What Willie really left behind . . . namely, rip-roaring arguments over the greatest living player

By Jeff Kallman

Three days before the Field of Dreams Negro Leagues tribute game at Birmingham, Alabama’s Rickwood Field, Hall of Famer Willie Mays expressed regret that his health would keep him from being on hand in the first professional ballpark in which he played. One day later, Mays went to the Elysian Fields at 93.

It took all of about a day before the arguments began. OK, that’s a slight exaggeration. But those arguments were (are) over who now is baseball’s greatest living player among those long retired from the field. The arguments never really cease, of course. But the death of a Mays provokes into overdrive the arguments themselves and the absurdities within.

San Francisco teammates Willie Mays (left) and Orlando Cepeda, both members of the Baseball Hall of Fame, died within 10 days of each other.Photo bySan Francisco Giants

When the father-and-son team operating Almost Cooperstown asked the question, I went against my better judgment and weighed in. I took what I thought a measured and sensible approach by naming the best according to a) their primary playing positions; and, b) their career wins above replacement-level player (WAR). That’ll teach me.

You sort of expect that to yield a swarm of those indignant about whom you left off the list, if not about WAR itself. The indignant often isolated a single statistical point or play highlight (don’t ask how many hoisted Pete Rose—who isn’t even close—merely by showing clips of his fabled headfirst slides) that didn’t take into even small account the player’s entire game.

Presuming Almost Cooperstown meant position players may have been a mistake, too, since many of the indignant weighed in with pitchers who generally belong in their own category. But these are the leading WARriors among the retired still alive who’ve played in the post-World War II/post-integration/night-ball era and are still among the living:

C—Johnny Bench.

1B—Albert Pujols.

2B—Rod Carew.

3B—Mike Schmidt.

SS—Álex Rodríguez.

LF—Barry Bonds.

CF—Ken Griffey, Jr.

RF—Reggie Jackson.

DH—Frank Thomas.

I knew there could be problems going in right there. Even if only a fool or a sports talk radio host might deny that one and all of them belong in conversations about the greatest of the great.

A-Rod’s value is almost entirely in his bat; he finished his career among the lowest-ranking shortstops for run prevention. Cal Ripken, Jr., who does not live by 2,131 alone, was a great hitter and the number three run-preventive shortstop of all. (Ahead of him: Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith; and, Mark Belanger, who played shortstop like an Electrolux but couldn’t hit if you held his family for ransom before every plate appearance he was allowed to make.*)

Carew was a great hitter and a not-so-run-preventive second baseman. (-5 below his league average.) In fact, he was more run preventive playing first base. (+10 above his league average.) Schmidt was great at run prevention playing third base, but there’s a guy about to be inducted into the Hall of Fame who was better. Hands up to everyone who knows it’s Adrián Beltré. (Beltre: +168; Schmidt: +129.) Now lower your hands if you weren’t surprised.

Mr. October had only five seasons in which he delivered above-league-average run prevention in right field. The most run-preventive right fielder among living former players is Jesse Barfield (+149), but he didn’t quite hit well enough to reach the Hall of Fame in an era where Hall voters still didn’t take defense as seriously as they should.

Pujols’s injury-instigated decline phase was a heartbreaker, but it didn’t ruin La Maquina for assessing him as a first baseman. He’s the absolute best-hitting first baseman of all, no questions asked . . . and, he’s the number three first baseman all time for run prevention (+100), behind should-be Hall of Famer Keith Hernandez (+120) and about-to-be-inducted Hall of Famer Todd Helton (+106).

What of those WARriors whose careers are seen as tainted by actual or alleged performance-enhancing substances? Simpler than you think. Both A-Rod and Barry Bonds built Hall of Fame cases well before they were suspected of having begun to indulge. Which means Bonds, the all-time WARrior among left fielders, still leaves Rickey Henderson (the greatest leadoff man of them all, but the Man of Steal wasn’t so run-preventive in left field) behind by two state lines.

Perhaps we should consider who excelled both ways the longest and at the toughest field positions. Griffey played a tough position but his injury-instigated decline was almost as sad as Pujols’s. Bench, Carew, and A-Rod changed positions for various reasons, two moving to third base and one (Carew) moving to first base. Schmidt got out when he realized his not-so-great 1988 was going to be the norm if he stayed in, retiring emotionally in May 1989 despite being among the National League’s RBI leaders at the time.Mays was just too overwhelming a choice as the greatest living baseball player before his death. After him, the choices are both enlightening and troubling, for the lack of absolute clarity.

The No. 2 all-around catcher who ever strapped it on (Bench) doesn’t always look that much better than the number one all-around third baseman who ever hit the field (Schmidt), but they both look a little better for playing tougher field positions than the number-one left fielder (untainted) who ever patrolled that corner. Round and round again.

Usually considered distinct from position players, the pitchers are a problematic bunch in their own right. Do you take the peak values of Sandy Koufax, Juan Marichal, or Pedro Martinez? The career values of Steve Carlton, Randy Johnson, Greg Maddux, or Nolan Ryan? The peak and career values of Roger Clemens, Johnson, Maddux, or Marichal? How much of their mound success was a question of the defenses behind them and the offenses supporting them in hand versus whatever they handled by themselves on the mound? Who’s the man you want most if your World Series gets to a seventh game? (Hint: They didn’t call him the Left Arm of God just to be cute.**)

Maybe the real legacy Mays left behind, other than his extra-terrestrial play on both sides of the baseball, is baseball’s second-oldest profession—rip-roaring arguments. Much like watching Mays play, those are the gifts that keep on giving. Because if you ask me the same question a year from now, my answers might be somewhat different, and just as non-conclusive.

* Mark Belanger actually holds one of the most dubious batting records in major league history—no player in the American League’s history was ever pinch hit for more than Belanger, who bore the indignity 333 times.

** Sandy Koufax’s peak was so off the chart that we don’t think of him in career value terms, ordinarily, since his first six seasons were those of a good, not great pitcher. But among those who pitched in the post-World War II/post-integration/night-ball age, Koufax’s 2.69 fielding-independent pitching rate—measuring the things pitchers can and do control—is the lowest among the still living. It isn’t close. The only starting pitcher with a lower FIP who’s played in the same era is the still-technically-active . . . Jacob deGrom.

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Jeff Kallman is an IBWAA Life Member who writes Throneberry Fields Forever. He has written for the Society for American Baseball Research, The Hardball Times, Sports-Central, and other publications. Jeff has lived since 2007 in Las Vegas, where he plays the guitar and writes music when not writing baseball. He remains a Met fan since the day they were born.