Sawyerson
I'll saw yer son.
- Feb 25, 2007
- 53,408
- 15,861
Because it's the offseason and we're all bored. Let's start with the 1900s just because. Most of these have pretty obvious ones but there are some that could have a few different answers and I'm curious to see how much variety there is, if any.
Here's what I got
1900s: Honus Wagner
1910s: Ty Cobb
1920s: Babe Ruth
1930s: Lou Gehrig
1940s: Ted Williams
1950s: Mickey Mantle
1960s: Willie Mays
1970s: Tom Seaver
1980s: Rickey Henderson
1990s: Barry Bonds
2000s: Albert Pujols
2010s: Mike Trout
Some stray thoughts I had while doing this.
yeah
Here's what I got
1900s: Honus Wagner
1910s: Ty Cobb
1920s: Babe Ruth
1930s: Lou Gehrig
1940s: Ted Williams
1950s: Mickey Mantle
1960s: Willie Mays
1970s: Tom Seaver
1980s: Rickey Henderson
1990s: Barry Bonds
2000s: Albert Pujols
2010s: Mike Trout
Some stray thoughts I had while doing this.
- Rogers Hornsby was really screwed playing at the same time as Babe Ruth. His 1920s might be the second best decade ever behind Ruth's 20s. It's a shame his name isn't really known outside of baseball fans.
- Obviously splitting it by decades is arbitrary and unfair to guys like Stan Musial and Mike Schmidt whose peaks covered parts of two decades.
- Walter Johnson's 10s are probably the best decade ever for a pitcher. But again, that's unfair to people like Randy Johnson, whose 10-year stretch from 95 to 04 was ridiculous.
- Barry Bonds stopped playing in 2007 and he's still third in WAR for the decade. lol
- The 70s were the hardest pick for me. It was a toss-up between Tom Seaver and Joe Morgan with Johnny Bench and Bert Blyleven not too far behind.
- If I had to pick right now, Clayton Kershaw has probably been the player of the 2010s but I don't think it's unfair to project forward a bit with Trout.
- What stuck out to me the most, and maybe this is what this thread should be about instead of people making lists, is just how obvious most of these were. Every complete decade other than the 70s had at most two players who were the clear cream of the crop. The 80s were the next-most competitive but I still think Rickey Henderson is a fairly obvious pick. I had never really thought about it before but for pretty much all of baseball history there have been a very, very small number of players who were heads and shoulders better than everyone else. This decade has been an exception so far, with Trout, Kershaw, McCutchen, Cabrera, Votto, Bautista, Beltre and Cano all performing at elite levels, but obviously the first three are the only ones who project to continue that for the rest of the decade, and it's very easy to see Trout run away with it like so many players have in decades before.
yeah
