It's been a while since I've been here. Loads of important things have happened as well. The Green Bay FudgePackers won the Super Bowl, the Uconn Huskies won the NCAA Championship (in a very sloppy game) against Butler, the 2011 Major League Baseball season is under way, and most importantly I got married!
I want to go back to the 2011 MLB season if I could. I was walking around in my apartment last night after I finished watching Monday Night Raw and it hit me; "If I could make the best lineup for a team using any player from 1990 until now, who who I choose?". There are so many players that have played from 90 until now that have been linked to steroids (Bonds, Clemens, Palmeiro), and there are so many players now that appear to be heading to greater numbers than some in the past (Pujols or BigMac?). Who to pick?!?
I'm going to go at this two ways. The first is who I would pick off the top of my head, and the second is picking guys based on actual numbers. I want to see how much emotion I use in picking mine compared to who's actually the best option. The batting order can be switched around, I'm just picking a person per position. Here goes:
1B - Albert Pujols
2B - Ryne Sandberg
3B - George Brett
SS - Cal Ripken, Jr
LF - Rickey Henderson
CF - Ken Griffey, Jr
RF - Andre Dawson
C - Mike Piazza
SP - Nolan Ryan
Here are what the career stats say I should have picked:
1B - Frank Thomas .301/521/1704 (Pujols will pass these numbers. No one else who's played since 90 has)
2B - Ryne Sandberg .285/282/1061 (2386 hits & 344 SB)
3B - George Brett .305/317/1595 (Schmidt retired in 1989 or he'd be here)
SS - Cal Ripken Jr. .276/431/1695 (Ozzie Smith gets a very close 2nd here*)
LF - Rickey Henderson .271/297/1406 SB/2295 Runs Scored/.401 OBP/73 Lead off HR
CF - Ken Griffey Jr. .288/611/1772/.373 OBP/1612 Runs Scored/2680 Hits/184 SB/13x All Star
RF - Tony Gwynn .338/135/1138/3141 hits/319 SB/15x AllStar (Dawson had more HR/RBI & was ROY & MVP, Gwynn was not)
C - Ivan Rodriguez - .302/295/1,217 RBI/1,253 Runs Scored/2,605 Hits/124 SB/14x All Star
P - This was TOO CLOSE to call, so I've made an executive decision and am going to put both guys on this list:
Roger Clemens Greg Maddux
354 W/184 L 355W/227 L
3.12 ERA 3.16 ERA
4672 K's 3371 K's
11x All Star 8x All Star
7x Cy Young 4 Consecutive Cy's (only player to do this...EVER)
MVP 18x Gold Glove Winner
*The Ozzie versus Ripken debate continues. Here is why I put Ripken over Smith on the stats list:
-Higher Batting Average: Ripken .276/Ozzie .262
-More Hits: Ripken 3184/Ozzie 2460
-More HR: Ripken 431/Ozzie 28
-More RBI: Ripken 1695/Ozzie 793
-More All-Star Appearances: Ripken 19/Ozzie 15
-Ripken won the 1982 Rookie of the Year.
Ozzie did have more Gold Gloves (13) than Ripken (2), and he had more stolen bases (580) than Ripken (36) as well. Still, I think the numbers speak for themselves.
There you have it folks. My List versus the Stat List. I feel I did ok considering. Just based on my thoughts and feelings of who was the best at their position in players who have played since 1990, I got 5 out of 9. I'll take that.
Feel free to argue, agree or just comment on this. I like to hear what other people think. Obviously you can't really argue the Career Stat list since it's based on factual data, but if you would've put a different guy on your Personal List, I'd like to hear about it.
Until next time...
No comments:
Post a Comment