A LONG Exercise in Futility...

Why do they do this to me, seriously, why? In the most recent* issue of Sports Illustrated, Tom Verducci and the SI’s baseball writers tackled the intrinsically unanswerable topic of baseball’s all time all star team. I got the magazine out of my mail box just before midnight after a night spent looking at posed dead people, celebrating October Fest, and enjoying the flavored tobacco of Vancouver’s finest sheesha bar; it’s a long story, but a long story for another day, because it’s neither here nor there. All I wanted was my soft pillow and warm bed, but as I flipped through my mail, there it was. I mean just look at the cover. The vibrancy of each player, sitting in the dugout: Willie Mays laughing hysterically, Hank Aaron perched, bat in hand ready to strike, Ted Williams and Ty Cobb engaged in a deep conversation (probably about hitting), Mickey Mantle looking wild eyed and happy to be there. The actual article shows the other half of the dugout: Joe DiMaggio staring quiet and intense; a baby faced Roger Clemens gripping the ball, ready to blow a fastball past somebody’s chin; Yogi Berra and Mariano Rivera on the edge of the dugout, exuding confidence. It’s a great photo illustration constructed by Aaron Goodman and the short article (an extract from their soon to be released “The Baseball Book”) had my blood flowing. There was no early bed time for me. I spent hours looking at their guys, pouring over baseball prospectus, and agonizing over this greatest of baseball arguments. Honestly, how could I not. Arguing and debating the merits of a best team is exactly what this man finds to be a romantic notion. Is it irrelevant? Of course, I mean who really cares whether Warren Spahn or Randy Johnson was the more dominant lefty, honestly, who? Besides of course… me. I care, I care so much that it consumes my thoughts. It’s all I can think of. My poor girlfriend is busy talking to me about the cancerous child she spent all day working with and as she talks, all I can hear is, “yes, Aaron is the all time home run leader and yes, he deserves ample credit for breaking that record in an age when a man of color passing a white man atop baseball’s hallowed record was unfathomable to far, far too many white baseball “fans,” but he only won a single MVP award, never hit more than 47 Home runs in a single season, and never had an OPS above 1.079, which isn’t even among the top 100 single seasons ever. Great, obviously. Hall of Famer, of course, but among the five best outfielders… not quite.” Even though her lips didn’t seem to mimic the words I was hearing, and even though I’m pretty sure she stopped speaking around when I heard “MVP award” and spent the rest of the time talking closed mouth and angry, it’s what I hear. The only way to stop the madness, the only way to become a functioning human being again is to succumb to the urge, to spend twenty hours on baseball-reference, looking at the all time leaders in OBP, OPS+, who won MVPs, or Gold Gloves. Yes, it is a ridiculous effort in futility and of course there are no right answer, but here’s my own team. Oh and for the record, while there is no right answer, this is the right answer:

Sports Illustrated broke their team down with only nine pitchers, which is representative of the number that teams used to carry. I generally prefer to go with a modern 14-11 split. This is really all academic, so I’ll split the difference and go with 10 pitchers. That leaves two catchers, 7 infielders, and 6 outfielders. Of their nine pitchers, they had seven starters, which again is indicative of baseball history, where mostly anyone who pitched for you was a starter. Now the game has become quite specialized, but still a reliever has to be extra special to warrant inclusion over a starter.

Finally the biggest complication is Negro league players. Traditionally they are excluded from lists of this type because they “didn’t play against the best players,” of course that same argument could be made of Ruth, Gherig, and Cy Young. In fact if you look at how black players dominated the game from the mid fifties --- when integration was largely complete --- until the late eighties (at which point their numbers started to dwindle and Hispanic players emerged enforce), you could say that it’s the white players whose stats should be devalued for not having played against the best. Still, stats is the key word here. While I know that in 1913 a 25 year old Walter Johnson went 36-7, with a 1.14 ERA in 346 innings pitched. I know that he had a 0.78 whip and a 259 ERA+, heck I even know that he threw 3 wild pitches. Getting reliable statistics for the Negro League is far less certain. I really wanted to include Josh Gibson, but I have no clear idea of how good he was. I know he pounded home runs, perhaps more than 900, but what size were the parks, how did he field, was he adept at getting on base? Perhaps if I were more imaginative I could comfortably put him on the team, but, apparently, I’m not. So, more than being baseball’s all time all star team, this is Major League Baseball’s all time cosmic team.

