds almost dominated his era as an offensive player to as great an extent as Williams.

Williams was almost certainly the best hitter of all time. But I'm not sure the gap is so huge between him and Bonds that I'm willing to overlook defense and baserunner, where Bonds is the clear winner.

[Erick]

This is probably ignorant but the competition Babe Ruth played against seems rather laughable.

His best K/9 in a season was 4.7 (talking about him as a pitcher) and he basically had a dominant career as a pitcher.

Looking at his stats is pretty funny.

He had 488 strikeouts and 441 walks as a pitcher in his career. If a pitcher does that now, he does not survive.

Gave up 10 HR's in 1,221 innings. That would never happen today.

This question is tough because it's tough to compare players from different era's. Those type of #'s make me question his era, though.


My answer is Barry Bonds.