As a boy, I had a reputation for knowing all the players' batting averages, etc. In high school, I was statistician for the school team in football, baseball, and basketball, and wrote articles about the games in the local weekly newspaper. With my brothers and friends, I played APBA baseball, a highly statistical baseball game with cards and dice, for many years, from boyhood through college. (Another ex-APBA player is former Texas Rangers owner George W. Bush.) For 53 years, I was a professor of mathematics.
So it seems appropriate that I produce my own semi-scientific ratings of the best players during this 73-year period. My criterion for inclusion is that the player must have had several good seasons after 1952. This includes players such as Bob Feller, Ralph Kiner, Ted Williams, and Stan Musial, for whom their best years were prior to my awareness. For such players, their entire career is included. Some Hall of Famers who were not quite recent enough to be included were Joe DiMaggio (whose last year was '51), Johnny Mize, and Hal Newhouser, both of whom had several mediocre seasons after '52. I computed DiMaggio on my ratings and he ranked twelfth of the batters, between Frank Robinson and Joe Morgan. I distinguish batters from pitchers, with separate rankings for each group. I hesitate to say "batters," because baserunning and fielding also are incorporated.
I rate the batters in 14 categories and the pitchers in 15. All but one of the categories are numerically valued. The highest player scores 10 in that category and the lowest player 0; others are scaled linearly between these two values. The one category which is not scored this way is Hall of Fame. This one was a tricky one for the current players and others who have not yet been considered by Hall voters. For a discussion of how this category was handled, and a detailed description of all categories, see Criteria. Some categories, like this one, depend on others' opinions. These include MVP voting, Cy Young voting, all star teams, and Golden Glove awards. Others are based on statistics. Some of these are career totals, while others are based on the player's best five years. Some of my criteria are based on hybrid statistics, such as Baseball Reference's Wins Above Replacement. I had been using Bill James' Win Shares for several categories, but since he stopped doing that in 2024, I removed them, and rescaled some of the other categories to compensate. That changed the rankings a bit, but not drastically. For several of the criteria, adjustment is made for seasonal averages in the whole league. More discussion of this appears in the Criteria section. I have added a "post-season" category, but given it a small weight. "Pitchers" means "Starting Pitchers"; I do not rate relievers.
A crucial factor in the final ratings is the weights attached to each criterion. For a discussion of the criteria and their weights, see Criteria section. The placing of Sandy Koufax and many current players, players with several spectacular seasons but relatively short careers, is highly dependent on weights given to short-term effects compared to those for career effects.
I present the ratings of 118 batters and 41 pitchers. Other players' scores were evaluated and found to be insufficient. It is possible that I have overlooked someone, but I believe that the players that I rated, 19 firstbasemen, 14 secondbasemen, 10 shortstops, 16 thirdbasemen, 9 catchers, 45 outfielders, and 5 designated hitters, have the highest scores of all eligible people. A player is considered for the position at which he played more games than any other. The three outfield positions are not distinguished.
The table below lists the top five all star teams, considering four pitchers per team. The detailed tabulation of scores for all players in all criteria appears in the Batters List and Pitchers List. Although there is a good bit of similarity in the numbers, no comparison of batters versus pitchers should be inferred. A detailed discussion of all criteria appears in Criteria. The number after a player's name is his total points in all weighted criteria.
| Pos'n | First team | Second team | Third team | Fourth team | Fifth team |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| P,1 | Roger Clemens, 279.2 | Tom Seaver, 191.6 | Bob Gibson, 157.1 | Jim Palmer, 141.2 | Juan Marichal, 118.7 |
| P,2 | Randy Johnson, 225.2 | Justin Verlander 174.0 | Sandy Koufax, 155.6 | Max Scherzer 139.3 | Curt Schilling, 105.8 |
| P,3 | Pedro Martinez, 212.4 | Warren Spahn, 171.8 | Bob Feller, 155.1 | Robin Roberts, 136.5 | Gaylord Perry, 105.3 |
| P,4 | Greg Maddux, 209.4 | Clayton Kershaw, 165.4 | Steve Carlton, 149.4 | Roy Halladay, 132.4 | Tom Glavine, 100.0 |
| C | Johnny Bench, 139.3 | Yogi Berra, 108.1 | Gary Carter, 102.1 | Mike Piazza, 97.6 | Ivan Rodriguez, 94.1 |
| 1B | Albert Pujols, 217.6 | Jeff Bagwell, 122.2 | Miguel Cabrera, 119.5 | Eddie Murray, 103.1 | Willie McCovey, 102.9 |
| 2B | Joe Morgan, 170.1 | Rod Carew, 125.6 | Jackie Robinson, 121.4 | Ryne Sandberg, 114.7 | Robinson Cano, 102.0 |
| 3B | Mike Schmidt, 227.7 | George Brett, 154.7 | Wade Boggs, 145.2 | Eddie Mathews, 140.0 | Brooks Robinson, 138.9 |
| SS | Alex Rodriguez, 207.6 | Cal Ripken, 160.3 | Ernie Banks, 122.0 | Derek Jeter, 121.9 | Robin Yount, 106.2 |
| OF,1 | Barry Bonds, 323.0 | Hank Aaron, 249.9 | Mike Trout, 194.9 | Ken Griffey, Jr., 165.0 | Roberto Clemente, 150.4 |
| OF,2 | Willie Mays, 300.2 | Stan Musial, 248.3 | Rickie Henderson, 178.2 | Carl Yazstremski, 160.1 | Reggie Jackson, 135.1 |
| OF,3 | Ted Williams, 260.5 | Mickey Mantle, 248.1 | Frank Robinson, 170.1 | Al Kaline, 153.3 | Mookie Betts, 134.4 |
| DH | Frank Thomas, 125.9 | Shohei Ohtani, 103.0 | Paul Molitor, 85.9 | David Ortiz, 84.6 | Edgar Martinez, 80.4 |
I would appreciate your comments on this study at the e-mail address listed below.
Don Davis
Department of Mathematics
Lehigh University
Bethlehem, PA 18015
(610) 758-3756 (work)
(610) 865-9058 (home)
dmd1@lehigh.edu
http://www.lehigh.edu/~dmd1