C – If you exclude Josh Gibson, which in a fit of weakness I did, then the greatest hitting catcher is Mike Piazza. He leads the pack and by a good margin, of course my grandma makes a stronger throw to second. Ivan Rodriguez and Johnny Bench are the fielding bench marks and Yogi Berra set the “leadership” standard. Catching is inherently about leadership and defense, so despite his 400 home runs from the position, Piazza falls short. Like SI, I like Berra and Bench. Nobody has won more than Berra’s 10 World Series titles, and yes, obviously he played for the Yankees, but he bridged the team from the Joe DiMaggio era to the Mickey Mantle era and was a Mark Messier type leader. The stat-Jason is shouting on my one shoulder that leadership is overrated, and while I’m inclined to agree with him I think there’s a roster spot for Berra on this team. Bench is the best combination of hitting and defense, not quite as good at the one as Piazza and arguably not quite as good at the other as Rodriguez, but he won 10 gold gloves, an MVP award and had a 126 OPS+, by contrast, Piazza has a 145 OPS+, but couldn’t get a gold glove if it were running from first to second (he’d try and knock it out with a well placed throw, which would bounce as it passed the mound and roll pleasantly past the laughing gold glove). Rodriguez has won 12 gold gloves, but with a 113 OPS+.

Looking Forward: Joe Mauer – He really could be the starting catcher on this team in fifteen years, he’s that good.

1B – Strong sluggers abound at the position, but nobody has come close to the standard that Lou Gehrig set over 60 years ago. Lost in the glorification of Babe Ruth was how great Gherig really was. His story was always tied to Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and his famous retirement address, but the recent reclamation of old stats has brought Gehrig to the forefront again, for more than his disease, for his greatness.

Obviously you need a slugger for the bench and Jimmie Foxx is the best slugger not to be starting. Frank Thomas was very good, as was Mark McGuire, but both lost a number of years to injuries and neither had a season as great as Foxx’s in 1932 when he posted a .364, .469, .749 batting line.

Looking Forward: Albert Pujols – I’m not certain that Phat Al will post numbers as dominant as Gehrig’s, but another five years at his current level and he’ll replace Foxx.

2B – Who do you choose? Jackie Robinson not only broke the color barrier, but won the 1949 MVP. Joe Morgan won two MVP’s, during the 1970’s; Roberto Alomar set the gold standard for fielding the position; Craig Biggio was a better hitter than most realize; and Eddie Collins had a greater cumulative career than any other second baseman and thus leads the group with 574 win shares. Still I think the standard for two-baggers was set in the twenties by Rogers Hornsby. It’s said that Hornsby’s plate coverage was so good he could hit anything, even ‘get a single on a throw to third. He struck the ball so hard he could hit it through a car wash, not even get it wet.’ I think we can all agree that Joe Morgan was the better athlete and played when the talent in the game was far superior, but Morgan never dominated the National League the way Hornsby did. He retired young, he was (supposedly) surly, but for 14 years he WAS the National League. From 1920 to 1925 Hornsby led the NL in batting average, on base percentage, and slugging percentage. In each individual season. Nobody else has *ever* done that. For playing at such a high standard during the 70’s (possibly baseball’s most underrated era) Morgan makes the team for the bench.

Looking Forward: Nobody.

SS – I’m not sure if this is an indication of what I think of Honus Wagner as much as it is an indication of what I think about Bill James, who puts Wagner’s win shares at a mind boggling 655. Only Ruth, Ty Cobb, and that inflatable head from San Francisco have more. After him the position was dominated by slick fielding, no hitting glove men like Phil Rizzuto. Then came Cal Ripken and his big 6’5” frame. While Cal was setting the consecutive games record, he also showed teams (and young players) that shortstops can be proficient with the bat as well as the glove. Which brings us to Alex Rodriguez. He was a gold glover at short and close to at third (forgetting those weird three weeks this summer), he can hit for average, and --- oh yeah --- he has over 450 home runs in his first 10 years. The problem is that he only played 8 years at short before joining the Yankees. So I heed Bill’s advice and Wagner’s my man, although ARod is an obvious inclusion on the team.

Looking Forward: If Rodriguez leaves NY and moves back to short for another three years he could replace Wagner as the starter, but otherwise nobody is close to consideration for a spot.

