I have zero objections to your list. None. Yeah, many of your favorites were too high. But you weren’t making a draft list. You were listing the 100 best players, in your opinion, right now. So somebody else thinks #84 should have been #48. Big deal! Who on your list didn’t belong on your list? In fact, you listed a couple of guys I was questionable about so I went and looked them up, and my objections went away. And that’s why I loved your list; you opened my eyes to some guys I didn’t know about (because I gave up hard core baseball studying for being a better father back in 1986 at my wife’s insistance, and haven’t gotten back into it now that the kid’s out of the house).

This wasn’t a fantasy draft order. This was the guys you thought were the best 100 players in baseball right now, this season. It was a fine list for that. The guys having mediocre seasons historically were second half heroes, and everybody else was having a great season. Be proud of that list*! Good job!

Of course, maybe your next list could have an extra player or two from the team with the best record in baseball. I mean, NINE Yankees? Oh, wait, that’s right. This is an SI article, and Yankees, or players who beat the Yankees, get way too much credit from media operations based in you know where. Based on record, too many Red Sox as well. I’ll give you too many Cardinals, since they’re local to you and you can hardly put on more Royals. But if there’s ever a sign that New York media influences too many baseball decisions, it has to be your list. The Yankees missed the playoff last year, don’t have the best record in baseball this year, but have the most players on your list. Which Yankee am I going to throw off your list? Um, er, well – psych! Both starting pitchers. I mean, no starter with an ERA above 3.5 and no more than +4 WL for the team with the second best record in baseball deserves to be on that list.

But if you want to be friendlier to your critics, group them in groups as follows: one position player from each of the eight positions, one utility player/DH (or slugging first baseman who doesn’t field well), four starting pitchers, one relievers, one other pitcher (could be starter, reliever, setup guy, whoever). Put out six teams, add in the ten best guys who you couldn’t fit in for whatever reason at the end. Because your list goes to #19 before finding the third outfielder, and the premise was, you need to win THIS year. And I bet players 14-19 (I know, Manny’s the third outfielder at #19) wouldn’t be on your team, and #20 (Ichiro) would be. The advantage of grouping them that way would be it becomes clear if bias is creeping in. Every team needs a player at every position, with mild capacity for fudging between 1st/3rd/LF. So I doubt if your premise was to win this year you’d really pick Ryan Zimmerman (the last 1B/3B/LFer) over, say, Orlando Hudson, or some other worthy second baseman. Else all those pitchers at the top of your list might rebel.

Hillman is worse. He continuously says things (with great confidence) that make no sense, e.g., the “four out save” silliness.

I guess this is why lists like Joe’s are so tough…

That makes more sense to me than anything.