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Post by countjohn on Jun 21, 2024 18:23:27 GMT
With the death of Willie Mays this week this is now a pretty wide open discussion. Was a big thread about it on Reddit so thought I'd make one here to maybe get a baseball discussion going for once with all the sports talk we have now.
If you're counting PED guys it's clearly Bonds if he wasn't already but to me that's a non starter and I'm not giving them credit for what they did on roids. So Bonds is still like a top 20 player and a HOFmer but only got in the GOAT discussion because he took steroids.
I think I'll say Rickie Henderson but Pujols, Griffey, and Trout are all arguable plus Koufax and Greg Maddux if you're counting pitchers.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jun 21, 2024 18:34:46 GMT
I'll say who no one else will say ....... Roger Clemens......but you can't go by me.......I mean I love Roman Polanski, Woody Allen, Gerard Depardieu......I think of The Rolling Stones as hedonistic feminists  ........I'm working through it......my therapist says I just have to like the opposite of everything I like ......and to stop referring to him as The Rapist because people won't get the joke anyway....... |
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Post by Kings_Requiem on Jun 21, 2024 18:58:53 GMT
Griffey
Jackson
Pujols
Henderson
Maddux
Johnson
Ryan
Bench
Brett
Schmidt
These were just off the top of my head, so I'm sure there's a lot I'm missing.
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Post by countjohn on Jun 21, 2024 19:23:02 GMT
I'll say who no one else will say ....... Roger Clemens......but you can't go by me.......I mean I love Roman Polanski, Woody Allen, Gerard Depardieu......I think of The Rolling Stones as hedonistic feminists ........I'm working through it......my therapist says I just have to like the opposite of everything I like ......and to stop referring to him as The Rapist because people won't get the joke anyway....... Ehhh, even if you're going to give Clemens "full credit" and ignore steroids I think Maddux is just better. I'd say Maddux is the "real" answer here, the greatest pitcher of the modern era unless you want to count deadball era guys who were throwing spitballs and had 0.8 ERAs. But pitchers are just separate, when you say "greatest player" in baseball it's kind of assumed you mean position players. Griffey Jackson Pujols Henderson Maddux Johnson Ryan Bench Brett Schmidt These were just off the top of my head, so I'm sure there's a lot I'm missing. I'm a Yankee fan and I love Reggie but that's way too high for him. Good longevity and the 77 World Series is one of the great clutch performances in all of sports but he's clearly not as good a baseball player as Rickie Henderson, Pujols, or George Brett to name a few you've got behind him on the list. Nolan Ryan also isn't anywhere close to the third greatest living pitcher, played forever and holds a lot of longevity records because of that but a lot of people have better peaks. |
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Post by pacinoyes on Jun 21, 2024 19:52:43 GMT
I'll say who no one else will say ....... Roger Clemens......but you can't go by me.......I mean I love Roman Polanski, Woody Allen, Gerard Depardieu......I think of The Rolling Stones as hedonistic feminists ........I'm working through it......my therapist says I just have to like the opposite of everything I like ......and to stop referring to him as The Rapist because people won't get the joke anyway....... Ehhh, even if you're going to give Clemens "full credit" and ignore steroids I think Maddux is just better. I'd say Maddux is the "real" answer here, the greatest pitcher of the modern era unless you want to count deadball era guys who were throwing spitballs and had 0.8 ERAs. Highly arguable ^ if you just accept Clemens stats as is - but I don't like baseball as much at my advanced age (oh shut up) as I did as a young man to be really passionate about it tbh...... I can certainly say that Clemens rep has been brutally damaged by PEDs and Maddux is so comparable to him with no hint of scandal at all......... so..........it's certainly not the first time I've heard Maddux geting the edge over him..........
If you want to go by overall stats, Clemens has 354 wins, . 658% WP, 3.12 ERA, 118 CG, 4916 IP, 4672 K's and a career 1.17 WHIP. Maddux has 355 wins, . 610% WP, 3.16 ERA, 109 CG, 5008.1 IP, 3371 K's and a career 1.14 WHIP. |
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Post by countjohn on Jun 21, 2024 20:35:30 GMT
Ehhh, even if you're going to give Clemens "full credit" and ignore steroids I think Maddux is just better. I'd say Maddux is the "real" answer here, the greatest pitcher of the modern era unless you want to count deadball era guys who were throwing spitballs and had 0.8 ERAs. Highly arguable ^ if you just accept Clemens stats as is - but I don't like baseball as much at my advanced age (oh shut up) as I did as a young man to be really passionate about it tbh...... I can certainly say that Clemens rep has been brutally damaged by PEDs and Maddux is so comparable to him with no hint of scanal at all......... so..........it's certainly not the first time I've heard Maddux geting the edge over him..........