3B – Brooks Robinson was the greatest fielding third baseman ever, Eddie Mathews hit 512 home runs, and George Brett was a great, great player, but nobody combined the glove at third with the bat as well as Mike Schmidt. He set the bar high, with 10 gold gloves, 548 home runs, and 467 career win shares.

Looking Forward: David Wright – I admit that perhaps I have an exaggerated man crush on Wright, but he’s better than Ryan Zimmerman, and while not quite the hitter of Miguel Cabrera, is a far better fielder. Probably never Schmidt’s equal, but great all the same.

OF – It’s crowded out there in the Cosmic outfield, any way you look at things, one of the game’s seminal players is going to be left off; is it DiMaggio, Cobb, or Aaron. And then there’s the elephant in the closet: Barry Bonds and his outrageous numbers from 2001-2004. Look lets not get silly here, Bonds’ four year run is the best EVER. It’s not even really close. In Ruth’s best four year stretch, he put up RC/27 of 18.30, 17.82, 11.10, 17.10. Bonds’ four year numbers: 17.18, 19.17, 15.53, and 20.11. That 20.11 came in 2004, when Bonds had an unreal .609 OBP. That means three of every five times he came to the plate he ended up on base. Yet there is absolutely no reasonable doubt that those four years were aided by steroids. Was Bonds the only one? No, obviously not and despite their steroid use, nobody else came close to replicating those numbers. In part that’s because Bonds was so good before using the ‘roids. Good enough to have retired with 500 stolen bases and over 500 home runs (probably even over 650), but he almost certainly wouldn’t have passed Ruth let alone challenging Aaron. He was the best player in baseball for most of the nineties and might have retired as one of the all time unquestioned greats. Unfortunately that wasn’t enough for him, he cheated and while baseball might not have consequences for that, this team does. It’s harsh, but it’s my cosmic team and there are plenty of insanely good players without the Elephant.

With that out of the way, lets focus on the players who are eligible, beginning with the locks. Babe Ruth is a larger than life icon and for good reason. Nobody hit home runs before Ruth (the career leader Ruth passed was, Roger Conor with 138), he created the home run and his numbers (12.93 RC/27, 207 OPS+, and 234.2 WARP3) reflect that. Only Ted Williams put up anything close to those numbers, which makes him another lock. Actually, if you figure that Williams basically lost five seasons to war, it’s not unreasonable that he might have been the best hitter ever. While those two set the standard with the bat, neither were particularly fleet fielders, so somebody between them in center becomes essential. And if you are looking for baseball’s best fielder you have to begin with Willie Mays. Mays won 12 gold gloves, smacked 660 home runs, and easily earns the centerfield spot. The bench spot begins with Mantle, who was a better hitter than Mays although not quite the glove man. Mantle’s a switch hitter with a 172 career OPS+, so he provides balance to the team with both his glove and bat. Ty Cobb is also a lock. Among outfielders his OPS+ of 167 trails only those four, the Elephant in the closet, Dan Brouthers and Joe Jackson. Since we’re ignoring the Elephant lets look at the other two, Brothers played in the 1800s, his career ending in 1896 and Jackson, well Shoeless Joe trails Cobb by 2417 hits, 417 doubles, 1152 RBI, which is a very good career in itself. Yes, Jackson would have posted better numbers had he not been suspended for life following the Black Sox scandal, and if you believe Field of Dreams then he wasn’t really at fault for that, but… Fault or not, he lost a decade from his career and I can’t just make that up. As a final endorsement of Cobb, lets look at where he stands for a few important statistical points: Career batting average – 1st (.366), On Base Percentage – 9th (.433), Runs – 2nd (2246), Hits – 2 (4189), Total Bases – 4th (5854), Doubles – 4th (724), Triples – 2nd (295), Runs batted in – 6th (1937), Stolen bases – 4th (892). Damn, that’s domination across the board. They even say that Cobb was ‘so fast he could turn off the lights and be in bed before it got dark.’ You know what that means, assuming that my team is going to be playing in the modern cosmic AL (i.e., with the lumbering Ruth DHing) then Cobb will be my starting right fielder and leadoff hitter. That leaves one spot and Hank Aaron, Joe DiMaggio, and Stan Musial to choose from. Aaron has the best career numbers, DiMaggio was the biggest icon, but Stan the Man had the best per season averages (159 OPS +, 9.00 RC/27, .332 EQA). So logically Stan Musial should be the guy. But I hate logic, it always tells me things I don’t want to know, so here’s the deal. Bonds’ numbers are stupid, Paris Hilton stupid. Asshole? Yes. Top heavy? Uhm yeah. But how the heck am I supposed to look the other way when the man posted a .609 OBP in 2004? Seriously, who the hell needs scruples, when you have bonds’ .863 slugging percentage coming off the bench. Yeah, maybe you don’t like him, I don’t really like him either, but “Herman, why does my Cosmic team play the game? They play the game to WIN.” Bonds is in.

