The 32 Best Players in Baseball for 2011

Is Pujols the best player in baseball? The answer is obvious. (Robert Beck/SI)

A couple of years ago, I put together a list of the Top 100 players in baseball. The list was doomed from the start, I think, not only because any list like that is doomed, and not only because I have no idea what I’m doing. The biggest problem, I think, is that I did not have a clear vision of what I wanted. I could not clarify in my own mind what I meant by “best players in baseball.”

I put together that list at the All-Star Break, and so part of me was thinking about making it a list of the 100 best players in the first half. But that’s not really what I wanted. Part of me wanted to do the 100 most valuable players in baseball — if every player were dispersed into a draft, these would be my Top 100 — but that wasn’t exactly what I wanted, either, because that involved short-term considerations and long-term considerations and age and health risks, and I really didn’t want to get into that. To be honest, I didn’t know what I wanted.

Anyway, the list ended up being kind of a mess. I have little doubt that the following list is also a mess … but at least I know what I want: I am putting together my prediction for the 32 best players in baseball in 2011. That’s all. I’m not considering seasons beyond. I’m not thinking about who is best to build my team around in 2014. Everything is built around 2011.

Because of this, for instance, Adam Wainwright is not on the list. He was on my original list of the 32 best players — pretty high up on that list. But Wainwright is hurt and won’t pitch this year and so he’s off the list. Chase Utley won’t start the 2011 season, so that affects his ranking. Zack Greinke won’t start the 2011 season. I considered that when putting this thing together. I want the 32 players with the 32 best years.

Now, “best year” is subjective, of course. Even non-regular readers by now know that I put almost no weight on wins or RBIs or batting average. I try my best to judge players by how much they help their teams win, and that includes offense, defense, pitching, base running, context and whatever else comes to mind.

I saw the other day an interesting story that asked this question: “Is Pujols MLB’s best player hands down?” I never like questions with easy one-word answers like, in this case, “YES!” but what was interesting was some of the choices of other players. Mark Teixeira came up. Miggy Cabrera came up. Troy Tulowitzki came up. All three made my list, one just barely. We start with Tex.

* * *

In 2010 Teixeira hit 33 homers, drove in 108 runs and scored a league-leading 113 -- and that was a down year. (Chuck Solomon/SI)

32. Mark Teixeira, New York Yankees

I will admit that in the 10 or so earlier versions of this list, I did not have Teixeira in the Top 32. Before Adam Wainwright got hurt, Tex was not on the list. For a while I had Marlins pitcher Josh Johnson here. For a while I had Colorado’s Carlos Gonzalez here. Ichiro kept popping in. Jered Weaver. I wanted to put Jason Heyward on here. Prince Fielder and Ryan Howard wanted to be heard. Several other terrific players made an appearance in this final spot.

And so Tex is a late addition. This was not a knock on his abilities — he’s a terrific player — but merely a statement about how many great first basemen there are in baseball today.

Ask yourself the question: How many of the 32 best players in baseball can be first baseman? Think hard about it: First base is the least challenging defensive position on the field. They don’t have to throw much. They generally cannot run very well. That’s three of the five tools of baseball right there. I have six on this list, and I think that’s too many.

But … we are in a golden age of first baseman. It’s interesting — there have been fewer great first baseman in baseball history than you might think. Fans of baseball history may think first base and immediately think about Lou Gehrig. Then, maybe they will think about Jimmie Foxx. Two all-time greats. Both played a long, long time ago.

OK, now, who is third-best ever? We’re not counting active players — so who is the third-best first baseman ever? Eddie Murray? Johnny Mize? Hank Greenberg? Jeff Bagwell? Sure, it could be any of those guys, but Murray was really more consistent than dominant. Mize was great, and he missed three full years because of World War II, but did you know that Mize was not even voted into the Hall of Fame by the baseball writers*? Greenberg only got about 6,000 plate appearances in his entire career. Bagwell, well, there are many different opinions about Bagwell.

*A sad miss by the writers, I think.

A few years back, Bill James ranked Mark McGwire as the third-best first baseman ever, but McGwire’s career has lost much of its steam the last few years. Willie McCovey has a strong case. Harmon Killebrew has his case, and he remains underrated because of his deceivingly low batting average and the low-scoring era in which he played.

Point is, that while we may think of first base as a glamour position now … it hasn’t often been that way. Well, it certainly is a glamour position now with Albert Pujols, Miggy Cabrera, Prince Fielder, Adrian Gonzalez, Joey Votto, Ryan Howard, Paul Konerko, Billy Butler and on and on and on. You can’t put all these guys in the Top 32 players in baseball. What to do with Mark Teixeira?

Tex did not have a great 2010. He hit .256/.365/.481 — his OPS was down more than 100 points from 2009, when he led the league in homers, RBIs and total bases. But, even in a somewhat down year, he did lead the league in runs, he did play his usual slick defense, he did walk 93 times … I have a suspicion that this year he will have a massive season.

31. Buster Posey, San Francisco Giants

If given the choice between Buster Posey and Atlanta’s phenom, Jason Heyward, I don’t know who I would take. I love Jason Heyward’s game; it would not surprise me one bit if he takes another big step forward after a sensational Rookie of the Year season and becomes an MVP candidate. Heck, he could WIN the MVP. Posey or Heyward? I’d let you take which one you want and I’ll happily have the other.

Still, good catchers might be America’s rarest commodity — just ahead of the iPad 2 — and great ones are almost nonexistent. Posey was so impressive for the Giants offensively and defensively; he changed the entire complexion of that team. When he was called up at the end of May, the Giants were in third place, and they seemed like a perfectly blah team. When Posey got hot around July 4th, the Giants were in fourth place and seemed like a perfectly blah team. He slugged .600 or so for the next month and a half, and the Giants became a contender. He became, at 23, the focus of the team, one of the main guys who talked to the media, one of the leaders, someone the pitching staff raved about. He was terrific in every way imaginable. And the San Francisco Giants, not coincidentally, won their first World Series ever.

As a prospect, Posey’s offense was considered ahead of his defense. The guy’s going to hit, everyone knows that. His presence behind the plate in 2010 was a bit of revelation. There were some who thought that even in limited time, he deserved the Gold Glove.

30. Ubaldo Jimenez, Colorado Rockies

So here was the one really tricky part about making this list — as usual, I have a few bold predictions for the 2011 season. For one, I’m picking Yovano Gallardo to win the National League Cy Young Award. Every year, I pick a breakout pitcher to win the Cy Young Award — two years ago it was Zack Greinke and last year it was Ubaldo Jimenez, so I’m pretty pleased with how that’s gone.

