No sport evokes the Greatest of All-Time (GOAT) discussion as frequently as basketball. Perhaps it’s because we’ve spent so many years watching LeBron’s biopic—one that has consistently foreshadowed a challenge to the throne—play out in slow motion. Maybe it’s because the athleticism in the NBA is so superior to any other sport in the world that we instinctively expect—and root— for every basketball savant who comes along to climb to the top of the mountain. Or, it could be something as simple as the idea that every player who steps on an NBA court has a shot at greatness. Unlike football, baseball, and hockey where the odds of becoming the GOAT are significantly impacted by what position a player plays, basketball has no such limitation. We can plop ten random players on any floor in the world and it won’t take long for the best player to stand out. There is something tangibly definitive about the apex predator in basketball, which has historically made identifying the GOAT a fairly straightforward task.

Until 2020, it had been generally accepted that the lineal trail of basketball GOAT had been George Mikan<Bill Russell<Wilt Chamberlain<Kareem Abdul-Jabbar<Michael Jordan. Jordan reached GOAT status in 1993 after three-peating both as NBA Champion and Finals MVP. His undisputed reign would last 27 years without facing a real challenge, which is an eternity in the sports world, and more than twice the reign of any other aforementioned basketball GOAT. While there is little doubt that LeBron had been the dominant force in basketball since the day he put on a Cavs jersey, his trophy case had always been a little light for a real challenge to Jordan’s rule—that is until 2020. After picking up his 4^th Championship and 4^th Finals MVP by conquering “the bubble,” the long-awaited Jordan vs. LeBron debate could rage in earnest. Although this matter is sure to be debated for years and decades to come, what cannot be debated is that the basketball GOAT is no longer unanimous. Whether this is merely an admirable—but fruitless—challenge to the throne, or a conclusive coronation of King James may not ever be settled, but the key is not to miss the forest for the trees. Sure, there are strong arguments to be made on both sides, but the fact that we even have uncertainty at the top at all is pretty exciting.

The GOAT discussion no doubt bleeds into the larger conversation about the greatest players of all-time. For a sport as cutthroat as basketball, breaking the consensus top-10, top-25, or even top-100 is a badge of honor that only the truly accomplished are privy. Parsing through elite resumes to reach a representative ordering of greatness is fraught with logic traps, and often feels like staring at a Rorschach test. However, with a little TLC (no scrubs on this list) and a concerted willingness to regularly admit to being wrong, a hierarchy begins to emerge. Below I’ve included a comprehensive rundown of the concepts and logic that I used to form the list of the 100 greatest basketball players of all-time.     

The 6^th NBA Position, or “the point”

For 56 years, the NBA lived a copasetic existence. Starting lineups featured five unique positions: point guard, shooting guard, small forward, power forward, and center. Players who entered the league were quickly ushered into one of these positional boxes, wrapped neatly with a bow. Cross-training was not part of the NBA job description. Then, in 2003, one man ruined everything. In an instant, the NBA’s harmonious and homogenous paradise quickly turned into amorphous and amalgamative chaos that would fit right in on the Island of Dr. Moreau. This evolutionary leap laid the groundwork for the positional versatility that dominates today’s NBA. Yes, thanks to LeBron James, the NBA is absolute madness… and it’s fantastic!

LeBron entered the league loosely defined as a shooting guard. That designation met an early demise, as his size, athleticism, and versatility eschewed the abilities of the prototypical shooting guard. By his second season, LeBron started garnering the small forward distinction. While small forward may have been a more appropriate classification, that label quickly became outdated, too, after he led the Cavs in assists for the second consecutive season. LeBron’s ball-dominant game and assist totals resembled a point guard more than the shoehorned-fits of shooting guard and small forward, although his 6’8, 250lb frame suggested otherwise. To confuse matters even more, his size, strength, quickness, athleticism, mid-range game, and back-to-the-basket ability would have been Dr. Frankenstein’s capstone had he endeavored to create the greatest power forward of all-time. The second LeBron is assigned a position, the suitability of that assignment begins to erode, and he apparently agrees. As LeBron has evolved the NBA, more and more ball-dominant players from atypical positions have emerged, often creating confusion for fans and analysts trying to match a player with a position, and it’s easy to see why.  While also occasionally filling in at center, LeBron has been officially designated a point guard, shooting guard, small forward, and power forward, often without rhyme or reason for the change. Though James Harden doesn’t quite have LeBron’s versatility, he has also been intermittently listed as a point guard and shooting guard while essentially remaining the same player. And, of course, Giannis Antetokounmpo can be seen playing all five positions in the same game. While the original five positional designations still work for much of the league, there really should be a sixth, one that refers to a ball-dominant scorer who initiates the offense. Instead of trying to get creative with a flashy new term, it makes the most sense to slightly repurpose the meaning of a phrase already rooted in basketball vernacular: the point. In fact, we kind of already made this change without necessarily fully embracing its reach with the advent of the term “point forward.” Though, given how the NBA has evolved over the last decade, that term appears to have been too limited in its scope. As Nikola Jokic demonstrates on a nightly basis, literally any position on the court–including center–has the ability to play the point in today’s game. It only makes sense to drop the position component of the phrase and adopt “the point” as a universal term for a player who initiates the offense regardless of position. This is not to be confused with a replacement term for point-guard since there are still plenty of traditional point-guards in the NBA, and not every team is fortunate to have a versatile enough player to play “the point.”

Pre-LeBron, the point guard was universally the primary ball-handler while the other four positions accounted for the bulk of the scoring. Post-LeBron, the best players in the league do both and do them efficiently. The defining traits of a player who plays “the point” are a high usage rate (>28%), assist percentage (>20%), and true shooting percentage (>58%). Pre-Lebron, that player simply did not exist. Uncoincidentally, contemporary players who play “the point” and routinely reach those rates in all three categories—LeBron, Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, James Harden, Kawhi Leonard, and Giannis—also rate the highest on the all-time list. While Kareem, Shaq, Wilt, Bill Russell, and Karl Malone were clearly all-time greats, they relied on a teammate to deliver them the ball at the “right” spot on the court. As the NBA transitions to position-less basketball, players who don’t initiate offense (both as a primary scorer and facilitator) are having less and less impact on winning and, subsequently, have a lower ceiling when it comes to discussing the all-time greats.    

Competition Level

Professional basketball hasn’t always been the global phenomenon that it is today. Until the latter part of the 20th century, college basketball was far more popular, player contracts were hardly lucrative, and job security was virtually non-existent as teams routinely disbanded. As a result, the talent pool supplying the NBA in the early days looked more like Daniel LaRusso’s pool at the South Seas apartment complex in Reseda than the vast ocean that exists today. These volatile early days of the NBA gave way to George Mikan’s dominant reign. Mikan—the league’s first superstar—was a three-time scoring champion who led the Minneapolis Lakers to five championships. At 6’10, Mikan was also tall. In fact, of the 170 players who played in the NBA in 1949 during Mikan’s rookie season, he was the tallest. Not only was Mikan the only 6’10 player in the league, but 83% of the league was also shorter than 6’7. Ten years later, the NBA welcomed Wilt Chamberlain—the league’s first true megastar. Wilt rewrote the record books on his way to seven scoring titles and four MVP awards. Wilt was also tall. In fact, of the 99 players in the NBA in Wilt’s rookie season of 1959, he was the tallest. Not only was Wilt the only 7’1 player in the league, but 92% of the league was also shorter than 6’10. Notice a theme here? When Mikan and Wilt were the league’s best players, being the tallest player—not the most skilled—was essentially the prerequisite to being the best player. This is supported by Mikan’s underwhelming efficiency. His .404 shooting percentage suggests rudimentary footwork and low-post skill that would be untenable in any era after 1960. Even Wilt—although far more efficient than Mikan—only shot .510 as a high-volume shooter over his first seven seasons, which would be mediocre in today’s game for a player exclusively shooting within ten feet of the basket. Given both were routinely defended by players no bigger than the average small forward in today’s NBA, the role that height played in who ruled the NBA in its formative years is pretty clear. This trend would continue for close to three decades, as 25 of the first 28 NBA MVPs played center. By 1980, the Magic/Bird rivalry had made the league wildly popular. Ratings soared, as did interest in the sport, resulting in a rapidly expanding talent pool. Bird’s MVP in 1984 started a run that continues today that has seen 32 of 35 MVP winners not come from the center position. In the early days of the NBA, the talent pool was so small that being tall—a trait, not a skill—was the most accurate predictor of success. As the league became more popular and the talent pool expanded, quality of play naturally increased, making skill the most important trait for anyone looking to make a career out of professional basketball. Mikan and Wilt were, undoubtedly, the kings of their respective eras. It’s just important to acknowledge the small talent pool that contributed to those reigns.  

