Reacting to ESPN Top 100 MLB Players of All Time Rankings 

Think about this folks, in 1938 Lou Gehrig batted .295 with 29 home runs, 114 RBI, 32 doubles, 6 triples, and OPS of .932; he did all of that while he was dying. Incredible.

Jeter being higher than Pujols should be a federal crime

Hornsby needs to be talked about SO much more than he does. Who cares what era you’re in when you hit .358/.434/.577 FOR YOUR WHOLE CAREER

I didn't realize Pujols was so amazing. I grew up seeing Pujols do his thing, but it never occurred to me to revisit his stat line now that it's over. What a legend.

You should do your own top 100 list. This list is crazy and I think ESPN was on something when doing this

I will die on the hill that Clemente is a top 25 player. 3000 hits, .317 average, 12 STRAIGHT gold gloves and probably one of if not the best defensive outfielder ever. Not to mention his cultural impact. Also if you're putting closers on this list no Hoffman or Eckersley?

“Playing against plumbers” is already being accounted for in these guys WAR stats. These guys from past eras were standard deviations above their contemporaries at playing the game. Obviously modern day guys have access to training and coaching and metrics that old timers didn’t, but that should only add to their greatness. Babe Ruth was crushing balls with no diet or weight lifting or launch angle stats or lowered pitching mound. Sure pitchers might not have had the same velocity back then, but they had doctored balls and hitters had 40 ounce bats. Sometimes they used the same ball for the entire game, with scuffs and scrapes that added insane movement to pitches. Greatness should be measured as the amount of separation between one player and an average player from that time. You can’t penalize guys for the era they played in, for all we know those guys would be just as dominant today if given access to what current guys have. How dominant would Cy Young be if he had 5 days rest between starts or a bullpen behind him, or coaches teaching him about spin rate? Current guys have the luxury of learning from all that came before them, those original guys set the standard for what greatness looks like.

John Smoltz is always tough to rank because the man is one of the greatest postseason baseball players ever. Despite logging the 3rd most innings pitched in postseason history, his postseason ERA is only 2.67. And his win-loss is 15-4

Yount would be higher if he played in a big market. He won a MVP at two different positions.

Derek Jeter being higher than guys like Tony Gwynn, Ichiro, and even Albert Pujols is atrocious

Babe Ruth's career average ops+ was 206. The dude played for 22 years. At 39 he had a 201 ops+ season. He just hit different. On a different planet.

The most under ranked player on the entire list is Lefty Grove at #54. His 3.06 career ERA doesn't probably wow people. But, when ranking the greatest pitchers, I believe you have to look at how they compared to the counterparts of their era. The fact of the matter is Grove pitched when the league ERA was about as high as it ever was. He won nine ERA titles in his career, which is the most ever. Grove also went 59-9 over a two-year span. I believe he's a top 10-15 player of all-time and probably the 2nd greatest pitcher ever.

I can’t believe they forgot Tim Locastro.

Babe Ruth played from 1914 to the mid 30's, Stan Musial 1941 to the early 60s, Mays 1951 to the early 70s, Hank was similar to Mays in years, Mantle 1951 to late 60s. Lou Gehrig 1923 to 1939. Now I'm using these 6 guys because I figured that guys like you would agree that these 6 guys deserve to be Top 20/10 guys. I put the years they played beside them for you to understand how disrespectful it is to discredit other guys from their eras. You'll bash guys like Mathewson, Ty Cobb, and Johnson but praise Ruth and Gerig. You even accepted the negro league players like Gibby and Paige. What I'm trying to say is consistency. Just because you don't care about players before you were born doesn't mean they aren't great players or deserve to be on this list.

Ricky Henderson is criminally underrated, at 24. Fight me!

Greg Maddux has the most gold gloves all-time (18) as a pitcher.... #14 is legit for him. 355 wins, 4 CY. All-time great fielder AND pitcher. That puts him up higher!

Idk what was worse, this list or Rob Manfred

Marc, I'd love to see a video from you where you go through Negro League players' stats and learn about them in real time. Could be a 2nd channel or live stream project, but I think your reactions to fully grasping these guys' careers would be such fun content. You could begin with looking into Oscar Charleston! He isn't just one of the best Negro Leaguers ever, he's arguably a top-25 MLB player all time now that the Negro Leagues have integrated. His numbers are mind blowing. Great video Marc!

I would love to see your Top 100 list for sure because this one had all kinds of nonsense in it. I totally agree with the fact that you really can’t compare modern day era and the old era together. Hopefully you can put something together for us tho that would be great. 🤙🏼

Clemente was the first Hispanic player to accomplish many feats in the majors. He was the first to win a World Series as a starter, be named league MVP, be named World Series MVP and be elected to the Hall of Fame. 13. He finished his career with exactly 3,000 hits.