Anyway, I think Gallardo is this year’s guy … but I’m not putting him in my Top 32 players. If this seems like a clear contradiction of logic — not having my Cy Young choice in my 32 best players — well, yeah, it’s clear contradiction of logic. I guess the only way I can explain it is to use the “Investment vs. Poker” comparison. I may THINK that the guy next to me only has a pair of jacks while I have two pairs, but that doesn’t turn my all-in decision into a sensible college fund choice for my daughters.

In other words: Ubaldo belongs on this list. He has the longer, better track record. I actually received quite a bit of credit through last year for making Jimenez my Cy Young pick though, as every Rockies fan knows, it was really a pretty obvious pick. Jimenez was terrific in 2009 — he was sixth in the league in strikeouts, the league slugged .326 against him and he had made clear and dramatic improvement with his command. It just stood to reason that he would have a great 2010, and he did (19-8, 2.88 ERA, 214 Ks, 7.1 WAR). I don’t see him sliding back in 2011.

29. Zack Greinke, Milwaukee Brewers

With Manny Ramirez becoming a non-factor, I have to nominate “Zack Being Zack” as the cliché for the 2010s. Zack Being Zack includes:

1. Playing the self-admitted bad guy and forcing a trade out of Kansas City (though not to Washington).

2. Then telling everyone “Yeah, I had to play the bad guy.”

3. Admitting that he kind of mailed it in the second half last year.

4. Announcing at Milwaukee Brewers fanfest that he was picking the Pittsburgh Steelers to beat the Green Bay Packers in the Super Bowl.

5. Hurting himself playing basketball — he figures to miss the first two or three weeks of the season at least.

Nobody really gets Zack Greinke. As I’ve written before, if you think you get him, you don’t get him. He’s cocky when you’d expect him to be uneasy and uneasy when you’d expect him to be cocky. He’s funny and thoughtful when you’d expect him to be withdrawn, and withdrawn when you’d expect him to be funny and thoughtful. People who question his competitiveness don’t get him at all — he’s as competitive as any player in baseball — and yet he has walked away from the game once and he really went through the motions last year once the Royals fell out of anything resembling contention. He has struggled with social anxiety issues, but he also has a different kind of personality. He doesn’t suffer fools. He cannot stand small talk. He would prefer to never sign another autograph in his life. He despised being on the cover of Sports Illustrated, largely because it meant more autograph requests.

All that said, he’s a miraculous pitcher when he’s right — no pitcher in the game, I think, mixes so many great pitches and so artfully. If the Brewers contend, and there’s every reason to think they will, I would expect Greinke to be absurdly good. I think he thrives on pressure and big moments, and he has had precious few of either in his career so far.

Cain, 26, has thrown 200 or more innings in each of the past four seasons. (Brett Logiurato/SI)

28. Matt Cain, San Francisco Giants

The compelling part of Matt Cain’s story, of course, is that he’s so uncompelling. He is the same guy day after day, week after week, year after year. He starts 30-plus games every year. He throws anywhere between 200 and 225 innings. He strikes out about 7.7 batters per nine innings. He walks about three. He gives up about 0.8 homers per game. It’s clockwork, and clockwork is many things, but it’s not especially interesting.

But I think in subtle ways, Matt Cain got better in 2010. He had the lowest walk rate of his career. He threw the most innings of his career. He threw two shutouts for the first time. Going into his last start, his home run rate was down (he gave up three homers in that last start). And, of course, he was sensational in the postseason — he did not give up an earned run in three starts.

As sportswriters we sometimes overplay the narrative of sports. That is to say that we turn the guy who gets the game-winning hit into a heroic figure. We say that the guy who made the winning putt on the 18th green wasn’t just good at golf but courageous in some larger sense. We say that a football player who makes plays is a genius. We can overdo it sometimes.

But there’s no question, from being around the Giants quite a lot at the end of the year, that people all around the team felt like something about Matt Cain changed last year. He was this steady force, the consummate pro, “a mensch” according to one longtime observer. There are people around baseball who believe that there really is such a thing as a perfect No. 2 starter, someone who pitches like a No. 1 starter but has a certain sturdiness about him that allows him to thrive even while everyone looks at the bigger star. Don Drysdale, they would say, was the perfect No. 2 starter. Curt Schilling in Arizona, they would say, was the perfect No. 2 starter.

I don’t know if any of that is real — my suspicion is that a great No. 2 starter is a just great No. 1 starter on a team with an even better pitcher — but if there truly is a quality that makes someone the perfect No. 2 starter, then I think Matt Cain has that quality in excess.

27. Alex Rodriguez, New York Yankees, or Adrian Beltre, Texas Rangers

A little bit of cheating here … I really think that only one of these guys is one of the 32 best players in baseball. I’m just not entirely sure which one.

A-Rod, of course, has been a staple as one of the best players in baseball. I’d say from 1998 to 2007 — that’s a decade — A-Rod was always one of the three or four best players in the game, and often the best player in the game. He was a shortstop for about half the time and a third baseman for about half — and here’s the amazing thing: In the shortstop years, he was the best shortstop since Honus Wagner. In the third baseman years he might have been the best third baseman since the beginning of time.

In 2008, he turned 33 — and he began to show his age. He has not played 140 games in a season since (this after paying at least 154 games every year for seven seasons). Because he played fewer games, his counting numbers began to dwindle. And, in general, he has begun to slow down a bit. He’s still a terrific hitter, but his .270/.341/.506 numbers from 2010 are way down. After 11 consecutive seasons of 35-plus home runs, he has hit 30 in each of the last two years. He’s turning 36 this year. I know most people think he’s going to break Barry Bonds’ home run record, but I actually don’t think he will. He’s 159 homers away — that’s five-plus more seasons of 30 home runs. I don’t think that’s the direction A-Rod’s career is going. I readily admit that I could be very wrong.

Adrian Beltre, meanwhile, has had two great years — 2004, when he had one of the best years anyone has had in the last decade, and last season — and a mishmash of good, not-so-good and lousy years. I watched him play a game in August of 2009 and determined that he would never hit again. I don’t mean that he would never hit WELL again, no, I made the determination that he would never again swing a bat and have it connect with a baseball. That’s how bad he looked. And then last year the guy hit .321/.365/.553 and was more or less his typical brilliant self defensively at third base.

Now, Beltre is in Texas, which is an absurd hitters park. Beltre is slugging .521 in 229 career PAs in Texas, which fits the picture. One thing that might surprise you is that Beltre is almost four years younger than A-Rod. And he’s definitely a much better defensive third baseman.

I really feel like one of these guys will be a Top 32 player in 2010 and one won’t. Because I can’t leave it as a tie, I’ll go with Beltre … but I don’t feel that confident about it.

