March 12, 2010

Off the top of my head...

I was skimming through this BBTF post about quote-machine Ozzie Guillen's comment that 7 of the top 10 players of the game are Latino. I don't really care about how this stuff is distributed, but a discussion broke out in the comments as to whether A-Rod belongs in the top 10. Well, duh, of course he should. This if just off the top of my head (no peeking at WAR leaderboards etc), but this is what I think the top 10 should be. For ranking purposes let's just talk about next year, instead of the next 5 years or whatever

1. Pujols
2. Mauer
3. Utley
4. Halladay
5. Hanley Ramirez
6. Lincecum
7. Tulo
8. A-Rod
9. Felix Hernandez
10. Teixera

What would be yours?

7 comments:

mb21 said...

Pujols
Utley
Hanley Ramirez
Mauer
Lincecum
Sabathia
A-Rod
Evan Longoria
Chris Carpenter
Teixeira

Berselius said...

2 obvious misses expose my NL bias

Zack Greinke
Evan Longoria

Probably a few others too...

mb21 said...

Ryan Zimmerman. I forgot him.

Ben said...

I think it's funny how in little league you put one of your better players in left field, but in the pro's the best players are all infielders (note the absence of outfielders in your top 10's).

Berselius said...

Ben, the difference is that guys who can both handle up-the-middle positions defensively AND bat are pretty valuable. The average SS is a terrible hitter, so any SS that's actually good with the bat is a big bonus.

Also, from what I remember from little league all the shitty players played the outfield, since the ball rarely made it out there anyway. I don't think I played baseball as long as you did though

Berselius said...

One OF who would make the list (if he were healthy) is Carlos Beltran

Suburban Kid said...

As a former little league coach, I can confirm the best players are assigned in this order:

P
C
SS
1B
2B
3B
LF
CF
RF

Call it the Little League Defensive Spectrum...