NBA/ABA Era (or Competition Level II)

The NBA has been the predominant professional basketball league in the world since 1946. However, from 1967-1976, it faced major competition from the upstart American Basketball Association (ABA). In its endeavor to steal eyeballs from the establishment, the ABA aimed to be everything the NBA wasn’t. It started with a sweet tri-colored ball and continued with up-tempo offenses, larger-than-life personas, and pioneering the slam-dunk competition. The ABA’s challenge was so legitimate that the NBA agreed to put an end to the threat with a merger in 1976. The ABA’s lasting legacy isn’t just one of innovation, it also had some of the baddest ballers on the planet. While the NBA was a much bigger league and, therefore, had more overall talent, the ABA’s top-end talent featured some of the best players in the world, including Julius Erving, Rick Barry, and George Gervin. Despite spending significant portions of their primes in the ABA, the trio combined for 15 1st-team All-NBA selections after the merger. The ABA’s impact on the NBA wasn’t just as a competitor, its very existence deprived the NBA of top-end talent, making it far easier for NBA stars to pile-up gaudy statistics and grab post-season hardware.

No NBA star benefited from the ABA more than the great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Kareem won six MVPs over his 21-year hall-of-fame career, four coming while the ABA was earnestly siphoning players from the NBA. Without having to compete against Erving, Barry, and Gervin for MVP honors, and Artis Gilmore—arguably the 2nd best center in the world at the time—in the post, Kareem’s path to league MVP was missing critical roadblocks. When the merger finally put Gilmore in the NBA with Kareem, his presence was felt immediately. In four games against Gilmore in 1976-77, Kareem averaged 17.5 points, 10.25 rebounds, and shot 55% from the field while getting to the free-throw line just 3.25 times per game.  In 78 games against the rest of the NBA, Kareem averaged 26.6 points, 13.4 rebounds, 58% from the field, and 6.8 free throw attempts per game. Gilmore would continue to play Kareem to a statistical stalemate over 12 seasons and 50 regular season and playoff games, reinforcing the notion that the ABA’s existence benefited Kareem.

Even if we didn’t have evidence that top-end ABA talent rivaled top-end NBA talent—for which there is ample—we have pretty compelling evidence that the overall competition level in the ABA rivaled that of the NBA. From 1971-1975, the leagues played 155 inter-league exhibition games. While the NBA shrewdly did its best to avoid giving publicity to the ABA off the court, it couldn’t avoid the ABA’s talent on the court, as the upstarts posted a 79-76 record over the establishment, ending all speculation of the quality missing from the NBA. With plenty of evidence suggesting the leagues had similar talent, we can quantify the impact the ABA’s existence had on life in the NBA. The ABA rostered roughly 132 players per year during its run. The NBA and the ABA combined to employ roughly 354 professional basketball players in a given year. The NBA claimed 63% of those players, while the ABA claimed 37%. The takeaway here is that the competition in the NBA for awards and honors consisted of just 63% of the overall talent in professional basketball, suggesting the need to adjust the value of awards and honors during this time.

This is not to suggest Kareem wasn’t a great player. In fact, it’s not hard to make the case that he is the 3rd greatest basketball player of all-time. What it does suggest is a need to avoid taking raw achievements at face value when making inter-era comparisons. For a number of reasons related to degree-of-difficulty, Kareem’s six MVPs are not as impressive as LeBron’s four MVPs. His 15 1^st and 2^nd team All-NBA selections are not as impressive as Michael Jordan’s 11. “League composition” (or, the percentage of the overall professional-level talent playing in the league) is a pivotal consideration when putting together a comprehensive list of the greatest players of all-time. If we don’t consistently account for it in inter-era comparisons, then we’re destined to end up with a top-100 dominated by players who played prior to the NBA/ABA merger, when the league was at its smallest and weakest.

League Size (or Competition Level III)

Just like we need to emphasize league composition for inter-era comparisons, we need to pay close attention to league size. If we don’t, it doesn’t take long to reach a skewed representation of the greatest basketball players of all-time. Let’s run a partial comparison of three all-time greats from three very different eras: Bill Russell, Magic Johnson, and LeBron James. Russell won 11 NBA Championships, reached 12 NBA Finals, and won five MVPs. Magic won five NBA Championships, reached nine NBA Finals, and won three MVPs. LeBron has won four NBA Championships, reached 11 NBA Finals, and has four MVPs. At first glance, it would seem that Russell has the most impressive resume of the group, with Magic and LeBron battling it out in a close race for second. What we’re seeing is an optical illusion made possible by not taking league size into consideration.

The average number of teams in the NBA during Russell’s 13-year career was nine. The average number of teams during Magic and Lebron’s careers were 24 and 30, respectively. With fewer teams and players to compete against, Russell’s path to a championship and an MVP was statistically easier than it was for Magic and LeBron. Russell’s Celtics had to win 87 playoff games to win 11 championships, or 7.9 games per championship. Magic’s Lakers had to win 54 playoff games to win five championships, or 10.8 games per championship, and LeBron’s teams had to win 64 playoff games to win four championships, or 16 games per championship. It was more difficult for LeBron to even reach the conference finals than it was for Russell to win an NBA Championship. On average, Russell’s Celtics had to be better than just eight other teams to win a championship, while LeBron’s teams needed to beat out 29 other teams. When adjusted for league size, LeBron’s four championships are on-par with Russell’s 11, and his 10 Finals appearances are significantly more impressive than Russell’s 12.

Similarly, LeBron had to beat out an average of 359 players to win each of his four MVPs. Russell had to beat out an average of just 102 players to win each of his five MVPs. While Russell’s raw totals look more impressive in these comparisons, it’s actually LeBron with the more impressive accomplishments when adjusted for league size. If we want to avoid a top-100 list dominated by players who played when the league was at its smallest and weakest, this statistical analysis is imperative when comparing players from different eras with different league sizes. Fortunately for us, the NBA is unlikely to deviate too far from the 30-teams it has now, meaning league size should not be a factor when comparing players who debuted in the 21^st century. 

Globalization (or Competition Level IV)

Prior to the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, the only basketball players in the world who were barred from international competition were those who played in the NBA. Due, in part, to America’s waning presence on the international basketball scene despite having the best players in the world, Borislav Stankovic, the Secretary-General of the International Basketball Federation (FIBA), had an epiphany of fairness. Even with USA Basketball—the governing body of basketball in the United States—voting against the inclusion of NBA players, Stankovic rallied enough votes to get the rule changed, paving the way for the Dream Team’s historic formation and subsequent dominance in Barcelona.  

Although the Dream Team quickly restored order on the international scene, perhaps its biggest legacy is that it sparked a global frenzy for the sport. Instead of continuing to draw exclusively from a national pool of talent, the NBA would be handed the keys to a global pool that would eventually produce the wizardry of such stars as Giannis Antetokounmpo, Luka Doncic, and Nikola Jokic. The global infusion of talent has been a dream come true for both NBA executives and basketball connoisseurs. There were more international players on 2019-20 NBA rosters (108) than there were total players in the NBA in 1961 (93). International-born players made up an astounding 25% of the total players in the NBA in 2020, after accounting for just 1.7% in 1980. International players aren’t just making NBA rosters, they’re keeping them afloat. Measured by Player Efficiency Rating (PER), international players accounted for 26 of the top 100 players in the NBA in 2019-20. That number will undoubtedly grow as NBA franchises continue to show a willingness to invest in international talent. Over the NBA’s first 51-years, eight international basketball players were drafted in the top 10 with just two coming at #1 overall. In the following 22 years, there were 51 international players drafted in the top 10 with 9 coming at #1 overall.  

With the NBA earnestly scouting players from the entire globe, the league has never been more talented, making it more difficult than ever before to stand-out. As LeBron’s career is scrutinized and his resume is inevitably compared to Michael Jordan’s, it is important to acknowledge how much more competitive the NBA has been for LeBron and his contemporaries than it was for Jordan and his.

Scalabrine (Competition Level V)

The way we’ve been taught to identify historical greatness and handle inter-era player comparisons is to rely exclusively on “performance relative to peers” as the standard-bearer metric. In a vacuum, that would make for a sound approach. However, we don’t live in a vacuum. While it can be a useful tool in certain instances, some leagues are so compromised competitively that we simply cannot take player achievements at face value. To take this concept to the extreme, let’s walk through a thought-experiment that results in Brian Scalabrine–an NBA benchwarmer–being crowned the greatest basketball player of all-time. If in 2001, Scalabrine opted to start a two-team basketball league in the greater Boston area with local YMCA members filling out the rosters instead of embarking on his NBA career, then his basketball legacy could’ve been very different. He’d be working on a two-decade streak of consecutive regular season and finals MVPs, 1st-team all-league selections, and defensive player of the year awards. If we’re simply using “performance relative to peers” to evaluate greatness, then YMCA Scalabrine would find himself listed among the greatest basketball players of all-time. This idea is silly, of course. Scalabrine averaged 3.1 points per game over an 11-year NBA career. We know where he stands in the all-time pecking order of professional basketball players and it’s not particularly high. The obvious counter to this thought-experiment is to point out that Scalabrine’s hypothetical YMCA league would not include the best players in the world and the skill level and size of the players it did include would be lacking, therefore muting the meaning of his dominance. This is true, and very relevant to how we need to evaluate the different eras in NBA history.