26. Carl Crawford, Boston Red Sox

Here was the question as posed: How quickly can a player go from underrated to overrated? I’d say Carl Crawford quick. I’d say Carl Crawford was an underrated player for a long time. I think he has a chance to become overrated pretty quickly in Boston.

Of course, it depends on how you define “overrated.” For instance, if someone says: “Carl Crawford is a terrific player,” then he is not overrated at all.

If someone says: “Carl Crawford is the best player in baseball,” or anything resembling that, then he is pretty wildly overrated, I think.

I think Crawford is a perfect test case for this question, because like almost everyone else, I absolutely love Carl Crawford’s game. I have loved his game for seven or eight years. I can remember talking with a baseball GM after the 2003 season, and we both agreed that if we could have any young player in the American League at that time — say under the age of 25 — we would both take Carl Crawford.

We were probably right about that, though Mark Teixeira, Justin Morneau and Victor Martinez were all under 25 that year. The point is that Crawford has a game to love. He’s amazingly fast. He’s ridiculously fun to watch — the guy has led the league in stolen bases and triple four times each. He has good power; he could hit 30 homers one year. He plays left field like an artist; if he can master the Green Monster, I think he will go down as the greatest defensive left fielder in baseball history.*

*After all … who is the greatest defensive left fielder ever? Barry Bonds won a bunch of Gold Gloves and was really good when he was young, though what people tend to remember about him defensively was his inability to throw out Sid Bream. Carl Yastrzemski was a great defensive left fielder, but he played his whole career in front of the Green Monster, and playing left field in Boston is different from playing it anywhere else. Shoeless Joe Jackson was a breathtaking defensive left fielder by reputation, so good that he was able to throw left-handed in “Field of Dreams.”

So here’s the thing about Crawford — his skills are OBVIOUS. They don’t need translation. They don’t need amplification. They are there, right in front of you: blinding speed, breathtaking defense, the occasional and jolting power. Nobody can miss it.

But … what about the stuff you do miss? Crawford doesn’t walk much, and so doesn’t get on base especially well. His career .337 on-base percentage is not too much above league average. His power, at this point, is more promise than reality; he has never slugged .500 in a season even with all those triples. And as wonderful a player as he is in left field, well, it’s still left field. He doesn’t play center field — he has played only one game in center since 2006.

So, should Red Sox fans be thrilled with Crawford, even for a seven-year, $142 million deal? Absolutely. The guy’s awesome. He’s one of the 32 best players in baseball, and pretty comfortably so, in my book. And if you’re a Red Sox fan, you don’t care about money, anyway. But should a Red Sox fan think that now that Crawford is in Boston, in a better hitter’s ballpark and in a market where people will notice him more, that he will suddenly jump up and become one of the 10 best players in baseball? I don’t think so.

Choo's on-base percentage the last three years is .397. (John Biever, Erick W. Rasco/SI)

25. Shin-Soo Choo, Cleveland Indians

Here’s a great follow to Crawford — the next two players are, in my view, the two most underrated every-day players in baseball, in fact. They are so underrated that, to be honest, I’m probably underrating both of them by ranking them this low.

Choo is a marvelous player. He hits .300 (exactly in each of the last two seasons), he walks a lot, he has power — 20-25 home runs and 40-or-so doubles power — he runs well enough to steal 43 of 52 bases the last two seasons, he plays hard and aggressively defensively and he has one of those throwing arms that make everyone in the stadium stop and gasp when he unleashes one.

Compare him to Crawford. He is not the defensive player that Crawford is, though he has his own defensive strengths and plays a corner outfield spot and has a much better arm. He doesn’t steal as many bases or hit as many triples — nobody does, really — but he’s a darned good base runner who steals bases at a high clip. Last year, they slugged about the same, slight advantage for Crawford — for their careers Choo slugs about 40 points higher.

But when it comes to getting on base — the most important of the specific offensive skills — Choo is just a lot better. His on-base percentage the last three years is .397 to Crawford’s .349. Choo is about a year younger, too.

Crawford might indeed lift his game again now that he’s in Boston with a fat contract and the nation watching. You can’t write off that possibility. Right now, though, I think Shin-Soo Choo is a slightly better player.

24. Brian McCann, Atlanta Braves

I did a baseball preview Poscast with Michael Schur — executive producer of Parks and Recreation — and as we raced through the leagues I more or less wrote off the Atlanta Braves in one rather brusk sentence. That was a mistake on my part. The Braves are better than that. They just seem to me an easy team to write off.

I think Brian McCann is at the heart of that. McCann is a fabulous player. He is pretty clearly the best catcher in the National League over the last four or five years. He’s certainly the best hitting catcher; his defense has been rated below average by most, though a few scouts tell me that he’s better defensively than he’s given credit for (and Braves pitchers have been pretty effusive in their praise).

In any case, there are few good catchers in baseball — three, maybe? — and McCann is one of them, and he’s only 27, and you almost NEVER hear anyone (including me) talk about him.

23. Justin Verlander, Detroit Tigers

There’s a classic quote from former Kansas City Royals first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz after he faced Verlander for the first time. He had managed a bloop single in four at-bats, but the last of the four was a strikeout for ages, one where Mientkiewicz should have been given a blindfold and a cigarette beforehand.

Anyway, Mientkiewicz was always great for a quote after games, and so the reporters were gathered around him and someone mentioned that everyone had expected greatness from Verlander since he was, after all, the second pick in the 2004 draft. This bit of news freaked out Mientkiewicz. “Second pick?” he blustered. “SECOND? Someone got picked ahead of that guy?”

And then he uttered the quote: “I want to know who was first in the draft and it better have been Pujols.”

Of course, it wasn’t Pujols (a 13th-round pick — that bit of knowledge might have sent Mientkiewicz into convulsions). It was, alas, Matt Bush. Ah, the baseball draft.

22. Jon Lester, Boston Red Sox

Have you looked to see just how similar Lester’s 2009 and 2010 seasons are? It’s eerie. He started the exact same number of games, 32. He threw five more innings in 2010 and gave up one more run (though two fewer earned runs). He threw two complete games each year. He struck out exactly 225 each year. He did walk 19 more and hit seven more batters in 2010, but he made up for it by giving up six fewer homers. And if you want to get silly, he threw six wild pitches both years, didn’t intentionally walk anyone either year or balk anyone either year.

So which year was better? By the numbers, those years look exactly the same. Then you look at win-loss records and ERA and the answer begins to clarify:

2009: 15-8, 3.41

2010: 19-9, 3.25

So the obvious answer is that 2010 was the better year, right?

And the obvious answer — as often is the case when dealing with wins and ERA — is probably wrong.

