The Greatest Living Players At Each Position

For years, Joe DiMaggio demanded, in return for his participation in Old Timers ceremonies, that the the Yankees introduce him as the "greatest living ballplayer." That was debatable, to be kind to Joltin' Joe, as long as the "Say Hey Kid" was alive. But Willie Mays wasn't invited to the Yankees' Old Timers games and now Joe is gone.

Tuesday's All-Star announcements of Mays, Hank Aaron, Johnny Bench and Sandy Koufax as winners of a fan vote for greatest living players got me thinking about the actual titleholders, since Bench and Koufax, giants among the their peers though they were, have no claim to that title.

For added fun, I considered the greatest players around the diamond. Before you read my selections, think for a moment about whom you would choose at each position.

Here goes:

First base: Albert Pujols
Jeff Bagwell edges out Frank Thomas and Willie McCovey for backup. While Thomas and Stretch were magnificent hitters, Bagwell was superior at every other aspect of the game.

Second base: Joe Morgan
The irony of Morgan is that he played the game like a SABR junkie while slathering the airwaves as an announcer with ignorance about what made him great. Robby Alomar beats our Rod Carew for backup in part because Carew moved to first for a significant portion of his career. 

Craig Biggio and Alomar are nearly identical players who hit for average, got on base, piled up doubles and triples, swiped lots of bases and played defense. Biggio got on base via HBP more; Alomar was more adept with the leather, which ultimately swayed me.

Shortstop: Alex Rodriguez
Now the fun begins. ARod has played slightly more games at short than at third. If you count him as a shortstop, that bumps Cal Ripken to backup and Derek Jeter off the team.  That's hard to fathom. So is this: Ozzie Smith can't even get consideration. It's a testament to the 90s as the decade of the shortstop.

Third base: Mike Schmidt
If ARod were a third baseman George Brett wouldn't make the team. Brett knocks Wade Boggs and Chipper Jones off the squad by the microscopic margin of Pete Rose's credibility.

Catcher: Johnny Bench
Yogi Berra gets the nod for backup because he was a better hitter than the two Pudges and a better backstop than Mike Piazza.

Outfield: Barry Bonds, Willie Mays and Hank Aaron
Three of the greatest players of all time. The next group is Rickey Henderson, Frank Robinson and Ken Griffey, Jr. See what's going on there? I didn't consider outfield position, yet each group contains a left, right and center fielder. 

You could make a case to replace Junior with Yaz or Al Kaline. Junior had the higher peak but Yastrzemski and Kaline maintained their productivity to the waning days of their long careers.

DH: Edgar Martinez 
David Ortiz is the backup. It's a perverse irony that the more defensive value a player could confer at another position, the less consideration he would get here. Consider Jim Thome and Paul Molitor, who might have out-hit Ortiz for their careers but are paradoxically weaker candidates because they played large portions of their careers elsewhere on the diamond.

Starting pitchers: Roger Clemens, Tom Seaver, Greg Maddux, Randy Johnson, Bob Gibson
Your backups are Pedro Martinez and Steve Carlton.

Closer: Mariano Rivera
I suspect that one would be unanimous. Rich Gossage is the backup. Comparing old-time firemen to today's closers is a bit dicey, but Gossage was the best of the firemen and his flame throwing was built to overwhelm batters for today's cheap saves too. (A fireman who throws flames: wow, that's some heavy-duty metaphor mixing.)

There were a few folks victimized by position change, like Robin Yount, Pete Rose, Paul Molitor and Rod Carew, but I'm confident that it wouldn't have made any difference. I wish Gary Carter and Ernie Banks had been eligible. We lost Mr. Cub earlier this year; we lost The Kid way too soon three years ago.

Finally, who would make my living Mt. Rushmore? Chemical boosters not withstanding, Mays, Bonds, Clemens and Rodriguez are pretty obviously the greatest living ballplayers. Disqualifying the steroidal triplets from that list leaves us with Mays, Aaron, Henderson and Seaver. That's an unintentional slight to Frank Robinson and Greg Maddux, and a very purposeful dismissal of Mariano Rivera, who hurled all of 1284 innings in his illustrious career, less than Tom Terrific accumulated in his first five years in the Bigs.

Weighing In On Yasiel Puig

It's understandable why Jonathan Papelbon and Bruce Bochy feel indignant about Dodger phenom Yasiel Puig being considered for the All-Star game after just 116 plate appearances over 28 games. If Puig is selected for the game he'll displace one of their compadres who has toiled for years in pro ball awaiting his chance to take the field in the Mid-Summer Classic.

(It is worth noting that Papelbon has thrice represented his league after a similar number of plate appearances against him during that season.) 

Fortunately, we don't allow players and coaches to run the sport of baseball. After all, MLB is in the entertainment business, and what could be more entertaining than allowing a meteor to land at Citi Field? Puig, a highly-prized Cuban defector with an awesome backstory, a .440 batting average (and 1.200 OPS) and a diamond gems video collection, is tearing up the Bigs in his first month like no rookie in history except a fella named DiMaggio. 

Puig has wowed with the full spectrum of baseball skills. He hits for power and average, lights up the highlight reel with his defense and motors around the bases. His arrival rejuvenated a moribund Dodger squad, catapulting it from last place to second with 10 wins in 11 games. He's filling the stands and powering up the TV ratings and he's already been worth a pair of wins to L.A., best among Dodger batters in one-third the time.

The fans want to see him in the game. His appearance will goose TV ratings. So yeah, he's an All-Star. We shouldn't expect Papelbon and Bochy to understand. They're not fans, they're not MLB brass, they're not TV executives. They think baseball is about athletics, not entertainment dollars.

Even taking into account their argument, there's good evidence that Puig still deserves a spot. They argue that Puig has yet to demonstrate that he can sustain his pyrotechnics over a full season. But this is not Kevin Maas, a career farmhand who caught fire for a few months when called up, only to sputter thereafter. A gaggle of Major League suitors for Puig's evident talents out of Cuba earned him a $42 million/7-year deal from L.A. before he'd faced a single pitch. The 22-year-old was universally rated the Dodgers' top prospect, ripping through three levels of the Minors in less than a full season with a 1.016 OPS. He employed is muscular 6'3" 215-pound frame to singe Spring Training, hitting safely in more than half his at-bats.

Moreover, based on his short history, Baseball Prospectus projects Puig will continue embarrassing Big League pitching with a .341 bating average the rest of the way. To Papelpon and Bochy's point, that would drag his average for the year down to .369, leaving him with just 5.4 WARP for the season, about what Robinson Cano was worth last year.

In other words, the odds are very good that Yasiel Puig is Joe DiMaggio. What do you think: do you want that guy in the All-Star game?