George Mikan (and, to slightly lesser extents, Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell)—like hypothetical YMCA Scalabrine—dominated a competitively compromised league. NBA basketball in the late 40s and 50s resembled more a YMCA league than the product we see on the court today. For starters, the average height in the NBA during Mikan’s rookie season of 1948 was 6’3. At 6’10, Mikan was taller than every player in the league. The rules at the time did not account for players of Mikan’s height. The three-second lane was only six-feet wide and there was no shot-clock. This meant Mikan could take as long as he wanted to establish his position directly in front of the basket before receiving an entry pass over the heads of much shorter players. To suggest Shaq would’ve benefited from Mikan’s NBA would be a massive understatement. Mikan’s skill is often credited for forcing NBA rule changes. A more accurate statement would be to say that Mikan’s height was responsible for NBA rule changes. Height is not a skill, nor is a .404 career shooting percentage (yuck!). In an era that lacked the modern focus on skill development, being tall was the greatest predictor of success. In today’s NBA, being tall is merely a prerequisite for even being in the league.

Moreover, the NBA’s ban—and subsequent quotas—on black players watered-down the quality of the league not only during Mikan’s entire career but also well into the 70s. Basketball was popular in the black community in the 40s and 50s, and it produced several talented players who were every bit as talented as the NBA’s best players. The all-black Harlem Globetrotters defeated Mikan’s NBA Champion Minneapolis Lakers teams in exhibition games two years in a row in 1948 and 1949. By exclusively playing against white players, Mikan was able to dominate a league missing a significant portion of the best talent in America. Not only did Mikan’s NBA not include black players, but the player pool was further limited by the fact that interest in the sport was regional and basketball wasn’t lucrative enough to attract heavy interest as a profession. This was all a far cry from the player pool we see today fueled by global interest and exorbitant salaries.  

None of this was Mikan’s fault, of course. He played the cards he was dealt and he did it better than his peers. He was the best player in the NBA for five consecutive seasons. However, using Mikan’s performance relative to his peers is insufficient in determining his place in NBA history. He was 7 inches taller than his average competitor. The league rules had not been made to account for tall people. Black players were not allowed to play in the NBA. Low pay and regional interest contributed to a tiny pool of talent to draw from. One of the most important tasks when creating a top-100 list is to establish a way to rate players from different eras against each other. The easiest way to do this is to use “performance relative to peers.” However, there are limitations to such an approach. Without acknowledging these limitations, George Mikan would have to be considered one of the five greatest basketball players of all-time, and Brian Scalabrine would be at the YMCA of Greater Boston right now posting up a 5’4, 57-year old MIT professor with heel spurs and a pacemaker. 

Efficiency 

After we adjust for competition level, the first place we need to look to identify greatness is offensive efficiency. With enough shot attempts, anyone can average 20+ points per game. We’re interested in the players who do it with the fewest attempts. Fortunately, we have two useful tools to find these players: eFG% and True Shooting Percentage. Let’s start with eFG%. There have been 62 players (min. 400 games) in NBA history who have averaged at least 20 points per game over their careers. High-volume scorers have been plentiful throughout NBA history. Efficient high-volume scorers, on the other hand, are another story. Of the 62 players who have averaged over 20 points per game in a career, just seven have an eFG% greater than 54%. Those seven players are LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Shaquille O’Neal, Steph Curry, Charles Barkley, and Giannis Antetokounmpo. Unsurprisingly, all six players have at least one MVP award, and the total MVP count between them is 17. By narrowing the parameters even further, we really start to see the cream rise to the top. Shaq and Steph Curry are the only players in NBA history to average 20 points per game with an eFG% above 56%. In the last 30 years, only one player has led the league in eFG% while also averaging at least 20 points. That player is Shaq, and he did it five times. LeBron, Kevin Durant, and Wilt Chamberlain are the only players to have a career average of at least 27 points per game and an eFG% above 54%.  

Switching to True Shooting Percentage, we see many of the same names with the notable addition of perhaps the most underrated player of all-time: Adrian Dantley. Dantley is rarely in the discussion of all-time greats. He was nowhere to be found on the list of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History released by the league in 1996, and he’s even more of an afterthought today. Despite the snubs, Dantley’s True Shooting Percentage tells a different story, revealing a brilliance that has been hiding in plain sight for four decades. Dantley is the only player in NBA history to post consecutive seasons of at least 30 points per game and a True Shooting Percentage of at least .620, and he did it four years in a row. Dantley is the only player in NBA history with a career average of at least 24 points per game and a True Shooting Percentage of at least .616. There have been three seasons in NBA history that have produced 30 points per game with a True Shooting Percentage greater than .651, Dantley has two of them (Steph Curry is the other). Dantley is clearly one of the most, if not the most, efficient high-volume scorers in NBA history, even if it takes relying on tools like eFG% and True Shooting Percentage to let us know.

Although there are several ways to identify great basketball players, identifying those who combine high-volume scoring with efficiency is at the top of the list. If a player is rated higher than expected in the top-100, it’s probably because of how efficient that player was as a high-volume scorer. If a player is rated lower than expected in the top-100, it’s probably because of how inefficient that player was as a high-volume scorer. Scoring efficiency is also one of the primary reasons that LeBron edges past Michael Jordan as the GOAT. LeBron has many advantages in a head-to-head comparison with Jordan, including size, vision, positional flexibility, three-point shooting, rebounding, and strength of the league, but the biggest advantage he has is his efficiency as a scorer. 

