Just a small fun fact about Pujols: He's the only 1B since integration to rack up more than 2.0 dWAR for a season according to BRef. Elite in every facet of the game.
It's a fact that goes overlooked because of all of Pujols' offensive achievements, but his defense is what I think truly sets him apart from all the other power hitters of the 90s and 2000s. He was a . The positional adjustment is so heavy for 1B that putting up positive dwar at the position is a real accomplishment, let alone 2 war.
No doubt in my mind King Albert could've played 3B after Rolen was traded away and he could've pocketed an extra 20 WAR without even trying. He was that good at baseball and the inflation at 3B is nuts.
@@VACATETHE48 I have to disagree bc neither of them can get close to 3000k hits or 700HRs And the reason I put Pujols above Aaron is bc he played in the best era of pitching ever replacement level pitcher in todays league would be all star caliber players in the eras that Hank Aaron played in
I can’t believe I was lucky enough to grow up watching the best player of my generation, and he just happened to play for my favorite team. Watching Albert Pujols play was like playing MLB the show on rookie difficulty because he made everything look that easy. Not only putting up elite numbers, but carrying the team for long stretches, including carrying the team with the worst record ever to win the World Series in 2006. He won 3 MVPs, but that sells him short because he also had 4 second place finishes that just happened to occur during Barry Bonds historic run, Ryan Howard’s 59 HR season, and a great season from Votto. And the man had 3 home runs in a World Series game, which only 4 players have ever done. Oh, and he even put up a 30+ DRS season at first base, lapping the field in 2007. There’s not enough time in the world to talk about all he accomplished in St Louis, truly an all-time player
I've recommend your channel to any of my friends looking to get into baseball. You explain everything so clearly and give a great introduction into advanced stats
Amazing work on this man you do an incredible amount of grinding to put out this content. I assume the Braves will be all over this list. Never heard of Rijo what a couple years he had
Great analysis! The first time the economics of baseball ever hit me was back in the day, when the SF Giants couldn't afford (or claimed they couldn't afford) to keep both Robbie Thompson and Will Clark. Broke my teenage heart!
Dude, love your channel. Blows my mind you only have 45k subscribers. Keep grinding, you’ll get there. Your Baseball Movie episode is one of my favorite things on RU-vid.
I’m barely even a casual baseball fan at this stage of life (38 in July), and never understood the economics of baseball even when I was deeper into the game. But watching this and utilizing context clues, I have a better understanding of major league contracts. Good work.
I'm lucky to have grown up a Cards fan in the 2000s, so I got to watch Pujols in his prime all the time. The man was an absolute monster. Day in and day out, the man made power hitting look easy, and just racked up RBIs like no one else on the planet.
Man I know it was so long ago now but I would love a conclusion to the devo-dykstra gambit series on ootp. This video was fantastic as always, and I can’t wait to see more like this.
I would, but OOTP content is REALLY bad when it comes to amount of effort it takes versus how many people actually watch it. Also, I never really got over the hump in the OOTP save file, just made the playoffs for the next 4 years with early exits and the owner actually fired me for not getting past the first round.
@@BaseballsNotDead honestly, I just appreciate knowing how it ended. Still sad we don’t get a great video out of it, but I’m excited for other projects you’ve got cooking up.
Jose Rijo started a youth baseball team up here in Seattle and he trains his teams at his own facility and everything, always wondered how he got the money to start that program, now everything makes sense😂 good dude
I was wondering if Randy Johnson's extension would have appeared on this list. He was insanely good in 1994, 1995, and 1997 but the first two years were cut short by the strike, he missed almost all of 1996 due to back issues, and he was fairly mediocre in 1998 before he was traded to the Astros. Glad to see that it just missed the top 10. He truly is a Big Unit!
One important thing about the Salary that you may mention later but I figure would have already come up (commenting at 16:44) is that Marvin Miller was an incredibly shrewd negotiator. When fighting for Free Agency, the owners refused to budge and lost the arbitration despite being given every indication by the presiding arbitrators that they would lose if they didnt do something to give a little ground. Miller put on a master class, he actually made the owners think that he was doing them a favor by making players be under a teams control for 7 years. So the wages for the first 7 years were kept relatively stagnant. The owners thought of this as a safety blanket, the familiar and comfortable system they already know, for a time. Realistically though, this made sure that top talent was put on the market at a very slow rate compared to the amount of interested buyers. Effectively he not only created the market, but also artificially created scarcity in that market. He made player salaries go up exponentially by giving the owners what they wanted. I cant think of a more perfectly manipulated situation. He basically made the owners beg him for a golden shower and then made them pay him significant restitution because he felt slightly dehydrated afterwards. It was just so beautiful. Oh and then the owners realized salaries were going up too fast and colluded to break Free Agency and were caught and fined millions of dollars. The owner who was behind that conspiracy? The Impartial Chairman of Major League Baseball, Bud Selig of course. Conflict of interest? Clearly not.
