Top 10 poll #11: #11 player in history - Runoff

[MilkSpiller22]

Last call. This poll closes in about 6 hours.

well, this wasnt close at all...

we would need either 2 Hornsby voters to change their vote or at least 4 more voters vote for someone other than Hornsby...

i know you wont, but we can call this one early...

 

[chappee11]

I've briefly mentioned Kid Nichols, Lefty Grove and Grover Alexander. I think they all are in the Top 25. Mike Trout, I've come to be convinced, is Top 20. I have mentioned that Roger Clemens is going to start to get one of my three votes after either Young or Hornsby get voted in. Mel Ott, as you mentioned, I'd put above Henderson. Here are the names I'd put, not necessarily in this order, of the remaining Top 25:
Cy Young
Tris Speaker
Roger Clemens
Honus Wagner
Mike Trout
Grover Alexander
Christy Matthewson
Lefty Grove
Mike Schmidt
Eddie Collins
Alex Rodriguez
Mel Ott
Kid Nichols
Frank Robinson

Ohtani not in your top 25? None of Maddux/Randy/Pedro, either? This list seems to overrepresent guys from an era when they had to use the same baseball for the entire game.

 

[LHG]

Ohtani not in your top 25? None of Maddux/Randy/Pedro, either? This list seems to overrepresent guys from an era when they had to use the same baseball for the entire game.

Yes, 9 of the names on here are pre WWII. I have Johnson, Martinez and Maddux about 10 spots later, although I'd be okay with any (all) of them landing toward the end of the 25. You could easily sub them out for Ott, Nichols and Robinson and I'd be okay with it but I do think that they are a little further down.

I do think recency bias is really creeping into our considerations at this point in time. We are getting tired of seeing names we don't know much about and we have guys we know dominated because we saw them with our own eyes. We've been told that the game was different way back when and have been conditioned to then discredit most of the accomplishments from that time period (Babe Ruth being the exception). I think that there is real merit to look at what they did accomplish in their time period and not diminish their accomplishments.

By the way, three of the pitchers I listed (Grove, Alexander and Matthewson) were from different time periods. Matthewson pitched from 1900 to 1916, Alexander from 1911 to 1930 and Grove from 1925 to 1941. There is some overlap from one to the other, but most were dominant when the others were not playing. Grove, in particular, should be seriously considered among the best. His had an ERA+ of 148. Among pitchers who threw at least 1750 IP in the big leagues, only Clayton Kershaw, Pedro Martinez and Satchel Paige posted better. None were by much (Kershaw - 154, Martinez - 154, Paige - 150).

As far as Ohtani is concerned, his career is still too young for me to seriously consider him at any point soon. He is likely top 50 to 75 but I'm not going to rank anyone Top 50 if they haven't played at least 10 years in the big leagues. The career just seems too short and no stats would put him as one of the best all time. We shorten the considerations to guys who've played 5 to 10 years in the big leagues and there are a whole lot of names to consider. There were guys who were really good at short bursts but who fizzled out due to injury that would never sniff this list because of that.