The Overflow

*Does not include active players

Josh Beckett	Elston Howard	Garrett Anderson
Vida Blue	Joe Mauer	Richie Ashburn
Bert Blyleven	Yadier Molina	Earl Averill
Kevin Brown	Thurman Monson	Jose Bautista
Mordecai Brown	Jorge Posada	Don Baylor
Mark Buerhle	Buster Posey	Harold Baines
Madison Bumgarner	Ted Simmons	Albert Belle
Jim Bunning	Joe Torre	Carlos Beltran
John Clarkson	Dick Allen	Wally Berger
Bartolo Colon	Cap Anson	Bobby Bonds
David Cone	Jake Beckley	Ryan Braun
Stan Coveleski	Lance Berkman	Lou Brock
Mike Cuellar	Jim Bottomley	Jesse Burkett
Dizzy Dean	Dan Brouthers	Ellis Burks
Doug Drabek	Norm Cash	Jose Canseco
Don Drysdale	Orlando Cepeda	Max Carey
Chuck Finley	Will Clark	Jack Clark
Lefty Gomez	Roger Connor	Fred Clarke
Dwight Gooden	Cecil Cooper	Rocky Colavito
Zack Greinke	Carlos Delgado	Gravvy Cravath
Ron Guidry	Darrell Evans	Sam Crawford
Cole Hamels	Cecil Fielder	Nelson Cruz
Felix Hernandez	Prince Fielder	Kiki Cuyler
Orel Hershiser	Andres Galarraga	Johnny Damon
Tim Hudson	Steve Garvey	Chili Davis
Catfish Hunter	Jason Giambi	Andre Dawson
Tommy John	Adrian Gonzalez	Ed Delahantay
Addie Joss	Mark Grace	Larry Doby
Jim Kaat	Todd Helton	Hugh Duffy
Tim Keefe	Keith Hernandez	Adam Dunn
Jimmy Key	Gil Hodges	Jim Edmonds
Corey Kluber	Ryan Howard	Dwight Evans
John Lackey	Kent Hrbek	Elmer Flick
Cliff Lee	Paul Konerko	George Foster
Bob Lemon	Derrek Lee	Kirk Gibson
John Lester	Tino Martinez	Brian Giles
Tim Lincecum	Don Mattingly	Juan Gonzalez
Ted Lyons	Lee May	Luis Gonzalez
Juan Marichal	Fred McGriff	Goose Goslin
Dennis Martinez	Justin Morneau	Pedro Guerrero
Jim McCormick	John Olerud	Harry Heilman
Joe McGinnity	Tony Perez	Babe Herman
Denny McLain	Boog Powell	Matt Holliday
Dave McNally	Roy Sievers	Frank Howard
Jack Morris	George Sisler	Torii Hunter
Mike Mussina	Mark Teixeira	Ichiro
Don Newcombe	Bill Terry	Joe Jackson
Kid Nichols	Mo Vaughn	Andruw Jones
Phil Niekro	Joey Votto	David Justice
Roy Oswalt	Roberto Alomar	Willie Keeler
Gaylord Perry	Craig Biggio	King Kelly
Jim Perry	Robinson Cano	Ralph Kiner
Andy Pettitte	Eddie Collins	Chuck Klein
Eddie Plank	Nellie Fox	Carlos Lee
Rick Reuschel	Frankie Frisch	Greg Luzinski
Jose Rijo	Charlie Gehringer	Fred Lynn
Kenny Rogers	Joe Gordon	Heinie Manush
CC Sabathia	Bobby Grich	Roger Maris
Bret Saberhagen	Billy Hermn	Andrew McCutchen
Dave Stewart	Jeff Kent	Joe Medwick
Dave Stieb	Tony Lazzeri	Minnie Minoso
Rick Sutcliffe	Bill Mazeroski	Kevin Mitchell
Don Sutton	Jackie Robinson	Dale Murphy
Luis Tiant	Ryne Sandberg	Tony Oliva
Fernando Valenzuela	Red Schoendienst	Al Oliver
Dazzy Vance	Lou Whitaker	Paul O’Neil
Rube Waddell	Luis Aparicio	Magglio Ordonez
Adam Wainwright	Luke Appling	Jim O’Rourke
Ed Walsh	Lou Boudreau	Dave Parker
Brandon Webb	Dave Concepcion	Vada Pinson
Bob Welch	Joe Cronin	Kirby Puckett
David Wells	George Davis	Tim Raines
Wilbur Wood	Barry Larkin	Jim Rice
Early Wynn	Pee Wee Reese	Sam Rice
Rollie Fingers	Jimmy Rollins	Tim Salmon
Eric Gagne	Ozzie Smith	Al Simmons
Rich Gossage	Miguel Tejada	Ken Singleton
Trevor Hoffman	Alan Trammell	Sam Thompson
Craig Kimbrel	Arky Vaughan	Enos Slaughter
Mike Marshall	Bobby Wallace	Reggie Smith
Randy Myers	Robin Yount	Duke Snider
Joe Nathan	Home Run Baker	Alfonso Soriano
Jon Papelbon	Ron Cey	Rusty Staub
Dan Quisenberry	Gary Gaetti	Darry Strawberry
Francisco Rodriguez	George Kell	Bobby Veach
Lee Smith	Bill Madlock	Larry Walker
Bruce Sutter	John McGraw	Paul Waner
Billy Wagner	Craig Nettles	Zack Wheat
John Wetteland	Aramis Ramirez	Bernie Williams
Roy Campanella	Scott Rolen	Billy Williams
Gary Carter	Al Rosen	Hack Wilson
Mickey Cochrane	Ron Santo	Dave Winfield
Bill Dickey	Deacon White	Jim Wynn
Buck Ewing	Matt Williams	Edwin Encarnacion
Carlton Fisk	David Wright	Edgar Martinez
Bill Freehan	Bobby Abreu
Gabby Hartnett	Moises Alou

There have been over 20,000 players in Major League Baseball history. Even if just 10% can be considered above-average, we’re looking at a list longer than the end credits of The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. To get that list down to 100 requires identifying the right combination of performance and longevity, with the caveat that the more elite seasons a player has, the less longevity is a requirement. For the few who “hit it out of the park” in both categories, it’s a Disney FastPass to the front of the line. For those who stray too far to one side or the other, it’s a lifetime membership to the Jelly of the Month Club.

Dave Winfield amassed impressive raw totals over 22 seasons but falls just short of inclusion. Despite 3,110 career hits, Winfield produced only one season with a WAR greater than 5.4 and finished in the top-10 in the league in WAR just once. While the balance is not quite there for Winfield, it is just barely there for Eddie Murray. Murray matches Winfield’s longevity while outperforming him in Baseball Reference’s Black Ink and Gray Ink tests.

The Murray/Winfield comparison is an important one because it shows just how razor-thin the difference can be between being on the right side of the top-100 and the wrong side. According to Bill James’s similarity score, of all the players in MLB history, the player whose career closest resembles Winfield’s is Murray. Fortunately, the closer we hold the magnifying glass to the numbers, the more we find tangible separation. The answer is always there, even it’s not always the first thing we see. This head-to-head comparison is just one of the thousands that went into creating the top-100. Although it would be nice to be able to simply state a minimum requirement for both peak and longevity, there have been too many great baseball careers with too many distinct resumes to be able to do that. Instead, answering the following set of questions helps us narrow in on the elusive sweet spot…

1). What era did the player play in?

This question establishes a “degree of difficulty” factor, bringing context to player achievements. Succeeding in a small, racially segregated league is much easier than succeeding in a large, racially diverse league. Eddie Collins is a Hall of Fame second baseman who amassed 3,315 career hits over 25 years from 1906-1930. He is 11^th all-time in hits, 8^th all-time in stolen bases, and 13^th all-time in WAR. There is no doubt that Collins was one of the top-100 players of all-time, even as recently as the end of the 20^th century. While Collins’ resume was strong enough to buoy him for 70+ years, it was the relatively weak competition level of his era that eventually did him in. Given the small number of teams (8) in the American League at the time, and the fact that black and Latino players were banned from playing in MLB, Collins would’ve needed a resume with substantially more league-leading accomplishments than the best players from more competitive eras. According to Baseball Reference’s Black Ink Test, that didn’t happen. Collins scores just 19, which is good for only 122^nd all-time among position players. A 19 isn’t necessarily a poor score taken at face value—it’s actually better than the scores of a number of players who made the top-100—it’s the fact that it was achieved during the least competitive era in MLB history that is the issue. Given the significant increase in degree-of-difficulty that players post-segregation have faced, Collin’s Black Ink score and overall resume simply don’t hold up against the likes of Dick Allen (27), Larry Walker (24), and Kirby Puckett (22), none of whom break the top-100.

Further alienating Collins’ case is the fact that the best players from his era all score astronomically high on the Black Ink Test, which would be the expectation given how much easier it was to lead the league than in any other era. In fact, six of the top ten Black Ink totals of all-time among position-players come from players who played with Collins, including Babe Ruth (157), Ty Cobb (154), Rogers Hornsby (125), Honus Wagner (105), Nap Lajoie (76), and Lou Gehrig (75). Collins was a good player to be sure, but there is a clear delineation between the elite players of the early 1900s and the good players.

On the other hand, modern players who score high on the Black Ink test do so in the most difficult era in MLB history. Unlike the players from the first half of the 20^th century, contemporary players play in a league almost twice the size and do so against the largest talent pool MLB has ever seen. Leading the league is more difficult now than it has ever been, which makes recent players who have routinely led the league in important categories more impressive than their predecessors with equal accomplishments. Roger Clemens (100), Randy Johnson (99), Greg Maddux (87), Mike Schmidt (74), Barry Bonds (69), and Alex Rodriguez (68), might not have the Black Ink totals to rival the best players of the segregation era, but their totals are actually more impressive given the environment in which they were achieved.

2). How many elite seasons did the player have?

It is crucial that we reward elite performance, first and foremost, before we consider career marks since the latter can merely be a function of longevity. 300 wins, 500 home runs, and 3,000 hits are milestones that have been burned into the brain of every kid who has ever obsessively scanned the back of a baseball card. While those marks are revered—and largely for good reason—many of the greatest players in baseball history have not come close to reaching them. Either due to injury, military service, or late-development, most players don’t have the luxury of playing long enough to reach those numbers. So, we need a different way to measure greatness, or we run the risk of confusing longevity with greatness.

Despite being one of the elite players in MLB for over a decade, Albert Pujols didn’t achieve a 4 WAR-season after 2012, and he was worse than a bench player from 2016-2020. Yet, over that time, he passed the 500 and 600 home run milestones, reached 3,000 hits, 2,000 RBIs, and inched past 100 career WAR. Had Pujols retired when he stopped being a productive player, his counting stats wouldn’t look as impressive as they do today, yet the Angels almost certainly would have been more successful without him. The point here isn’t that Pujols wasn’t a great player (he was), rather it’s that we need to acknowledge that he was an elite player for 12 seasons and a mediocre-to-poor player for nine seasons. Sticking around for nine seasons to hit aesthetically pleasing career counting stats didn’t make him a better player.