I mean, they are both terrific years and it’s possible that 2010 was better. They are too close to make any definitive statements. But when you take context into consideration, it actually seems that 2009 was slightly better. The run-scoring environment was quite a bit higher in 2009, so while his ERA was worse in 2009, his ERA+ (which takes into consideration how many runs are being scored in baseball) was better (138 to 134). He strikeout-to-walk ratio was better. And his won-loss record difference is mostly influenced by run support.

In 2009, he lost or got no-decisions in eight quality starts.

In 2010, he lost or got no-decisions in only two quality starts.

Anyway, they were both terrific years and Lester is one of the best pitchers in the league. He is my 2011 pick for American League Cy Young.

21. David Wright, New York Mets

It has been a strange career, right? From 2006 to 2008, I think David Wright was the second-best player in the National League behind Pujols. He hit .312/.396/.537 for those three years, stole 69 of 84 bases, won a couple of Gold Gloves as a third baseman (though I think he might have been a touch overrated defensively). He was a great player and weirdly underrated — weird because the guy was starring in New York, for crying out loud.

Then in 2009, he just stopped hitting home runs. Just stopped. His other numbers were pretty comparable, but the 10 home runs he hit (rather than the 33 he hit the year before or the 30 the year before that) made all the difference. His slugging percentage plummeted. It was just kind of strange, as if he was cursed.

In 2010, the home run power came back. But suddenly he turned into a strikeout machine — the guy whiffed 161 times, 21 more than ever before, 40-plus more than in his great years — and he walked less and his stolen base percentage dropped considerably and he just wasn’t quite as dynamic a player — especially in the second half (.244/.305/.466).

It’s hard to say what is happening with Wright … but I’m betting that he comes back and has a good year. He, apparently, is betting on that, too: “I’ve dealt with the good, the bad and the ugly in my seven years in New York,” he told Steve Serby of the New York Post. “I think that gives me a little extra motivation.”

In a year and a half with the Cardinals, Holliday is actually hitting better than he did in Colorado. (David E. Klutho/SI)

20. Matt Holliday, St. Louis Cardinals

We all know that the advanced defensive numbers are pretty controversial because they often don’t match what our eyes tell us. For me, that guy who represents the difference between what I see and what the numbers record is Matt Holliday. Every time I watch Matt Holliday play left field — and I’ve watched the guy a lot — I am utterly convinced that he’s kind of brutal out there. He seems unsteady and unsure, and routine fly balls never seem to be routinely caught. And of course there’s his most famous defensive moment, when he got hit in the general groin area with a line drive with two outs in the ninth in a playoff game against the Dodgers.

But the numbers, year after year after year, say that Matt Holliday is not only a good left fielder but a very good one. According to John Dewan’s defensive research, Holliday has saved 30 runs in left field over the last four years. Only Carl Crawford has been better.

So, I have a choice to make — to believe my gut and my eyes, or to believe the guys who break down every single play, plot them on charts, study this full-time throughout the summer …

Hmmmmm.

Offensively, Holliday has a .317 career batting average. I don’t like batting average as a stat, but .317 is .317, and as of right now that ties him with Roberto Clemente for fourth since 1950 for right-handed hitters:

1. Albert Pujols, .331

2. Vlad Guerrero, .320

3. Kirby Puckett, .318

4. Matt Holliday, .317

(tie) Roberto Clemente, .317

Obviously, Holliday is in mid-career, and that batting average will come down. But it apparently will not come down as fast as people thought. The feeling was that Holliday’s numbers would go down after he left Colorado, a sensible guess, since he hit .358/.423/.649 at Coors Field.

But in a year and a half with the Cardinals, he’s actually hitting BETTER than he did in Colorado. He’s hitting .324/.398/.552 with the Cards with a 155 OPS+. He is 31 years old this year, and that’s an interesting age for good hitters. Some hit walls around this time. Dale Murphy did. Dick Allen did. Duke Snider did. Rocky Colavito did. it will be interesting to see how he ages over the next two or three seasons.

19. Kevin Youkilis, Boston Red Sox

One of the things that people who bash Moneyball never seem to talk about is how much Billy Beane and the A’s LOVED Kevin Youkilis. It’s not like Youkilis was this great prospect. He was an eighth-round pick out of the University of Cincinnati, and he was 22 when he was drafted, and he hit a kind of soft .300 in his early minor league years. Older third base prospects who can’t run and hit eight home runs per year are not the sort of people general managers fall in love with.

But the A’s really did love him … they adored him … they called him the Greek God of Walks. When they were doing that, even when the book came out, there was not any real sense that Youkilis would even make the major leagues, much less become one of the best players in the game. He played sparingly and did not blow anyone away in his first two big league seasons. His first full year, he hit 13 home runs, which was more than many expected, but the Boston Red Sox can’t have a first baseman who slugs .429.

All the while, though, the guy kept walking. He kept getting on base. In 2007, he became a good player. In 2008, he became a great one. The last three years, he’s had his share of injury issues, but he’s also hit .308/.404/.560. Add in his superior defense, there aren’t many players in baseball you’d rather have.

I’m not saying Billy Beane and the Moneyball Band deserve a heaping helping of credit for identifying Kevin Youkilis as a potentially special player. I am saying, though, that many people seem eager to jump on the Beane miscalculations and laugh at the missteps and point out the foolishness of the Moneyball philosophy. And that’s fine. But in my own multiple readings of the book, I would say that the player who best fit the Oakland Moneyball philosophy, the one player they were most excited about, was Kevin Youkilis. They were dead right about him.*

*I have felt similar excitement about Kansas City Royals first baseman Kila Ka’aihue, who has had an up-and-down minor league career but has always had an almost freakish talent for drawing walks. It looks like he will finally get his shot in Kansas City this year, and I would just love it if he would have a great year.

18. Ryan Zimmerman, Washington Nationals

When the 2005 amateur draft came around, there were three spectacular-looking third basemen in college. Ryan Zimmerman was playing at Virginia, and he was considered a defensive magician. Ryan Braun was playing at Miami, and he was considered a masher and a potential home run champion. Alex Gordon was playing at Nebraska, and he was considered the best of both worlds.

Anyway, that was the conventional thinking. And it makes you wonder: When drafting players in baseball, is it smarter to go for the all-around player or to go for the player with one superior quality in the hope that everything else will come around?

There is no one right answer to the question, of course. It all depends on circumstance, and every circumstance is different. It depends on the players and their talents. You could (and probably would) go broke betting on a player with one great tool and not much else.