Another thing about Henderson's record, there is not a single active player at the moment in the top 100 of stolen bases all-time. Yeah. The most recent two to retire? Ichiro, aaaaand...Rajai Davis. Both of whom retired in 2019 (Davis played his last game in September 2019, while Ichiro was March, but let's forget the semantics). In addition, Henderson played for 25 years. Vince Coleman, who is in the top 10, played from 1985-1997. Henderson debuted 6 years before Coleman, and played his last game 4 years after he retired. Sometimes, one individual comes along and says, "I have a special set of abilities that will make me set a record that nobody before, now, or in the future will or can ever beat, and there is nothing anybody can do about it." That was Henderson. Some records can't be broken, because the original record still doesn't make sense all of these years later.
I agree. No one is EVER gonna break Rickey's stolen base record. Breaking it down numerically, if a player stole 50 bases a year for the next TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS...Rickey would still have more.
Kind of like Ryan's SO record. Randy Johnson and Roger Clemens might be two of the most dominant pitchers ever and both played well over two decades and despite being second and third on that list are still nowhere close to Ryan.
It was after his last team control year, so it came in as a free agent contract. I updated that list here after his option was declined... www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/17nqvhq/with_cincinnati_declining_joey_vottos_option_his/ It fared as one of the best free agent extensions in the last 10 years.
I debated putting him on the thumbnail because he was #1 and it could be a spoiler, but he is such an obvious inclusion that I couldn't NOT put him on the thumbnail.
The Braves had three players in the top 25, and one of them concluded as recently as 2021. They also have 4 candidates currently signed that could show up on this list within the next ten years. I'm a huge Braves fan, but I don't know if this information is an endorsement, or an indictment of their front office. Its good that they are savvy with their deals, but sometimes, I wonder if they go too far.
As a Reds fan I agree about Larkins contracts. Drove me crazy back when he was playing when fans would bitch about his contract being a bad one. And I loved me some Jose Rijo.
A comment on the Boggs/Ichiro/Gwynn comparison and the mention of Boggs' high doubles totals. Fenway is a hitter's park, and many Red Sox have a higher home/road split than the normal 4% home boost, but Boggs on the road was a completely different hitter. With Boston, his home vs road slash line is .369/.465/.525 compared to .307/.391/.400, and his doubles split is 281/141 as well. Boggs still deserves credit for taking extra advantage of Fenway and he has a good argument as the best position player of the 1980s, but increasing your isolated power at home by 67% is ridiculous.
Ichiro takes it for me, with Gwynn a close second. Boggs was Hall of Fame, but I'd want the guy with 500 Stolen Bases when it comes to my lead off hitter
Dodgers fan here. Will be 62 this upcoming May. The leather for the finger webbing is gone, replaced by shoelace, but I still have my Mike Schmidt glove. Sadly, will be cremated, but if buried that would be buried with me (along with one of my Titan TPM2010s).
"I brute forced it and compiled all the data and analyzed it. It took me 2 months, but im proud to say its done." And we all get to watch the fruits of your labor in another 45 minute banger.
I have a vivid memory of watching an ESPN story in the late 2000s...I can't remember which year, but Pujols had come up to bat several times that year with the bases loaded and he just couldn't miss. Hit 5 grand slams, and plenty of other good outcomes. Anyway, the talking heads were gawking at his numbers with the bases loaded, and OPS wasn't something most people knew at the time. One of them said something like, "And look at that OPS! An OPS of 1.000 is elite by the way. This small of a sample size, this great of a hitter, you wouldn't be surprised to see a 1.000, but DAMN SURE NOT A 2.000. The man is a legend." EDIT: Looked it up. It was 2009. Ended the year with a 2.171 OPS when the bases were loaded. sOPS+ of 441, lmao
Tigers fan here, and yes most of us don't even think Morris was a HOFer (but congrats to him getting in... I won't rain on his parade anymore) but Lou & Tram not going in together is just a complete miscarriage of justice!
Morris is a crazy HOF inductee because if you remove 3 games from his career, he comes nowhere close to sniffing the hall. He's probably the one player where you could remove the smallest percent of his career to make him not even considered.
Funny you should mention that because Trammell and Morris both got elected by modern day committee the same year. Also fun fact, the guy that wrote that fluff/hit piece on Trammell and Morris is the same guy that wrote Tuesdays with Morie.
Just curious, how does Griffey's 1993-1996 contract with the Mariners rank? I know 1995 brought him down a bit, and he was one of the highest-paid players, but I'm shocked he didn't pass $100M.