If you want to go by overall stats, Clemens has 354 wins, . 658% WP, 3.12 ERA, 118 CG, 4916 IP, 4672 K's and a career 1.17 WHIP. Maddux has 355 wins, . 610% WP, 3.16 ERA, 109 CG, 5008.1 IP, 3371 K's and a career 1.14 WHIP.
I'm big on peak and Maddux's 94 and 95 Cy Young season are the two best pitching seasons in the live ball era, outside of Bob Gibson's 68 season. Which was before they lowered the mound and he wasn't going against steroid era batters so I'm still going to give Maddux the edge there. Clemens managed a better career ERA because Maddux played forever and had a natural decline so he had some rough later years, but if I could have either one of them at their absolute peak I'd give the ball to Maddux. I don't think some of that matters, Clemens has a better win percentage because he was on good Yankees and Red Sox teams instead of the Cubs. Even in Maddux's Braves years they were a good team for the pitching and were around the league average in runs scored so he was a lot less likely to get bailed out for a mediocre start than Clemens was. The big advantage in K's was just a pitching style thing, Clemens was an aggressive fast ball pitcher who liked to throw in the strike zone so he was going to strike guys out, Maddux was more about painting the corners and making you pop out. And then if you do take steroids into account it's not a contest at all, Clemens has one year in Boston that can hang with Maddux's five or so best seasons, the only other ones are the Blue Jays season when he first started juicing and that stupid year with the Astros where he suddenly had the best season of his life at age 42 which should have set off everyone's warning bells at the time but he was so revered by that point. It's a similar deal with Bonds where Clemens is still one of the greatest pitchers of all time and should still be in the HOF but you should absolutely take steroids into account in GOAT discussions. And as I noted peak Maddux is better anyway and he wasn't on steroids. |
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Post by ibbi on Jun 21, 2024 20:43:09 GMT
I would say Bonds, but yes, if we discount him, then Henderson. God bless small ball.
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Post by countjohn on Jun 21, 2024 20:59:07 GMT
I would say Bonds, but yes, if we discount him, then Henderson. God bless small ball. The reason no one plays like that anymore is that analytics basically determined that small ball is an inefficient strategy unless you're as good at stealing bases as Rickie Henderson  His stolen base records are never getting broken and if you're talking about the best athletes ever at one particular skill than Henderson for stealing bases and baserunning generally would have to be up there. Also at his peak was a 300 hitter with a 400+ on base percentage and even had some power with 20 some homers and 30 some doubles a lot of years. An all around great baseball player, a lot like Mays in that respect although obviously not as much power. |
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Post by Kings_Requiem on Jun 21, 2024 21:07:03 GMT
I'll say who no one else will say ....... Roger Clemens......but you can't go by me.......I mean I love Roman Polanski, Woody Allen, Gerard Depardieu......I think of The Rolling Stones as hedonistic feminists ........I'm working through it......my therapist says I just have to like the opposite of everything I like ......and to stop referring to him as The Rapist because people won't get the joke anyway....... Ehhh, even if you're going to give Clemens "full credit" and ignore steroids I think Maddux is just better. I'd say Maddux is the "real" answer here, the greatest pitcher of the modern era unless you want to count deadball era guys who were throwing spitballs and had 0.8 ERAs. But pitchers are just separate, when you say "greatest player" in baseball it's kind of assumed you mean position players. Griffey Jackson Pujols Henderson Maddux Johnson Ryan Bench Brett Schmidt These were just off the top of my head, so I'm sure there's a lot I'm missing. I'm a Yankee fan and I love Reggie but that's way too high for him. Good longevity and the 77 World Series is one of the great clutch performances in all of sports but he's clearly not as good a baseball player as Rickie Henderson, Pujols, or George Brett to name a few you've got behind him on the list. Nolan Ryan also isn't anywhere close to the third greatest living pitcher, played forever and holds a lot of longevity records because of that but a lot of people have better peaks. Oh, it's not in order... just the first names I thought of. Listed them as I thought of them. But I think you have the right idea here about longevity and all that. There are certain criteria that need to go into making a list like this. Longevity, peak, awards, what they meant to their team(s), etc. It's like Hall of Fame voting in a sense. There are certain statistical markers that voters look for when it comes to players - 500 HR, 3000 hits, 3000 K's, etc. There's also something that Brian Kenny mentions a lot on MLB Network that I like called the "Cut of Jib" index, which takes a lot of different factors into account when deciding something like this. |
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........I'm working through it......my therapist says I just have to like the opposite of everything I like ......and to stop referring to him as The Rapist because people won't get the joke anyway.......
His stolen base records are never getting broken and if you're talking about the best athletes ever at one particular skill than Henderson for stealing bases and baserunning generally would have to be up there. Also at his peak was a 300 hitter with a 400+ on base percentage and even had some power with 20 some homers and 30 some doubles a lot of years. An all around great baseball player, a lot like Mays in that respect although obviously not as much power.