The Problem

The greatest baseball player of all time is Barry Bonds. However, I'd imagine that doesn't satisfy all too many MLB fans. Not only is he the face of the steroid era, but he was old and not very happy when he was playing. So, I've taken it upon myself to find a worthy replacement.

The Method to My Madness

Okay, so how am I going to do this? I'll start with broad filters to gather a large pool of candidates, then narrow them down using my own criteria. For transparency, I must admit I have a strong opinion: I believe Mike Trout is the greatest baseball player of all time. Despite this, I'll do my best to consider other options.

I’ve always been a peak over longevity guy—don’t worry I’ll reward counting stats later, so I’ve chosen three ways to select a peak. Their single best season, their best three year stretch, and their best five year stretch. Are these parameters totally arbitrary? Yes, but that’s the whole point of this exercise.

So who are the strongest candidates here? On the batters side, Mike Trout, Alex Rodriguez, Albert Pujols, and Aaron Judge are the strongest candidates, and locks to advance to the next round. Miguel Cabrera is a player who I believe to be undervalued here, so I’m gonna push him on myself—but we’ll explore that later. Buster Posey and Chase Utley have fantastic showings in the longer time horizons, due to their positional adjustments and incredible defense. Andrew McCutchen is a forgotten superstar, his prime three and five year stretches are better than Mookie’s! Mookie in general also seems undervalued here, and his high rank in his one year peak is worthy of advancement by itself. David Ortiz is unjustly punished by his status as a designated hitter—but we’ll get back to that. Finally, Joey Votto popping in at 15 with such a brutal positional adjustment is heartwarming. Players Moving On (so far): Mike Trout, Alex Rodriguez, Aaron Judge, and Mookie Betts.

For the pitchers, Randy Johnson, Clayton Kershaw, and Pedro Martinez are locks to move on. Kershaw doesn’t have a single season as dominant as the Hall of Famers, but his consistency across longer stretches is only bested by them. DeGrom and Sale are underrated because of their injury history, they’re never gonna look good here. Verlander and Scherzer are probably not high enough later, but we’ll get to them later. Players Moving On: Randy Johnson, Clayton Kershaw, and Pedro Martinez.

Not for a lack of options, but it seems like a few guys are missing here. I don’t love single season WAR, so I want to look at a few rate-based statistics, wRC+ and FIP for batters and pitchers respectively.

You see why it just wouldn’t be fun to ask this question and include Bonds? This gives us a few more options in both categories. Cabrera, DeGrom, and Sale really excel in these adjusted, rate-based stats, enough so that I think I can add them solidly to the moving on category. He’s gone unnoticed so far, but there’s finally a concrete reason to advance Shohei. He appears in both lists, which is just a self-explanatory justification. Players Moving On: Miguel Cabrera, Jacob Degrom, Shohei Ohtani, and Chris Sale.

I like the look of the list so far, but I just wonder about three names who could be added: Juan Soto, Max Scherzer, and Justin Verlander. This past offseason, Soto signed the richest deal in MLB history, which I think is reason enough to advance him. Given that neither Verlander nor Scherzer is top five in any of the displayed stats, they need something else. Their strength is cumulative stats, so let’s take a look at the triple crown stats the past 25 years.

Scherzer and Verlander sitting atop the strikeouts, in addition to individual accolades means they’re clearly deserving of advancing as well. I would love to add Ortiz here, but I just can’t do it knowing he’d be instantly cut the next round. Players advancing: Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander

The Candidates

Now these names have been agreed upon, we need to discuss how to evaluate them. I’m not a fan of trying to resolve these things by contrived scoring systems, it just seems like a crutch to rest my argument on. Instead, I’m going to go through the not-at-all tedious process of cutting players one at a time.

Peak, Projection, and Longevity

Anyone who’s ever argued a GOAT debate, in any sport, is familiar with the issues of trying to evaluate careers. I called this the best player not the greatest for a reason, because I’m firmly in the camp of not particularly caring about awards and playoffs results, at least when it comes to baseball. I’m also in the camp of peak mattering more than longevity. In my opinion, it’s an exercise of if you were building a time and wanted to select a player to build around, who would you want more, and this is just obviously more interesting if you’re discussing their best seasons rather than their worst. On the other hand, sustaining a peak for multiple seasons and

Good, but just not Good Enough

Chris Sale

Mookie Betts

Juan Soto

Counting Stats, but no GOAT level dominance

Justin Verlander

Max Scherzer

Sluggers who could’ve ended their career better

Miguel Cabrera

Albert Pujols

Too many missed games, either injury or to another decade

Pedro Martinez

1998 1999 also insanely good

Randy Johnson

only got second half

Jacob DeGrom

would be best pitcher ever

The modern MVP candidates

baseball best its ever been and these guys dominate it

lack of playoff success

Clayton Kershaw

deserves to be here solely as the best pitcher of his generation

Aaron Judge

best non bonds pure hitter

Shohei Ohtani

done something we’ve never seen before

Mike Trout

was on goat pace

Who's the greatest MLB player of the century?