Yount didn't "under perform" before his contract. Robin Yount went straight from high school to MLB. He wasn't 20 years old. Robin Yount was in the major leagues at 18 years old. He played a month or two in the minors and was instantly brought up. That first contract wasn't some huge shock. It was his contract from 23-29. Odd take. I'm old enough to recall this but there was no doubt Yount was going to be a massive star. He was drafted 3rd overall and came directly to the majors as an 18 year old and played like a high quality starting player right out the gate.
The Brewers also drafted SS Tommy Bianco 3rd overall in 1971. Bill Bordley was drafted 4th overall in 1976. Rick O'Keefe was 5th overall in 1975 and Butch Edge and Dan Thomas were taken 6th overall in 1974 and 1972 respectively. Most Brewers fans have no idea who these guys are because saying there "was no doubt" a top draft pick was going to be a star is something you can only say after they become a star. Relative to 1979-1983, from 1974-1978 he absolutely did underperform which got him a cheaper extension relative to what he was going to do. All the talk from 1974-1978 was "he is going to be a star" but he didn't become one until after signing this contract. There was even talk in 1977 of Paul Molitor coming up and taking over at SS and moving Yount to the OF which seems silly in hindsight but was seriously considered at the time.
The thing the Cards were missing from 2012 - 2015 was that MOTO bat Pujols provided. They couldn’t win another Title without him. So it’s not the best decision they’ve ever made. It’s debatable considering they haven’t won jack squat for titles since the day he left.
Not that it makes any difference, but you could call “ok/fine” as “fair” since the player got what they deserved for their production and the team paid market value for the production.
The owner collusion didn't really happen until 1985 when the players DID start getting paid their worth and the owners freaked out especially with new commissioner Peter Uberroth having a meeting with the owners and saying it was dumb to sign long-term free agent contracts. They didn't have to collude prior to 1985 because players weren't getting paid their worth out of ignorance.
9:00 is comparing a position player to a starting pitcher really valid in these scenarios? Seems like different markets. The mid level FA SPs get about what players many MVP caliber players get these daya, 25-30 a year
I think for Longoria v Price it's comparable because Price was a top 10 starting pitcher during his pre-arb and arbitration years while Longoria was perhaps the best position player in the league during that time.
40:36 I don't know what that writer was smoking when he spewed out that hate speech against Jack Morris. I can't speak for any Tigers fans out there, but as a Twins fan, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone around here who doesn't consider Jack Morris a local hero and a legend of the Game. All of this comes from his single year with the team. I can only imagine how much he is revered in Detroit, where he spent a decade and a half and helped bring in a World Series Championship to Detroit. What did he do in that World Series? He picked up two wins, both complete games, allowing just four runs total. Sure, Trammell had a great series and rightfully won the MVP, but who else was going to pick up a big pair of Ws for the Tigers? Certainly not Dan Petry. (Dan Petry had two terrible starts in that Series, losing one and on his way to giving another away before he was pulled. Nothing against Petry, but the numbers don't lie.) Interesting side note about that fateful Game 5: all three of the Hall of Famers who participated had horrible games. Trammell and Gwynn combined to go 0 for 9, and Rich Gossage gave up 4 runs in the late innings. Kirk Gibson, a notable member of the Hall of Great, had 2 home runs and 5 RBI.
Alan Trammell may have short changed himself by negotiating without an agent, but at least he seemed to have a rudimentary understanding of inflation, unlike his peers.
The Best Arbitration Extensions: Felix Hernandez, 5 Year 78 Million in 2010. This got The Mariners his Cy Young, and his robbed Cy Young. Another Year was 4th in voting and 8th in voting.
@@BaseballsNotDead True, but thats still 3 Years 47 Million coming off a Robbed Cy Young in 2009 and got 3 All Stars, a Cy Young, and 4th in Cy Young voting. That extension was a "Shit, Sorry we suck Felix. Here's the highest pitching contract in the league".
This led me down a Mitch Albom rabbit hole looking at his career and other articles he wrote. I'm even considering making a video about ethics in sports journalism after that with him being the main subject.
If you really want to see a funny thing, when Morris made the HOF a writer talked about how he respected Morris, especially when Morris bought a 10,000 farm in Montana and tried to work it himself. IT WAS THE SAME WRITER! www.mitchalbom.com/alan-trammell-jack-morris-always-belonged-in-baseball-hall-of-fame/
@@BaseballsNotDeadelected the same year as Trammell no less. And the funny thing is, for all of Albom's insistence about how much people clearly hate Morris and love Trammell, Morris got considerably more ballot votes even if he couldn't get in that way. Neither one got elected until Modern Day selection in which Morris still got more votes. Maybe Albom had been too busy writing his hokey books to remember his hypocrisy.
