Barry Bonds (NO VOTE) His best tool….himself. He’s a tool.

Ty Cobb: (VOTE) My decision to give him a vote was strictly based upon the fact that if I had to start a team, it would go Ruth, Cobb….. and the rest wouldn’t matter.

Joe DiMaggio (NO VOTE) A great, great player. Just not in my top 5.

Lou Gehrig: (NO VOTE) Luckiest man to bat behind Babe Ruth.

Josh Gibson: (NO VOTE) Simply because its unfair to compare him without firm statistics, and by unfair I mean unfair TO him.

Jackie Robinson (NO VOTE, Unless we are voting strictly upon human spirit, then he’s #1).

Walter Johnson: (VOTE) Outrageous career
.
Greg Maddux: (NO VOTE) Put Johnson on the 90-03 Braves and Maddux on those Senators teams, then we’ll talk.

Mickey Mantle: (NO VOTE) I wont blaspheme by issuing an opinion.

Willie Mays: (NO VOTE) Extend it to top 6 and yeah, a vote.

Babe Ruth: (VOTE) He’s the Babe Ruth of…..er um, you get the point.

Honus Wagner: (NO VOTE, and I’m ashamed about it)

Ted Williams: (VOTE) If, if , if….. Ugh, 7 more prime years.

Cy Young: (NO VOTE) Just have a hard time being logical about his amazing career because its so off the charts in some ways.

Ruth
Wagner
Bonds
Mays
Mantle

Again, do the research since u were probably born well after he retired

One of us is actually old enough to have observed the man’s career first hand… one of us probably isn’t and is just looking at the gaudy hitting stats and wondering “why did people in the 40s and 50s not respect this guy more”????

Well, im old enough to have been there, and im trying to explain why.. but if u dont wanna be convinced, even though u werent there, fine

Well, no one can argue against your personal feelings and secret knowledge of Ted Williams’ inner motivations, but I don’t think you’re going to convince anyone to change their minds with that evidence.

Did i not specifically say that Williams wasn’t a loser because he didn’t have a ring…. i said he was a loser for other reasons….

MANY great players never won championships because there teams weren’t good enough and thats fine… but it went beyond that with williams… he had a loser feel to him his whole career, he HIT, he didnt play good all around baseball….

And u talk about “teams winning championships”… but what does it say for a team when the best player doesn’t give crap about the team or even his own fielding or baserunning, as long as he’s hitting .350 and leading the league in home runs????

They’re only availabe free (at least as far as I know) for the last few years at the Hardball Times website.

Win Shares I’m not sure, I think the Lahman Database has them but you have to buy that. WARP (all variations of it) along with EQA, BRAR/BRAA and so forth are all available on Baseball Prospectus, free of charge. Just look up any player on the website and it will give you their “DT Card.” PECOTA cards for active players cost money (you need a subscription), but thankfully the DT cards are free.

As for Hornsby vs. Wagner is seasonal win shares, let’s compare their Top 5 WARP3 seasons:

Hornsby: 15.3 (1924), 14.3 (1921), 13.4 (1920), 13.2 (1927), 13.1 (1929) (Average of 13.86)

Wagner: 17.1 (1908), 13.2 (1907), 13.1 (1909), 12.8 (1912), 12.5 (1905) (Average of 13.74)

Very, very close in terms of peak value. Wagner has more career value, but you’re correct, they’re nearly identical as peak performers. Of course, there’s the subjective elements (Hornsby was abrasive and managed to be traded multiple times even though he was a Top 5 player in all of baseball every year, Wagner was a gentleman and played almost exclusively for the Pirates), but on pure performance, it’s very, very close.

He won a lot of games for a loser.