That said: I suspect that if you had to rank the tools by level, they might have ranked something like this:

1. Zimmerman’s defense

2. Braun’s power

3. Gordon’s hitting

4. Zimmerman’s arm

5. Braun’s hitting

6. Gordon’s power

7. Gordon’s defense

So Gordon would have had three off the Top 7 — maybe even four of the Top 8 because he seemed the fastest and most athletic of the group. And he had a strong arm, too. So overall, he’d win on points, and he did win — he was the first of the three chosen. But his best tool was not as good as the other two, at least that’s how I remember scouts describing it. And as it turns out, Gordon’s ability to hit hasn’t yet lived up to his promise — his swing has a bit of an uppercut in it, and he misses a lot, and he’s still trying to start his career.

Meanwhile, Braun and Zimmerman are both on this list of the best players in the game. Braun couldn’t handle third base defensively, but he’s such a masher — he has a 140 OPS+ in his first four years — that they moved him to left field, where he is now a big-time star. I think he might win the MVP this year.

And Zimmerman has just out-hit the expectations. “I thought he could develop into a hitter,” one executive told me last month. “But I didn’t think he’d become this good a hitter, and I don’t think anyone else really did, either.” The defense has been as stellar as hoped, but the last two years he has developed into that surprisingly great hitter. Last year he hit .307/.388/.510 — the on-base percentage was, by far, a career high. He’s only 26. There’s no telling just how good he can be over the next two or three years.

17. Josh Hamilton, Texas Rangers

Have you ever found yourself on the opposite side of where you’d PREFER to be in an argument? I love Josh Hamilton. I love watching him play. I love the way he continues to fight for his life and his future. I love the larger-than-life quality of everything he does. And I love those 2010 numbers — .359/.411/.633 with 40 doubles and 32 homers and 95 runs and 100 RBIs in 133 games? What’s not to love about all that?

And yet, I often find myself on the other side of the Hamilton argument. I find myself arguing that he’s not the best player in baseball. I find myself arguing that he’s a great hitter but that his numbers are stretched by the park where he plays. I find myself arguing that he’s probably not going to have as good a year in 2011 as he did in 2010.

What happens when you find yourself on the less-enjoyable side of the argument is that you hope you’re wrong … and I hope I’m wrong about Josh Hamilton. I hope he has the sort of massive year that makes this No. 17 ranking look like an absolute joke. I hope he continues to beat his demons and continues to beat pitchers, in that order, and becomes the real Roy Hobbs because, as Mike Schur said, he really is the Natural come to life.

But there are some realistic issues here. One is health. Hamilton played only 89 games in 2009 and, as mentioned, played only 133 games last year.

Two is plate discipline. He strikes out more than twice as often as he walks. There are not many great hitters in baseball history who struck out more than twice as often as they walked. There are only six in the Hall of Fame …

1. Willie Stargell

2. Jim Rice

3. Kirby Puckett

4. Tony Perez

5. Andre Dawson

6. Lou Brock

Sammy Sosa could join them … we’ll have to see about that.

The best of the twice-as-many-strikeouts-as-walks hitters not in the Hall of Fame would include Juan Gonzalez, Jose Canseco and George Foster.

Point is, it’s not IMPOSSIBLE to have a great career as that kind of hitter, but it’s awfully hard, and careers like that tend to get cut short and be wildly inconsistent. Already, in just four years, we’ve seen some of that inconsistency with Hamilton.

Three is the home ballpark. There’s nothing wrong with mashing the ball in Texas — that’s what you’re SUPPOSED to do in that ballpark — but big numbers in that park can be deceiving. The Rangers moved to the Ballpark in Arlington in 1994, and they have had FIVE MVP winners since then — far and away the most in the American League.

MVPs since the 1994 strike:

Texas: 5

Seattle: 2

Minnesota: 2

Boston: 2

Yankees: 2

Oakland: 2

Anaheim: 1

Chicago White Sox: 1

Well, how do you explain that? It’s not like the Rangers have been dominating the American League since 1994. How do you explain them having FIVE MVPs when no other team has had more than two? Well …

1996 — Juan Gonzalez wins the MVP. His OPS was almost 200 points higher at home than on the road.

1998 — Juan Gonzalez wins the MVP. His OPS was more than 100 points higher at home than on the road.

1999 — Pudge Rodriguez wins the MVP. He actually slugged way better on the road — hitting 23 of his 35 homers on the road — but he hit .357 at home, 50 points higher.

2003 — Alex Rodriguez wins the MVP. His OPS was about 70 points higher at home — he hit .314/.407/.621 at home.

2010 — Josh Hamilton wins the MVP. His OPS was almost THREE HUNDRED points higher at home, and he hit 22 of his 32 homers in Texas.

This is not to say that none of these men deserved the MVP, but to say that if you are going to judge just how good a player is, you need to at least consider the context. Josh Hamilton on the road, in his career, is hitting .293/.359/.479 — very, very good road numbers.

But Josh Hamilton in Texas is hitting .332/.385/.606, which is Superman.

I came very close to putting Nelson Cruz on this list … I think he’s just a spectacular hitter. Then I remembered to look at his road stats. Last year, his home OPS was almost 300 points higher. Two years ago, it was 150 points higher. I want the 32 best players, not 32 great players and the ballparks that love them. I hope Josh Hamilton has an even better year in 2011 than he did in 2010. But I think he will fall off.

The pitching-rich Phillies added Lee, who last year had the best strikeout-to-walk ratio of any 200-inning pitcher in history. (AP)

16. Cliff Lee, Philadelphia Phillies

I’ve decided that some time, when none of us were looking, Cliff Lee went to a beautiful lake with crystal clear water, a remote and spiritual lake surrounded by mountains, and he asked the ferryman who took home across if he could stay on the boat and learn the lessons of the water.

“Please let me stay,” Lee said.

“$*&$#!!#* fine, you can #%@%* stay if you $@#!$# want to stay,” said the ferryman, for he was wise and also resembled Tommy Lasorda.

Together they crossed the lake hundreds of times, thousands of times, until Cliff Lee could hear the water speak to him. And what the water told him was the secret of how to become a great pitcher.

And that’s why Lee walked 18 men in 2010 and had the best strikeout-to-walk ratio of any man who ever threw 200 innings in a single season.

It really is only a matter of time before Lee starts striking out hitters on only two pitches.

15. CC Sabathia

In a lot of ways, I think Sabathia caught a bad break the last couple of years. He led the league in wins both seasons and didn’t win the Cy Young — did not come particularly close to winning the Cy Young — either time.

I actually don’t think he deserved the Cy Young either time, but my point is that with all the talk about wins and advanced pitching metrics and all that, it almost gets lost that Sabathia is one heck of a pitcher … and not because of the “wins.” Last year, Sabathia was second in innings pitched (a stat that, I think, is actually becoming a lot more important in this new world of pitching), sixth in strikeouts, sixth in ERA+, third in quality starts, it was a very good season for the guy who, in the second half, seemed to be the only starter the Yankees could count on.