Unlike Pujols, there are a number of players who retired either right at or just before the point at which they stopped being productive. Pedro Martinez, Jeff Bagwell, Vlad Guerrero, and Roy Halladay are just a few examples. If Bagwell or Guerrero had chosen to play an extra five seasons as below average players, they likely would’ve reached 3,000 hits and 500 home runs. When deliberating a player’s place in history, it’s important that we avoid rewarding players for seasons after becoming unproductive and, conversely, punishing players for not sticking around long enough to become a drain on their teams.

Unfortunately, our love affair with career milestones has resulted in really good players being overlooked, none more than Johan Santana. Over 12 seasons, Santana posted a lofty .641 winning percentage, which is the 10th best mark of all pitchers debuting since 1960 (min. 10 seasons). His 136 ERA+ is the 5^th highest in the last 100 years (min. 10 seasons). Santana is the only player in MLB history to lead the league in ERA+, WHIP, H/9, strikeouts, and SO/9 in three consecutive seasons. He is one of only four pitchers to lead the league in WHIP for four consecutive seasons (Carl Hubbell, Sandy Koufax, and Clayton Kershaw). Since 1920, he is the only pitcher to lead the league in wins, ERA, strikeouts, innings, games started, ERA+, WHIP, H/9, and SO/9 in the same season. He is one of only seven players to lead the league in ERA+ for three consecutive seasons (Christy Mathewson, Lefty Grove, Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux, Randy Johnson, and Clayton Kershaw). Since 1920, he is one of only four pitchers to lead the league in H/9 for three consecutive seasons (Bob Feller, Sandy Koufax, and Nolan Ryan).

Yet, not only is Santana rarely, if ever, considered among the top 100 players of all-time, he was resoundingly rejected by Hall of Fame voters to the tune of a paltry 2.4% approval. Meanwhile, Sandy Koufax and Hank Greenberg—who, like Santana, didn’t quite nail the longevity component—are celebrated Hall of Famers and routinely included on top-100 lists, despite playing in significantly less competitive eras. If we’re not going to hold it against Koufax and Greenberg, then we probably shouldn’t hold it against Santana.   

3). How often did the player lead the league in important categories?

Irrespective of the wide variance in competition levels throughout MLB history, one constant threads all eras: the best players lead the league in the most important categories the most often. The Black Ink Test is a good place to start due to its relative simplicity, but it’s also somewhat limited for the same reason. While the Black Ink Test assigns anywhere from 1-4 points for leading the league in each of 12 different categories, it assigns zero points for leading the league in on-base percentage, OPS+, totals bases, and WAR, which are four of the most valuable tools we have for player comparisons. Adding these four categories to the Black Ink Test gives us a pretty comprehensive snapshot of a player’s contributions, or lack thereof.

Some of the early 20^th century players who have been seemingly rubber-stamped on every top-100 list since the beginning of time probably shouldn’t be. Players like Eddie Collins, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Al Simmons, Paul Waner, Eddie Plank, Harry Heilman, and George Sisler perform poorly on the Black Ink Test compared to their contemporaries. Given that it was considerably easier to lead the league in that era than in any other due to league size and the homogenous makeup of the player pool, the fact that these players perform so poorly on the Black Ink Test makes it hard to justify including them in the top-100.

4). How often did the player finish among the league leaders in important categories?

While leading the league in statistical categories is the gold standard for finding the best players, identifying players who routinely finished among the leaders is also a revealing exercise. For those players whose Black Ink Test looks more like a Blank Ink test, we have Baseball Reference’s Gray Ink Test. The Gray Ink Test measures how often a player finished in the top-10 in important statistical categories. Like the Black Ink Test, we benefit from making a few minor adjustments. In addition to adding on-base percentage, OPS+, total bases, and WAR, we can also get a higher-caliber player by limiting the test to top-5 finishes rather than top-10.

It’s also important to recognize that these tests are only useful when comparing players who played in similarly-sized leagues since it becomes more difficult to finish among the league leaders the larger the league grows. It’s no coincidence that the majority of the top-100 Gray Ink scores of all-time come from players who played when the league was roughly half the size it is today. Since it is more difficult to finish among the league leaders than it ever has been before, contemporary players are producing lower Black Ink and Gray Ink scores than ever before. If we rely solely on these tests without context, players like Chipper Jones and Jim Thome appear underwhelming. Both look significantly more impressive after accounting for league-size and factoring on-base percentage, OPS+, total bases, and WAR into the Black Ink and Gray Ink tests.

5). Does the player have uniquely impressive career numbers?

While our primary focus is on finding players with the most elite seasons, we also have to account for those with elite careers.  Sometimes there is overlap, and sometimes there isn’t. For example, we’d be hard-pressed to find a truly elite season on Rafael Palmeiro’s ledger. He never led the league in Adjusted OPS+, slugging %, on-base percentage, home runs, or RBIs, and never finished better than 5^th in MVP voting. Yet, Palmeiro is a member of one of the most exclusive clubs in baseball history. There have been 32 players to reach 3,000 career hits and 27 to reach 500 career home runs. Only Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Alex Rodriguez, Albert Pujols, Eddie Murray, and Palmeiro have done both. Although Palmeiro never won an MVP award and rarely led the league in statistical categories, only five players in the history of the game have equaled his combined career production in two of the most important statistics in the sport. Combing for elite seasons using the Black Ink Test (along with on-base percentage, WAR, OPS+, and total bases) unearths the majority of the greatest players of all-time, but some players shine most when looking at career production.

6). How did the player perform in the playoffs?

Few things in the sports world are as intense as playoff baseball. Every strike thrown feels like a statement of dominance, while every ball feels like the precursor to a meltdown. A single base-runner simultaneously represents anxious dread for the defense and the hope of a rally for the offense. Those moments can be as fleeting as Rickey Henderson stealing a base, but hundreds of those moments, back-to-back, over nine innings, results in a tension-filled viewing experience like few others in sports.  What makes those moments so exhilarating is the fact that the premier pitching rotations face the most explosive lineups and vice versa. Even when those matchups do occur over the 162-game grind of the regular season, the intensity of the win-or-go-home stakes of the postseason simply cannot be replicated. We can view postseason performance as a bonus data point akin to a partial or full super-competitive regular season.

Derek Jeter played in 158 career playoff games which are roughly equivalent to a full regular season. We can imagine his post-season experience as a single regular season with a degree of difficulty off the charts. Despite exclusively facing the best rotations in baseball in the pressure cooker atmosphere of the postseason, Jeter’s postseason performance stayed true to his regular-season form:

With the slight uptick in power, Jeter’s playoff stat-line would represent one of the better regular seasons of his career. Merely equaling regular season output in the hyper-competitive postseason environment is a sign of elevated performance.  

7). Did the player excel in multiple facets?

There’s no doubt that the biggest contribution a position-player can make is with bat-in-hand, but defense and baserunning clearly play a big role in deciding the outcome of a baseball game. Great offensive players get the most recognition—and for good reason—but great offensive players who also excel defensively, or on the base path, are a rare commodity.

Although David Ortiz is proof that it’s possible to mash your way to greatness, his ceiling isn’t nearly as high as it is for a versatile stalwart like Mike Schmidt. Though Schmidt was a celebrated hitter who led the National League in home runs a record eight times, he was also one of the greatest defensive players in MLB history, ranking 8^th all-time in dWAR among third basemen. It’s Schmidt’s excellence both with the bat and with the glove that has him ranked among the top-10 players of all-time.

While Schmidt’s elite production with the bat would’ve been enough on its own to merit inclusion in the top-100, there are a number of examples of merely good, or even average, hitters who are included in the top-100 as a result of outstanding defense and/or baserunning. These players include Rickey Henderson, Brooks Robinson, Adrian Beltre, Pudge Rodriguez, Cal Ripken Jr., and Gary Carter. Of course, Barry Bonds, Willie Mays, and Alex Rodriguez also rate among the top-10 players of all-time due, in part, to their versatile skillsets.  

8). Was the player uniquely impressive at a critical skill?

By this point of the Q&A, we’ve identified the vast majority of the elite profiles in MLB history.  However, there are players hiding in plain sight who were so elite at a critical skill that—despite not having the typical resume of a top-100 player—have earned the right to be listed among the top-100 players of all-time.

Mark McGwire only amassed 1,626 career hits, which isn’t even among the top 500 totals in MLB history. However, McGwire is literally the greatest home run hitter of all-time. His AB/HR rate of 10.61 is the best ever, and it isn’t particularly close. Given that hitting a home run is the pinnacle result of any plate appearance and the fact that McGwire played long enough to clobber 583 home runs, he is undoubtedly one of the top 100 baseball players of all-time, despite being a one-trick pony Cardinal.