Funny that you mentioned Stan Musial & Ken Griffey Jr. in the same sentence. They were both both on the same day in the same small town in Pennsylvania

Putting bonds at number 8 is an insult to anybody who’s ever watched a second of baseball and been within 250 miles of San Francisco or Pittsburgh

I was wondering what you were going to say about Barry, and I completely agree. Pre roids he was a goat, 5 tool player. Insane bat speed, insane baseball IQ. No one has ever been as feared as Barry Bonds. In an era where EVERYONE was on the juice, he surpassed all of them by leaps and bounds

This big thing that I think always set Ruth apart is he was an all time top 3 hitter for sure, but also a pretty dominant pitcher AND having only played 17 seasons whereas other hitters at the top play 20+ and he hit 700+ home runs in only 10k plate appearances. The other top hitters in the home run list all have 12k or more

I was surprised to see Lou Brock not on the top 100

I definitely think you need to do your top 100, because you seem to have mentioned more than 10 players that should "definitely" be top ten, haha :) I'd like to see how you fit them all in....

Randy Johnson is CRIMINALLY underrated on this list. IMHO he's the best modern pitcher.

I think Pedro's placement is perfect. I just watched a video on his career, what he did against the best hitters of the steroid era was historical.

As an Orioles fan I was pumping my fists in the air when Marc talked about Cal

I think you're right on people like Mo or Jeter being overall in the right spots if it was in a vacuum, but the placement of other people like Bob Gibson and Pujols is what makes it feel wrong

Joe Posnanski's "The Baseball 100" is a great look at this topic. One player he said was a final cut that hurt to not include (speaking of snubs from both lists) was Minnie Minoso, so I've just gotta shout him out!

Ichiro was a better baseball player than Jeter. Better hitter, better glove, better base runner.

Id love to see your top 100 all time! Especially if the lockout delays baseball

My all-time lineup would be: C. Bench 1B. Pujols 2B. Rose 3B. Schmidt SS. Ripken LF. Bonds CF. Mays RF. Aaron DH. Ortiz It’s hard leaving off guys like Ruth, Gehrig, Williams, Cobb, but baseball is just so tough to rank. It needs to be compared by era, so obviously the late 1800s/early 1900s players are their own era, and even the mid 1900s players are tough to compare with the more modern day players. There really is no right answer.

I believe Ralph Kiner belongs within the top 100. He led his league in homers so many years in a row.

Cap Anson introduced the hit and run, he started the signals relayed from the third base coach and more importantly he started Spring Training!!!’ He had a huge effect on baseball!!!

Marc, can you do a jersey collection tour? Think about it there aren’t much news since the lockout. (BTW I know he did one like 2 years ago)

This might be my Orioles bias but I would take Ripken ALL DAY over Jeter. And Eddie Murray is DEFINITELY a top 100 player

Love your channel man, I think that they need to separate certain generations when they talk about the greatest of all time. It’s not fair to rank players when they played in 1900 vs 2000’s

Pedro’s reason they outlined in the article were is peak years, especially 99-00, which were the two best adjusted ERA since 1900 (basically era vs. league average).

Derek Jeter's rating is the most egregious. He shouldn't be ranked ahead of Nolan Ryan, and should probably be somewhere in the 75-90 range. He isn't even a top ten shortstop, and definitely not top 25 of all players to ever play in MLB.

I actually dont think the list is that bad. Everyone will always have disagreements with these lists and I do too but ESPN could have done much worse with their track record. To me they got the top 3 right and everything else is personal opinion. (Besides Pujols they really sold him)

I thought Eddie Murray would make it. Over 500 homers, over 3000 hits, i always feel he gets underlooked a LOT

how the literal hell are the following 5 players NOT on this list: Craig Biggio, Ron Santo, Eddie Murray, Gary Carter, and Fergie Jenkins,

Overall I don't think the list was that bad, what stuck out to me the most was how low eddie Collins was

I almost stopped reading the list when I saw Thome at 98.... 98!! 612 Home Runs! Come on ESPN, be better!

I would argue for Walter Johnson staying in the top 10. 110 shutouts is still 110 shutouts. The live ball era started 1920-21 Walter Johnson pitched seven seasons in that era, and still dominated. Walter Johnson's fastball was retroactively estimated at 95 mph on flat ground, in a Sunday suit of trousers and dress shoes. He was throwing at an army base in a contraption that used to measure shell average velocity for their artillery. He got 83-84 mph on his fastball throwing sidearm. However, if you take the speed out of the hand, and adjust for how they were measuring the average velocity, today his fastball in the same setup would be measured on our radar guns at around 94-95 mph. Now you put the man in cleats, get him on a one foot tall mound in baseball uniform, and have him throw downhill. What kind of speed is that on a fastball? I argue his release speed was close to 100 miles per hour from a sidearm slot. A 100 mph fastball from a sidearm slot would give guys problems today. Walter Johnson is an all-time great.

19:58 poor choice of words man😭😭

You're underappreciating Ty Cobb. He had better BA and more hits than most of your fav's - Aaron, Mays, Bonds. And there were great pitchers back then- Matthewson, Johnson, Young.