One thing I like to think about is how many more good seasons a player needs to be a Hall of Famer. Roy Halladay, for instance, seems to me to already be there. He’s had enough good seasons to be a Hall of Famer. He needs to stick around for a while, boost his career win total, because people love that win total. But as far as quality goes, I think he’s there.

Sabathia, it seems to me, needs two more solid seasons to put himself in good shape. He doesn’t turn 31 until July, so I’d say the odds are good that someday Sabathia will be giving an induction speech in Cooperstown.

14. Miguel Cabrera, Detroit Tigers

I originally had Cabrera higher on the list, but his off-the-field problems are too serious to ignore. To me, he’s the best pure hitter in the American League. I’ve written that Manny Ramirez is a genius at hitting a baseball. I think Miguel Cabrera is a genius at hitting a baseball, too.

His numbers are ridiculously consistent. Every year he hits .320 to .330. Every year he hits 33 to 38 home runs. Every year he gives you 35 to 50 doubles. His line drive percentage is 20 to 25%. He just knows how to hit the ball, and the best part is that he’s getting stronger and he’s getting smarter … last year he slugged better than .600 for the first time in his career.

Is Miguel Cabrera strong enough to overcome his demons? That’s the larger question. Hitting a baseball — he can do that about as well as anyone alive.

13. Tim Lincecum, San Francisco Giants

The great untold secret of the 2010 Miracle Giants is that their ace, Tim Lincecum, had the worst year of his career, and by quite a lot. After back-to-back Cy Young Awards, Lincecum’s ERA jumped almost a full run, his WHIP jumped to 1.272, he gave up eight more home runs, the league hit .242 against him after hitting .217 the first two and a half seasons.

Why did that happen? Well, he had a four-start span, from Aug. 10 to Aug. 27, when he was flat terrible. He went 0-4 with a 9.00 ERA in those four games, lasted six innings only once, and he was just dreadful.

And then, the stretch ended and Lincecum was Lincecum again — he was 5-1 with a 1.94 ERA, the league hit .201 against him and he had a 52-to-8 strikeout-to-walk ratio for the rest of the season.

Strange. The thing that people have always said about Lincecum is that he’s not built for the long-term. Mostly by that they seem to mean that Lincecum’s motion would lead to inevitable arm trouble, but it seems to me they also mean that Lincecum is a mercurial sort who doesn’t seem likely to settle in for a long and distinguished career. I don’t know if that’s fair or unfair because I don’t know Lincecum beyond a couple of locker room exchanges, but I think that maybe those people underestimate him. He seems intensely competitive in his own way, and he seems to have a great sense of how to attack hitters’ weaknesses, and even after three years his stuff still looks like something out of a cartoon.

12. Chase Utley, Philadelphia Phillies

A healthy Chase Utley ranks as one the seven best players in baseball. Sadly, though, Chase Utley is not healthy. And even more than not being healthy, there’s a weird mystery about his injury. Nobody’s saying much of anything, except that he won’t start the season. In an interview with David Hale of the Courier-Post, Utley strikes a remarkably morose tone. When asked if he will play at all this season, he begins by saying, “Yeah, that’s my goal,” and ends with, “that’s definitely a possibility.”

That does not sound good at all.

Utley is so good that I keep him high on the list anyway. His swing is one of my favorites in baseball, a Veggie Samurai swing — for those of you who play that game on your phone — just a slash, blindingly fast, impossible to get the fastball by. He hits with power, he walks, he gets hit by a lot of pitches, and he has absolutely amazing defensive numbers. Maybe the defensive stats are misleading — Utley has never won a Gold Glove — but they are consistent and they are great year after year.

He’s one of the best all-around players in baseball, and the game is just not as much fun to watch with him not out there.

11. Troy Tulowitzki, Colorado Rockies

Think about that 2005 draft again. In the first seven picks, you had Ryan Zimmerman, Ryan Braun and Troy Tulowitzki — all three are on this list of 32. Justin Upton still has a chance to be terrific, and Alex Gordon is not out of the picture yet, but let’s stick with those three.

Will Ryan Zimmerman, Ryan Braun and Troy Tulowitzki make up the best haul ever in the Top 10 of the draft?

I asked that question kind of jokingly, but then started to look at past drafts and found that the question is very real. All three of those players — Zimmerman, Braun and Tulowitzki — could win MVP awards. They are all so good that it’s really hard to determine which one you would pick first or which one you would leave for third. Tulowitzki is a brilliant defensive shortstop who is now hitting well enough that he’s been Top 5 in the MVP vote in each of the last two years.

So, to get three potentially great players in the Top 10 … is that a rarity?

Short answer: Yes.

There are really only a handful of years when three very good players came out of the Top 10. The 2001 Top 10 would have been amazing had Mark Prior stayed healthy — you would have had Joe Mauer, Mark Teixeira and Prior.

In 1999, Josh Beckett, Josh Hamilton and Barry Zito were all picked in the Top 10 — but that’s more a country song than a remarkable haul of talent.

I’d say 1986 was certainly special — in the Top 10 you had Kevin Brown, Gary Sheffield and Matt Williams, with Greg Swindell and Jeff King as a little bonus.

The 1973 Top 10 featured Robin Yount and Dave Winfield, though it’s a pretty good drop-off to the third player on the list (John Stearns and Lee Mazzilli were fine players).

The clear winner is the 1985 draft — where Barry Bonds, Barry Larkin and Will Clark were all taken in the Top 10. That’s amazing stuff. The top pick in that draft was the very good but not great B.J. Surhoff. Normally you would be very happy to get a player the caliber of B.J. Surhoff in the draft. But Barry Bonds might have been better.

The worst Top 10? Well, the entire 1975 first round is astonishing. The best player in that whole first round was Rick Cerone. The best players in that draft were probably Lou Whitaker (fifth round), Andre Dawson (11th round) and John Tudor (22nd round). It’s not entirely clear what the scouting methods were like in 1975.

10. Ryan Braun, Milwaukee Brewers

OK, I’ll admit it … this ranking is based a little bit on a hunch. Braun is a Top 15 or 20 player anyway, but I’m putting him this high because I just have this feeling that he’s about to have a ridiculous season. He is my MVP choice for the National League.