Although hitting home runs is the most important skill in baseball, getting on base isn’t far behind, and few have been better at that than Joey Votto. Votto has led the league in on-base percentage seven times. Only Ted Williams, Barry Bonds, Babe Ruth, and Rogers Hornsby have led the league more often, and they just happen to be four of the top-20 players of all-time. Votto will not end up reaching the celebrated statistical milestones that have become synonymous with Hall-of-Fame resumes, but it is hard to imagine a player leading the league in on-base percentage seven times and not being a strong contender for the top-100.

Mariano Rivera is another example of a player who mastered a critical skill. Nobody was better than Rivera at protecting a lead. He is the all-time leader in regular season saves and playoff saves. In fact, he was so dominant at this particular skill that he is the only player in MLB history to be the all-time leader in the same category in both the regular season and the postseason. Typically, a reliever who amassed fewer than 1,200 career regular season innings wouldn’t have anywhere close to the impact a starter would have. However, Rivera didn’t just impact games, he is arguably the most impactful player in postseason history. Rivera’s career postseason Win Probability Added (WPA) of 11.69 is not only the most by any player in history, it is more than the next three players combined.

9). How did the player fare in MVP and Cy Young Voting?

MVP and Cy Young Awards represent the most prestigious annual honors in baseball, so it only makes sense to use them when evaluating player legacies. However, like pretty much every other metric we have at our disposal, MVP and Cy Young voting need to be viewed in context. From 1911-1928, no player was permitted to win the MVP more than once. Also, the MVP was not awarded from 1915-1921 and in 1930. So, using MVP voting for players who played prior to 1930 is pretty much worthless, unless Babe Ruth winning just one MVP award sounds like a reasonable thing.

Additionally, voters inexplicably fell in love with catchers in the 1950s, awarding Yogi Berra and Roy Campanella six combined MVPs between 1951-1955. For comparison, only 11 MVPs have been awarded to catchers in the other 105 years the award has been handed out. As a result of this brief infatuation with catchers, sportswriters of the 50s put us in a tough spot. Only one player in MLB history has won more MVPs than Campanella. Taking MVP voting at face value would mean Campanella would join every other 3-time MVP winner in the top-100. The problem is that the evidence doesn’t support Campanella being the best player in the league even once, let alone three times. Without the MVPs to buoy his resume, Campanella is hardly worthy of top-100 consideration. He only amassed 4,816 plate appearances, yielding an underwhelming 35.6 career WAR. He never finished in the top-6 in single-season WAR and his Black Ink and Gray Ink scores are nowhere near that of a typical Hall-of-Fame player.

We can either take MVP voting at face value and put Campanella in the top-100, or adjust for voting malpractice when necessary. The latter seems to be the more appropriate course of action. Counting some MVP and Cy Young results as legitimate and others as not brings into question the value of using these awards as a metric in the first place. However, more often than not, voters put forth a worthy winner. Even if the occasional voting misfires weren’t palatable, there is also value—maybe even just as much—in simply identifying players who routinely finished among the top-5 in MVP Voting.

Extra Innings

Bonds vs. Ruth

As much as an opinion can be a fact, it has always been a “fact” that Babe Ruth is the greatest baseball player of all-time. It’s an easy case to make. Nobody led the league in more categories more often than Ruth. His entire statistical archive is seemingly bolded or italicized, denoting league-leader status. He is the all-time leader in OPS+ and slugging percentage. He is the only player in baseball history to hit more than 600 home runs and hit at least .305—and he did it with 756 home runs and a .342 average! His dominance of the 20s and 30s essentially forced baseball out of the dead-ball era. It would take thousands of words to list out all of the things Ruth did that nobody else did.

The Sultan of Swat is deserving of every alliterative appellation allocated to him and every hyperbolic half-truth that accompanies his name. Without Ruth, baseball would not be what it is today. He is a two-syllable history lesson of America’s pastime. DJ, kindly bring that record to a screeching halt. This is the “but” you were waiting for. Pee-Wee Herman said it first and said it best, “everyone I know has a big but” and this might be the biggest “but” of them all. Babe Ruth was the greatest player of his era, but he is not the greatest player of all-time. To evoke the moody train conductor from The Polar Express, baseball eras are not transferable. While Ruth’s astronomical statistical marks make him the king of his era, they cannot be taken at face value when comparing him to players from other eras. Ruth’s dominance of an 8-team league entirely devoid of black and Asian players, and largely devoid of Latino, Canadian, and Jewish players, requires loads of context. Additionally, Ruth played in a league that was hesitant to embrace the value of the home run, which made him stand out like a skyscraper in DC. It wasn’t that players couldn’t hit home runs, it’s that they literally didn’t realize they should be trying to. This, of course, wasn’t Ruth’s fault, but it sure made it easier to lead the league in home runs and slugging %. Every subsequent era after Ruth saw a league full of home-run chasing sluggers, meaning nobody after Ruth would have it quite as easy.   

The only hitter in MLB history who rivals Ruth in dominance with respect to his era is Barry Bonds. DJ, queue the Death Star theme. Bonds won seven MVP Awards (and should have won two more in 1991 and 2000). That number is significant because, in the history of baseball, no two players have combined to win 7 MVPs. That alone suggests that Bonds is, by far, the greatest hitter since 1931, when the MVP that we recognize today was first handed out. Due to the fact that the MVP didn’t exist from 1915-1921, 1929 (AL), and 1930, and baseball rules prevented players from winning the award more than once from 1922-1928, Ruth’s official MVP count stands at a very unsatisfying one. With a little voodoo magic and some retro-prognostication, it is highly probable that Ruth would’ve come close to equaling Bonds’ seven MVPs. MVP voters have historically shown a penchant for spreading the award around to prevent one player from monopolizing it. So, it is unlikely that Ruth would’ve won the MVP every year that he was statistically the best player. In fact, we have evidence of how (un)likely voters at the time were to vote for him. In 1931, Ruth was clearly the best hitter in the American League, but finished 5th in the voting. Although the number of potential MVP awards Ruth could have won likely falls somewhere between 6-11, the outcome probably would’ve ended up on the lower end of that range.

Let’s just say for argument’s sake that Ruth would have won nine MVPs. During Ruth’s career, there were eight teams in the American League accounting for roughly 200 players. Over the course of Bonds’ career, there was an average of 15 teams in the National League accounting for roughly 375 players. That means that it was close to twice as difficult for Bonds to win an MVP than it was for Ruth. That makes Bonds’ seven MVPs more impressive than the nine MVPs we’ve graciously assumed for Ruth, and that doesn’t account for the fact that Ruth only had to compete against white players.

To continue the Ruth-Bonds comparison in earnest, we need to head to the “league leaders” pages at Baseball Reference, while continuing to account for league size and composition. A similar outcome to the MVP comparison unfolds when comparing Bonds and Ruth in two of the gold-standard measures of inter-era comparisons: WAR for Position Players and OPS+. Both Bonds and Ruth led the league in WAR for Position Players 11 times. Ruth led the league in OPS+ 12 times and Bonds did it nine times. Given that it was almost twice as difficult for Bonds to lead the league in any category due to league size, it’s clear that his accomplishments in these two categories are more impressive than Ruth’s. Again, that only accounts for league size and not the significantly less competitive, very homogenized league that Ruth played in.

Both players led their respective leagues in OBP 10 times. Bonds led the league in walks 12 times, while Ruth did it 10 times. As lauded as Ruth is for his batting average, Bonds led the league in batting average twice, while Ruth did it once. Remember, Bonds simply being close to Ruth in these comparisons is a win given it was nearly twice as difficult for him to lead the league, but Bonds is actually beating Ruth in some of these comparisons. Ruth’s biggest advantage over Bonds comes in slugging percentage where he led the league 13 times compared to Bonds’ seven. Even when it appears Ruth has a significant feather in his cap, the comparison results in a virtual stalemate. It was roughly 1.88 times as difficult for Bonds to lead the league in a category than it was for Ruth, and Ruth led the league in slugging percentage 1.86 times more often than Bonds. That’s about as close to a dead-heat as we’re going to find. Again, that only accounts for the size of the player pool and not the exponential increase in talent that flooded MLB after integration. It also doesn’t account for the fact that leading the league in slugging % was much easier for Ruth given the league was largely ignorant of the value of a home run. Bonds, on the other hand, played in the most competitive home run era in MLB history.

In order for Ruth to stake a claim as the greatest baseball player of all-time, he’d need to come close to doubling-up Bonds in these comparisons, and it hasn’t even come close to playing out that way. Adjusting for league size and composition, Bonds’ achievements are more impressive than Ruth’s, and it’s hard to argue that it’s not by a significant margin. Ruth was an accomplished starting pitcher for the first five years of his career which is certainly notable, but Bonds was an outstanding defensive player and an exceptional base-stealer, while Ruth was not. Let’s call that a wash. 