Looking Forward: Grady Sizemore – probably doesn’t become that great, but he’s a phenomenal young player.

Pitchers – Considering I just dropped slightly over 1,000 words on six outfield spots, you might be asking yourself how the hell many you’re going to have to wade through to know the nine pitchers on this team. And lets be honest for a second here, nobody but my most ardent fan is even still reading this thing (thanks Mom!), so there’s really no reason to be swanky, or drop some phat wit on your asses, which of course is good because I couldn’t even if I wanted to. So lets just drop some names like I’m a Hollywood gossip columnist. How’s Roger Clemens and his seven Cy Youngs, 144 career ERA+, 4604 strikeouts, and 348 wins. What about Walter Johnson, with his 2.17 ERA, 417 wins, and 1.06 WHIP. Want some more? What about Pedro Martinez with his .691 career winning percentage and insane 160 ERA+ . That’s twelve points higher than baseball’s next highest, but Lefty Grove, with his 148 OPS+ and his 1931 season (31-4, 2.04 ERA) is very deserving. Want more names? How about the greatest left hander of all time: Randy Johnson, he of the five Cy Youngs and four other top three finishes (not to mention, 4500 strike outs and 138 ERA+). Speaking about Cy Youngs, then what about Greg Maddux and his four straight. You know, the years where he posted ERAs of 2.18, 2.36, 1.56, 1.63. And if we’re talking about four year runs, then we have to discuss Sandy Koufax and his 1.88, 1.74, 2.04, and 1.73 run which ended with his early retirement (is it better to die young, or to fade away?). Who are we missing? Well, we keep talking about his award, so how about Cy Young? Sure, his best years were before the turn of the century, but it’s hard to argue with those 511 wins. The one record in sports that truly stands as unbreakable. While I’ve tended to ignore relievers, because they are largely a modern phenomenon, we need to represent one and really, is there anybody besides Mariano Rivera? I mean, I like Dennis Eckersely, but he deosn’t have a career post season record of 8-1, with 34 saves in 70 appearances and a 0.80 ERA. Sure, Trevor Hoffman just broke the all time save record, but Mariano is only 69 back. He’s the best reliever ever, an integral part of the most recent Yankee dynasty and an obvious choice. That leaves one spot (and hey, lets give some dap for getting here in under 500 words), so who to pick? There are a lot of great names: Warren Spahn, Pete Alexander, Tom Seaver, Jim Palmer, but really there is only Christy Mathewson and Bob Gibson. Arguments could be made for either one, but I’m going with Gibson, because of his postseason work. He played in three World Series and in each one the series went seven games, with Gibson pitching complete games in game 1, game 4, and game 7. Three post season series, three games apiece, nine complete games. That he had a 7-2 record with a 1.89 ERA is only gravy.

Looking Forward: Obviously this was the year for young pitchers, but all those rookies have a long way to go before they join this conversation. Johan Santana however just won his second Cy Young, should have won last year (but voters are stupid about wins), has an ERA+ of 144 and a career winning percentage of .716; both of which rank in the top ten. All he needs is health, of course that’s been said of a lot of guys who then watched their careers end early.

So, that’s the team, which means all that’s missing is the batting order. (batting stance and position listed next to them):

1) T. Cobb, lf, lefty.
2) R. Hornsby, 2B, righty.
3) T. Williams, rf, l.
4) B. Ruth, dh, l.
5) W. Mays, cf, r.
6) L. Gherig, 1b, l.
7) M. Schmidt, 3b, r.
8) Y. Berra, c, l.
9) H. Wagner, ss, r.

* It should be noted that the first 3,000 words of this were written over a month ago, but then my computer went on the fritz and it took until now for me to finish the great, wordy, beast.