9. Robinson Cano, New York Yankees

Cano’s 2008 season is inexplicable to me. He signed a pretty sizable contract at the beginning of the year, and he had established himself as a good player. Then, in 2008, he had a miserable season. His on-base percentage was .305 — heck, if Robinson Cano HITS .305 that’s a subpar season. He slugged 80 points below his career average. He was thrown out four of the six times he tried to steal. And I want you to look at Robinson Cano’s Dewan Plus/Minus since he became a regular in 2007:

2007: +17

2008: -17

2009: +8

2010: +7

Explain this one to me. Sure, you can talk all about the emotional roller coaster of that season. He got off to a miserable start — he was hitting .150 on May 3. That was a disastrous Yankees season, their only non-playoff year since the strike (though 89 wins would be a highlight for a lot of other teams). I’ve heard that Cano was trying to do too much to live up to the contract, to pull the Yankees out of their funk, to turn around his season …

I still can’t figure it. Cano is an amazing hitter. I think his .320 batting average the last two seasons is just a start; the guy has an amazing ability to hit the ball and hit it pretty hard, I see him and sometimes think of Rod Carew (with more power, of course). Defensively he seems to have a great feel for the position and, even though he isn’t fast, he gets to balls that few others can reach. I think he has a chance to be the best player in the American League.

That’s why 2008 sticks with me. Cano seems to me so talented and skilled that I just don’t see how he could have had a season that bad, no matter the circumstances.

Last year Longoria, a stellar defensive player, hit .294 with 22 homers, 104 RBIs and 96 runs. (Porter Binks/SI)

8. Evan Longoria, Tampa Bay Rays

By Baseball Reference WAR, Evan Longoria was the best player in the American League last year.

Something about that doesn’t add up for you, I suspect. I mean, Longoria had a fine year, unquestionably. He hit .294/.372/.507 with 22 homers, 104 RBIs and 96 runs. He stole 15 of 20 bases. He won the Gold Glove. A very good year. But best in the league?

You might not buy into it … but one thing that seems to be coming back in statistical analysis is a more concerted attempt to credit players for their defense. Evan Longoria, by the numbers, was a defensive difference maker as a third baseman. By the John Dewan plus/minus, Longoria made 17 more plays than an average big league third baseman would have made. The system figures this saved the Rays 13 runs.

So, you add that onto a fine offensive season — the numbers above do not include his 46 doubles (second in the league) or his five triples (ninth in the league) — and, well, I’m not saying that this pushes him ahead of better offensive players like Miggy Cabrera or Jose Bautista or the incredible Josh Hamilton, who played fewer games. I’m just saying that it’s an interesting way to think about it.

While talking Rays, I should say one more thing: Before the 2008 season, I was in a breakfast place in Surprise, Ariz., and I was looking over the projected lineups of every team. And I came across the Rays … and I all but shouted: “Holy cow, the Rays are going to be good!” They had lost 96 games the year before as the much lamented “Devil Rays,” but I saw a potential starting lineup with Carlos Pena and B.J. Upton, both coming off great years, with one of my favorite players in left field, Carl Crawford, with Longoria (who was already viewed as a phenom) and they had a pitching staff with Matt Garza and Scott Kazmir and James Shields, they had just drafted David Price and there was talk of him skipping the minor leagues …

Point is there were suddenly (or at least it seemed sudden to me) good players EVERYWHERE. I didn’t necessarily think that the Rays would win in 2008, because it usually doesn’t work that way, but just looking over that team I was blown away.

I look at the Rays now — with youngish guys like Reid Brignac, Sean Rodriguez, and Dan Johnson, older guys like Johnny Damon and Manny Ramirez, a bullpen with three former Kansas City Royals — and the feeling is pretty much the opposite of what I felt in 2008. The Rays, of course, still have some terrific young players, starting with Longoria and Price. And that young rotation is promising, especially the mega-talented Jeremy Hellickson. They have a good system. It is not the Rays’ fault that they could not financially keep together the team they built. And I think Andrew Friedman and the guys who run the team are pretty brilliant, and are undoubtedly way ahead of my surface analysis. As Mike Schur says, we might come back later and think this Rays offseason was a masterstroke.

Still … it’s jarring after 2008 to look at the Rays and think: I don’t like the way that team looks at all.

7. Hanley Ramirez, Florida Marlins

Last year was a harsh season for Hanley Ramirez. He seemed to be settling in nicely as the most amazing player in baseball that nobody ever talked about, a proud tradition that went back many years. From 2007 to 2009, Ramirez hit .325/.389/.549, banged 86 homers, stole 113 bases, played an ever-improving shortstop and basically did things so remarkable that few believed them and fewer still saw them.

Then, last year Ramirez got caught on camera loafing, got into a spat with his manager about it, and suddenly people in the mainstream KNEW Hanley Ramirez, but what they knew was that he was, in the famed words of the Bull Durham manager, a lollygagger. His numbers fell off quite a bit, and he got hurt toward the end of the year, and all in all it wasn’t too great. Based on perception, you would think Hanley Ramirez turned into Yuni Betancourt overnight.

And then you look at the season — .300/.378/.475 with 21 homers, 32 steals, 92 runs scored — and you can’t help but think that for a lousy season that doesn’t seem like too lousy a season.

6. Felix Hernandez, Seattle Mariners

If you ever want to point out the random silliness of using pitcher wins as a measurement, go ahead and use Felix Hernandez. In 2009, Felix Hernandez went 19-5. He led the league in wins and winning percentage. He was the very essence of the gutsy, winning pitcher who has been so celebrated through the years. The man refused to let his team lose. That’s how the story went.

In 2010, he made the same number of starts. He completed four more games. His strikeouts went up. His walks went down. The league’s batters hit only .227 and slugged .318 against him in his gutsy 2009 season. They hit .212 and slugged .312 in 2010, which, you might note, is even better.

He threw an amazing 29 quality starts in 2009.

He threw 30 in 2010.

He was simply better in every way a pitcher can be better. And he was still the same man, King Felix, who inspired fear in his competitors and pride in his teammates, or whatever it is that people were saying about him when he went 19-5 the year before.

And, of course, in 2010 he went only 13-12.

5. Joey Votto, Cincinnati Reds

It’s early in his career, but I think Joey Votto has a chance to become the best player ever to come out of Canada. If I had to rank the five best players born in Canada, I’d probably rank them like so:

1. Ferguson Jenkins

2. Larry Walker

3. Justin Morneau

4. John Hiller

5. Jeff Heath

And I’d give special mention to Terry Puhl, Jason Bay, Russell Martin, Eric Gagne and especially Matt Stairs.

Votto’s skill set — as a high-average hitter with patience and power — makes him one of the best players in the game right now, and you get the sense that he’s not finished getting better. He was very good in 2008, markedly better in 2009, markedly better again in 2010. He also seems like a good guy, and a motivated one, which I think comes across in this story by the Cincinnati Enquirer‘s John Fay. Votto thinks he can get better.