There is no debating Ruth’s dominance or his impact on the sport. He ushered in an entirely new era of baseball by redefining what it meant to be a productive hitter. Bonds’ abrasiveness and PED use make it virtually impossible that he will ever be universally—or even lightly—embraced as the greatest player of all-time. Heck, he can’t even get into the Hall of Fame. Most lists place Ruth as the greatest player of all-time, and most lists will continue to place Ruth as the greatest player of all-time. People aren’t necessarily interested in changing their minds on this, especially when the beneficiary would be Barry Bonds. The goal of this list is not to rank the most likable good players (here’s looking at you, Griffey), rather it is to rank the greatest players of all-time using two overarching themes: dominance within their era and the competitiveness of their era. To go all Married… with Children, “you can’t have one without the other.”

PEDs

The natural rebuttal to the suggestion that Barry Bonds had a more impressive career than Babe Ruth would be to bring up PEDs. I’m going to break character and rock singular first person here because this is all about personal preference. I made the decision before putting this list together that I would not factor in PED use when ranking players. My reasoning centers around six basic ideas:

1) Players have been cheating in baseball for years in some form or another. Punishing PED usage and not, say, ball-doctoring, bat-corking, electronic surveillance, or greenie-popping seems inconsistent and arbitrary. 

2) It is unlikely that we know even half of the players who took PEDs, which means those who don’t get caught get to hide in plain sight. It’s akin to playing Clue with missing game pieces. There are almost certainly PED users currently in the Hall of Fame who skipped the disgraced player queue simply due to dumb luck. Punishing known users would undoubtedly result in elevating what is sure to be an even bigger group of unknown PED-users. It would also elevate those who cheated in other capacities.

3) Outrage over PED use in professional sports seems to be limited to baseball. PED-use is a wildfire in the NFL, and nobody cares. It’s even worse in MMA when adjusting for the size of the athlete pool. I don’t see the point in treating PED use differently depending on the sport.

4) Even if I chose to “punish” known PED users, there is no formula for how much to devalue statistical performance. Sure, I could randomly penalize Bonds 15 spots, but what would be the rationale behind choosing that number? What if by doing so, Bonds lands behind a suspected-but-not-proven PED user? The integrity of the list starts to break down in a hurry by attempting to police what is impossible to police.

5) Most of the prolific hitters of the steroid-era allegedly took PEDs, putting the vast majority of players in that era on an even playing field. Bonds led the league in WAR for Position Players 11 times. He did it in a league that was full of players using PEDs. Had Bonds been the only player juicing, then we might feel emboldened to question the validity of his dominance. Instead, he achieved the 3rd highest career Adjusted OPS+ of all-time competing against a league full of supercharged players. That’s pretty impressive. As long as we focus our inter-era player comparisons on performance relative to the league average, we can somewhat mute the impact of PEDs.

6) Regardless of my personal view on the matter, opinions on PED use in baseball range from indifference to outrage, and everywhere in between. By removing PED use as a factor in these rankings, I’m giving the responsibility to account for PED use to you—my eminently awesome reader—to adjust as you see fit, or not at all. If you want to draw a red line through every suspected cheater, then in my best Bobby Brown voice, that’s your prerogative. If you simply want to take the list for what it is—which is strictly a performance-based representation of the greatest players in history—then have at it. I would much rather outsource this responsibility than attempt to be the only voice on such a divisive issue.  

Escaping the Gravitational Pull of Conventional Wisdom

If there’s one constant in baseball, it’s that player legacies age like Salma Hayek. This isn’t surprising, of course, since the first thing we’re taught from the jump is to revere baseball’s sacred past. It’s no coincidence that we literally call it “America’s Pastime.” Honoring history is cool and all, but when it comes at the expense of the present, we need to take a step back and find some context. In 1998, Sporting News released its list of the top-100 players in baseball history. Of the players in the top-25, a whopping 18 had made their professional baseball debut by 1940. There wasn’t a single player in the top-25 who debuted after 1967 and only two players who debuted after 1956.  If we’re to believe the Sporting News in 1998, the 66 years from 1890-1956 produced 23 of the 25 greatest players all-time, while the following 42 years produced two. If this was a problem on the AP Statistics exam, I think the Sporting News would’ve failed miserably. Sporting News isn’t the only outlet to disproportionately favor players from the past. Publication-after-publication continues to follow suit, saturating lists with players who played 100 years ago, when the sport was at its weakest competitively. If all we’re interested in is a quick fix of nostalgia, then we can continue stamping every list with the same players. However, if we’re legitimately interested in a statistically sound distribution of the greatest players to ever play, we need to start fighting back against the pull of history.

For 60 years, MLB baseball was as homogenized as a cold, very delicious, very white glass of milk. During this time, black players were banned, anti-Semitism was rampant, and the player pool was hardly the global behemoth that it is today. This limited player pool made it much easier for top players to stand out statistically than in any other era of baseball, leading to ludicrously high OPS+ and batting averages that are exclusive to the early days of baseball. As the player pool grew over time, and the makeup of the pool became more diverse, standing out became increasingly difficult. Unfortunately, some of our best baseball historians have done a poor job explaining this, instead choosing to revel in the astronomical statistical outputs from a century ago. This is how we arrive at a place where much of the baseball world believes that upwards of half of the greatest players of all-time played prior to desegregation.

Once an idea has latched on, it is very difficult for us to let go, even in the face of overwhelming evidence. This is especially true if the idea is sown in adolescence. Ask any adult who discovered America to test this out. For many baseball fans, it is simply a fact that Babe Ruth is—and always will be—the greatest baseball player of all-time, and to suggest otherwise is blasphemous. We have to be willing to challenge conventional wisdom when the evidence supports such a conclusion. If we continue to ignore statistical performance within the context of competition level, then we can expect Sporting News to dust off its 1998 list and present it as new in 2098.

Player Pool Thought Experiment

Let’s imagine we’re spontaneously transported back to our 5^th grade classroom. We’re greeted with all the old standbys; cement walls weirdly painted white, sweet laminated posters with inspirational quotes, and the clock above the chalkboard taunting us with its impossibly slow pace. We also might find that our teacher has scheduled a spelling bee in honor of our interdimensional visit. Motivation aside, what might our odds be of winning this adolescent rite of passage? Well, that all depends on whether we’re shooting for classroom superiority, world domination, or somewhere in between. If we’re limiting the competition to just the 5^th grade—and just our classroom—we’re looking at a 1 in 30 shot to win the belt, maybe a little higher since we’ve already taken high school lit.  That jumps to 1 in 90 for school supremacy, and 1 in 540 for district supremacy, respectively. Things start getting bananas after that. The county and state bees come in at roughly 1 in 20,000 and 1 in 100,000, while the national bee jumps to 1 in 4 million. If we want world domination, we’ve got our work cut out for us at 1 in 100 million. As the pool of spellers grows, the odds of conquering the competition decrease rapidly. Even though the winner at each level has dispatched all challengers, surely, we wouldn’t expect the winner of a classroom bee to have the vocabulary capacity of a state winner. As Daniel Cormier would say, “there are levels to this game.”

So, how does this fit within the context of baseball? Fantastic question! As late as 1920, dedicated youth baseball leagues didn’t even exist in the U.S., let alone in other countries. Without youth leagues to drive competition, standing out was a relatively easy proposition for those who were fortunate enough to be exposed to the game. For a modern comparison, think niche/geographic sports like lacrosse.  The player pool was further limited by the fact that MLB was reserved for white players only, despite baseball being popular in the black community. Fast-forward a century and the whole world has been hit by a tidal wave of baseball mania. Our global infatuation has prompted ESPN to broadcast every game of the Little League World Series—baseball games played by 10-12-year-olds—to its massive viewing audience. The impact this movement has had on the pool of talent feeding MLB has been profound. In 2020, over 28% of MLB players on Opening Day rosters were born outside the U.S., and in 2018, people of color made up 42.5% of all MLB players, up slightly from the 0% in 1910. Not to be outdone by the increasing popularity abroad, baseball participation in the U.S. has also undergone a vast expansion. In 2017, over 15 million people played organized baseball in the U.S. alone.  For comparison, there were only 16 million white males age 5-24 in the entire country in 1910.