Mauer, 27, already has three batting titles, three Gold Gloves and an MVP award. (John Iacono/SI)

4. Joe Mauer, Minnesota Twins

Catcher. Local boy. Three batting titles. Three Gold Gloves. MVP award. Lifetime .327/.407/.481. Turns 28 years old in April.

Is there really anything else you have to say?

There is one lingering question about Mauer: How many home runs will the guy hit? For a long time, it seemed like he was a 10-to-15 home run a year guy, maybe less. And then in 2009, he went on a home run tear, he banged 28 in only 138 games — 11 in a 23-game stretch, seven more in an 11-game stretch.

Then, last year, he went right back to nine home runs.

Some people I’ve talked to around the game feel like 2009 was a fluke and will look like an outlier season no matter how long Mauer plays. I kind of disagree. He’s 6-foot-5. He’s an amazing hitter who hits line drives almost a quarter of the time. He has been more of a ground ball guy than a fly ball guy, which obviously depresses the home run totals, but he hits the ball so hard and he’s got such great bat speed, I suspect that as he gets older he will have other home run seasons in the 20s. And I would not rule out him hitting 30-plus before he’s done.

3. Adrian Gonzalez, Boston Red Sox

Well, I’m guessing that you’re pretty surprised by this one.

Maybe this will help. Here are Adrian Gonzalez’s last five seasons, if you simply doubled his road numbers:

2010: .315/.402/.578, 42 doubles, 40 homers, 92 runs, 118 RBIs

2009: .306/.402/.643, 30 doubles, 56 homers, 118 runs, 126 RBIs

2008: .308/.368/.578, 40 doubles, 44 homers, 126 runs, 140 RBIs

2007: .295/.358/.570, 64 doubles, 40 homers, 114 runs, 128 RBIs

2006: .311/.378/.527, 44 doubles, 28 homers, 108 runs, 88 RBIs

Yes, that’s SIXTY-FOUR doubles in 2007. Yes, that’s FIFTY-SIX homers in 2009.

Adrian Gonzalez has been a great baseball player for five years. Some people know that. And, frankly, some people don’t. And the reason some people don’t is because he played half his games in the hitters coffin that is Petco Park. So people look at Gonzalez’s career numbers, see that he’s hitting .284/.368/.507 and they think, “Oh, that’s nice. He’s a nice player.”

But on the road, the man is hitting .303/.376/.568, which is a lot more than nice. And the last two years, on the road, he’s hitting .311/.402/.611, which is scary good.

And now he’s going to play half his games in Fenway Park, a great hitters’ park. It is not a great HOME RUN park — it’s actually a below-average home run park now — but it’s a great hitters’ park, the best in the league for doubles, and Adrian Gonzalez is a great hitter.

I think he will be the American League MVP.

2. Roy Halladay, Philadelphia Phillies

They have a fan rating thing going on over at Baseball-Reference, which is a lot of fun … I highly recommend you go over there and spend a little while rating players, though to be honest about it, if you’re like me, you might never leave.

In any case, right now Roy Halladay is ranked as the 23rd-best pitcher of all time. I’ve seen him as high as 17th and as low as 30th — it’s still somewhat fluid.

But I think we’re at that point with Halladay when we can start asking just where he fits in baseball history. He has had five great seasons, I believe:

2002: When he went 19-7 with a 2.93 ERA, led the league in WAR and did not get a single Cy Young vote.

2003: When he went 22-7 with a 3.25 ERA and won the Cy Young. He led the league with nine complete games.

2008: When he went 20-11 with a 2.78 ERA and led the league with nine complete games.

2009: When he went 17-10 with a 2.79 ERA and led the league with nine complete games.

2010: When he went 21-10 with a 2.44 ERA and led the league with nine complete games.

Pretty consistent — and pretty consistently great. The thing about Halladay is that while the numbers that most people notice (wins, ERA, complete games) stay about the same, he is constantly evolving as a pitcher. He’s striking out more batters now than ever before in his career. His walk rate, always good, has gone down the last two years (in fact, he has led the league in fewest walks in each of the last two years). He threw a lot more changeups in 2010 than ever before, and to great effect. He pulled back on his cutter and curveball a bit.

When he dominated in 2003, he threw his fastball two-thirds of the time.

When he dominated in 2010, he threw his fastball barely more than one-third of the time.

He doesn’t turn 34 until May, but already it’s clear that we are watching an all-timer with Roy Halladay. We should enjoy every minute.

1. Albert Pujols, St. Louis Cardinals

And speaking of living legends …

Not too long ago, Scott Lamb and Tim Ellsworth approached me to write an introduction to their book about Pujols and his spiritual side, his Christian faith and how he became the player he became. Here’s how I led off that introduction:

“Albert Pujols has a chance to be known as the greatest player in the history of baseball. There are numerous statistical measurements to make the point, including the simple point that through age 30 he has more homers than Babe Ruth, more hits than Pete Rose, more RBIs than Hank Aaron, more runs than Rickey Henderson did at the same age.

Yes, it’s OK to think about that for a moment.”

Pujols’ consistent brilliance is so staggering and mind-numbing that at this point people are just looking for ways to call anyone else the best player in the game. That’s a perfectly worthy goal, but it’s pointless. Nobody’s close. Not right now.

Put it this way: Pujols last season hit .312/.414/.596 with 42 homers, 118 RBIs, 115 runs scored (the last three numbers led the National League). For much of the season, he seemed a viable Triple Crown candidate. He was intentionally walked 38 times. He won a Gold Glove. He stole 14 of 18 bases. It was a year for the ages.

It was probably his worst year since 2002.

I’ve written before that if you took his worst season* and multiplied it by 10, you’d have a first ballot, 90% elected, Hall of Famer.

*Would that be 2002? That year he only hit .314 with 34 homers, 127 RBIs and 118 runs scored.

But there’s another way to do it — let’s use WAR for this. The average first baseman in the Hall of Fame has 60 Wins Above Replacement. That’s a great career, 60 WAR, it’s right between Hank Greenberg (56.8) and Willie McCovey (65.1).

Albert Pujols had 67.8 WAR by the time he was 28 years old. The guy was a legitimate, middle-of-the-pack Hall of Famer more than TWO YEARS AGO.

Where will he stand in baseball history? Well, that much has yet to be written. He’s 31 years old — even if people always seem to think he’s older — and he’s still the best in baseball, and if he plays at something resembling this level for the next few years, then I think he will have a case as the greatest player in baseball history. But that part is yet to be seen. As everyone knows, Pujols has a contract situation to get through and he’s had some injuries to fight through and it’s impossible for him to stay this great forever.

Then again, it seems impossible that he’s been this great for so long.