The talent pool supplying players to MLB in 1910 was a pond compared to the ocean that we see today. Any comparison between two players from these respective eras needs to be made with degree-of-difficulty front and center. For instance, we might look at Walter Johnson being the best pitcher in 1910 as, say, a national spelling bee champion (1 in 4 million), while Randy Johnson being the best pitcher in 2000 might be closer to a world spelling bee champion (1 in 100 million). Both can stake the claim of being the best of their pool, but to suggest their accomplishments should be viewed equally would be a disservice to statistical analysis. So, now that we’re on the subject…

Let’s Talk About Randy

“Who is the greatest pitcher of all-time?” The names that get thrown around when that question comes up typically include some combination of Walter Johnson, Lefty Grove, Grover Cleveland Alexander, Christy Mathewson, and perhaps Roger Clemens, depending on how we’re all feeling about PED use on that given day. Cy Young will occasionally get an honorary O.G. mention, but the candidates usually don’t extend beyond that group. A name we don’t often hear in the mix as the pitching GOAT is Randy Johnson. This isn’t to suggest The Big Unit has been disregarded; it is commonplace to find him among the top-10 on pitching lists. However, there is a pretty significant disconnect between “the top 10” and the straight fire that is on Randy’s resume. We can blame that disconnect squarely on our obsession with baseball’s past. The Big Unit’s only sin is that he wasn’t born 70 years earlier. There is no other explanation for why he isn’t a perennial contender for not only the greatest pitcher of all-time but also the greatest player of all-time.

Before we take a deep dive into the numbers, let’s first establish the competition level Randy faced compared to the other GOAT candidates. Aside from Clemens, all the pitchers listed above played during segregation. Not only were there no black players, but there were also no Asian players and very few Latinos (most were forced to play in the Negro Leagues), Canadians (43 of the 45 Canadian MLB All-Star selections have come since 1940), and Jewish players (all 71 Jewish All-Star selections came after 1936). Imagine how much easier it would be to succeed as a pitcher in today’s game if black, Latino, Canadian, Asian and Jewish players were either largely, or completely, excluded. Randy’s already stellar ERA would shine even brighter like a diamond in a world without diversity. No Barry Bonds. No Albert Pujols. No Manny Ramirez. No Miguel Tejada. No Carlos Beltran.  

We also have to recognize that while W. Johnson, Mathewson, Alexander, and Young pitched in the dead-ball era, Randy’s career landed him right smack dab in the middle of the steroid era, home to the greatest single-season home run totals in MLB history. Then comes the adjustment for league size. In 1910 a pitcher would need to be better than only 39 other starting pitchers to be considered the best in the league (assuming five-man rotations intact for the season). Today, a pitcher needs to be better than 74 other starting pitchers to achieve the same distinction. Any fair comparison between Randy Johnson and the aforementioned Hall of Fame pitchers needs to place “degree of difficulty” front and center. Anything less would be uncivilized.  

Now that we’ve unintentionally made the case for every pitcher who pitched in the 90s, let’s delve into the numbers so we’re not anointing someone simply for pitching in one of the most turbulent eras in baseball history. Let’s see if we can do this in one breath…  Randy won five Cy Young Awards, and finished second three times. Only Roger Clemens equals Randy’s combined total of eight first and second-place finishes. Randy won four consecutive Cy Young Awards. Greg Maddux, also with four consecutive Cy Youngs, is the only other player to win at least three in a row. Randy is the only player in MLB history to win a Cy Young Award in each league and finish 2^nd in each league. Randy led the league in adjusted ERA+ six times. Only Lefty Grove and Clemens led the league more often. He led the league in H/9 six times. Only Nolan Ryan led the league more often. He led the league in winning % four times. Only Grove led the league more often. He led the league in strikeouts nine times. Only Walter Johnson and Nolan Ryan led the league more often. He is the only player since 1920 to lead the league in ERA+ and strikeouts six times. He’s the only pitcher since the dead-ball era to lead the league in complete games four times and ERA+ six times.  He is the only player since 1920 to lead the league in WHIP three times and strikeouts nine times. Randy and N. Ryan are the only pitchers to lead the league in strikeouts for four consecutive seasons on two different ocassions. Randy and N. Ryan are the only two pitchers to record 300+ strikeouts in four consecutive seasons. Of pitchers who pitched a minimum of 2,500 career innings, Randy has the highest K/9 in history. He holds the record for most strikeouts in a nine-inning start and most strikeouts in a relief appearance. He led the league in WAR for pitchers six times. Only Grove, Clemens, and W. Johnson led the league more often. He led the league in Win Probability Added (WPA) four times. Only Clemens and Grove led the league more often. He’s 2^nd on the all-time strikeout list. He’s one of only four pitchers to reach 300 wins among players who debuted after 1967. Among players to debut since 1967, only Clemens has more shutouts. He is one of only seven players in MLB history to pitch a perfect game and a no-hitter. He’s the only pitcher in MLB history to lead the league in winning % four times and throw two no-hitters. He’s the only pitcher in MLB history to lead the league in ERA+ six times, strikeouts six times (again, he did it nine), and throw two no-hitters. I’m starting to think trying to do this in one breath was a bad idea.

Before some of us start passing out, let’s quickly hit the playoffs with the shared understanding that we could continue this exercise for another 2,000 words. Deal? Deal. Randy had one of the greatest postseason performances in the history of baseball when he—and Curt Schilling—led Arizona to a World Series victory over the Yankees in 2001. In 41.3 postseason innings that year, he went 5-1 with two shutouts, a 1.53 ERA, and a .77 WHIP. Having pitched Arizona to victory in game six, he entered game seven on one days rest to get the final four outs. He holds the record for most wins in a single postseason. He is the only pitcher since 1968 to win three games in a single World Series. He is the only pitcher in MLB history with four Cy Young Awards (he has five) and a World Series MVP.    

Based on performance relative to the league, the pitchers who pop up the most alongside Randy Johnson are Lefty Grove and Roger Clemens. Grove played before integration. He also played in a league roughly half the size, making Randy’s league-leading accomplishments far more impressive. Clemens is a different monster altogether largely due to peak longevity. Randy didn’t start pounding out elite seasons until he was 29. Although that underscores just how dominant he was after the age of 30, it is also the reason for Clemens’ massive 22-12 edge in career peak length in years. If we’re taking resumes at face value, then it’s hard to choose anyone other than Clemens as the pitching GOAT. If we start to discount accomplishments due to PED use, then Randy inches closer to the throne. Regardless of whether we choose to weigh PED use or not, there is no reasonable explanation for Randy Johnson to rank any lower than second on the all-time pitching list.

MLB only, regrettably.

Racial segregation will forever be a stain on the history of our species. The very idea of it is insulting to our big and brilliant brains and the evolutionary process that led to them. Despite being virtually indistinguishable at the cellular, skeletal, and muscular levels, too many of us have used those big brains to conclude that variations in skin pigmentation based on how far our ancestors lived from the equator 100,000 years ago are simply too much adversity to overcome. While racism has far more important consequences than its impact on baseball, it’s hard not to be bitter that this own-goal is the reason Babe Ruth and Josh Gibson never played in the same league.

Baseball history prior to integration is like an unopened milk carton that has been sitting on the counter for a week. It looks every bit like the cold and creamy drink fit to be paired with a warm, gooey chocolate chip cookie. We can hold on to that narrative as long as we’d like if we don’t have any intention of opening the milk. The moment we twist the cap the rotten odor of reality spoils our illusions, and we’re left wondering why someone couldn’t have just put the milk in the fridge. Despite looking like baseball’s most fascinating era, the golden age of baseball was spoiled by segregation, leaving us the cruel fate of pondering what might have been. With all due respect to Ray Kinsella, my Field of Dreams features Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell, Oscar Charleston, Buck Leonard, and Satchel Paige playing a career’s worth of games with and against Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby, Jimmie Foxx, and Walter Johnson. Only then could we take the accomplishments of the latter group at face value. The stars of MLBs bygone era got off easier than they ever had a right to.

Given that Hank Aaron and Willie Mays went from the Negro Leagues to MLB MVP to the Hall of Fame—and the fact that Satchell Paige made the MLB All-Star Game at 46 some twenty years removed from his prime—there is little doubt that the best Negro League players were every bit as skilled as their MLB counterparts. The same can likely be said of the top stars in Latin America, who were also banned due to the GPS coordinates of their ancestors 100,000 years ago. While it is obvious that Negro League players as a whole were more than capable of thriving in MLB, what isn’t obvious is how each individual player would’ve performed. It’s hard enough to compare players with two wildly different MLB profiles, let alone players who didn’t compete against each other and had zero common opponents. Given the limited number of games on the Negro League schedule and the lack of dedicated reporting from that era, it would be difficult to rank Negro League players against each other let alone against players from a different league.

So, that leaves me with two choices: confine the list to MLB competition, or randomly sprinkle Negro League players into the top-100 to ostensibly achieve harmony. As tempting as the second option sounds, there’s only one choice that makes sense. Josh Gibson might have been the greatest baseball player of all-time. He might have been the 101^st greatest player of all-time. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with that. I’ll forego the random placement option, and instead promote the frickin’ sweet Seamheads website as well as leave you with the all-time WAR leaders in Negro Leagues history.