Lou Gehrig and Shoeless Joe are two of the biggest “coulda beens” in baseball. (There are plenty others of course, but i recently just watched documentaries about both these legends haha)

Unpopular Opinion: Trout has been inflated because MLB has been desperate for a post steroid era superstar. He’s an incredible talent with big numbers but is still missing something in order to be considered as high as he is

1. Barry Bonds 2. Alberto Pujols 3. Babe Ruth 4. Hank Aaron 5. Ken Griffey Jr. 6. Alex Rodriguez 7. Miguel Cabrera 8. Roger Clemens 9. Pete Rose 10. Pedro Martinez

Can you make a list of your top 50 or 100 because I feel like to you everyone should be top 20

Having David Ortiz at 63 and not having Edgar Martinez on it at all when Edgar had a better career is insane.

Jeter was "defensively overrated" is putting it mildly.. His career DRS is -162, that's catastrophically bad. Goes to show how meaningless gold gloves are.

Barry Bonds would have ended his career a top 10 player without the steroids. He won three MVPs , 8 gold gloves and 6 silver sluggers in 9 seasons. All before he is alleged to have taken steroids. Oh, and he never finished lower than twelfth in the MVP voting in those 9 seasons, including 4 other top 5 finishes. The man just did not get out.

Kershaw has had a greater career than Koufax yet Sandy is ranked 20 spots higher… how is that possible

In 1998, Bonds became the first player ever with 400 HR and 400 SBs and baseball barely noticed. So he said, ‘fine, if that’s the way you want it,’ then juiced up and obliterated all the HR/SLG records. I don’t blame him at all. He was the best player of his generation and got relegated to the back pages b/c of a couple of sideshow freaks. Baseball was 100% complicit, then turned around and made him the villain. He’s a tragic hero.

The only reason Rogers Hornsby didn't get to 3,000 hits is because he mainly because he took a backseat as a player after his age 33 season as he took on managerial roles. In his last 8 seasons, he only played more than 50 games twice.

Hey man I’m a new subscriber watching some old videos, I doubt you see this but had a question. Where does a guy like Dustin Pedroia go on a list like this. Not a great power guy but a phenomenal player in my eyes. Wanted your opinion if he deserved to be on this list

Some of my observations from the list. 1) Top heavy on players who had their prime years before 1970. 2) Underrates catchers once you get past Bench and maybe Berra. 3) Jeter is a top 100 player, and maybe top 75, but he is definitely not top 30. Ripken, Morgan, and Jackie Robinson as middle infielders are all better IMO. From a career standpoint he is similar state wise to Biggio and Alomar who both overlapped a good chunk of their careers with Jeter. He is also similar state wise to Yount. Biggio wasn't top 100, with Yount/Alomar at the tail end of the list, and Ripken much lower. Jeter should have been in the range of those other middle infielders. The Yankee logo isn't worth the 40-50 ranking spots he is getting. 4) A couple additional missed honorable mentions to me: Biggio and Eckersley 5) Rivera made me raise an eyebrow because I don't value 1 inning specialists as high as the ESPN folks did on this list.

Somebody who never gets enough love on these lists is Al Kaline. I mean, he's basically level with Roberto Clemente, Kaline was a better hitter, Clemente the better fielder, though they were both talented on both sides of the ball. They both played at the same time, too, and their bWAR totals are very similar (fWAR thinks there's a bigger gap where Kaline is better.) And yet, in spite of that, Clemente ends up a full 44 positions higher? I know we all love Clemente, but Kaline wasn't some asshole, he was a nice guy.

I agree with you on Barry Bonds(and steriods). Was wondering where you would stand when i started the video.

Yes, I would like to see you make a 100 ranking of the best players of all time.

20:00 “lou gehrig was so sick tho”

Bartolo Colon belongs at #69, change my mind

Bob Feller was taking the league by storm before Pearl Harbor. Went right down and signed up for the Navy. Missed 4 prime years and still won 266 games. 3 no-hitters. if not for WWII, you're looking at 350 wins and 3500 strikeouts.

The phrase "If you put Walter Johnson in the Top 10, you might as well put Mike Trout" might be the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

See, I just disagree that Bonds is “no doubt” ahead of Mickey Mantle… Mantle was putting up those numbers when, as you said, “pitchers were dominant.” He also got hurt on that sprinkler head and played a lot of games hammered. That being said, to hit that consistently well from both sides of the plate from that era, to be arguably the best defensive outfielder of his time, and to have those numbers playing basically handicapped, he could arguably be ranked #1. We’re talking about greatest players after all, not greatest careers.

Didn't Ichiro have like almost 3000 hits before he even got to Mlb then like 2500 after. Mad respect to someone with like 5000 career knocks .

The fact Jim Thome is somehow at 98!?!?!?! Wtf?! Needs to be top 60-70

Ruth has to be 1 no matter what. The question weighed impact on the game of baseball in with raw stats and WAR. Not only the best WAR of all time but no doubt the most famous player of all time. The man essentially accounted for the explosion of popularity in baseball by himself. Ruth is #1 all time and basically can’t be passed, especially when you include impact on the game into the equation.

I disagree with Marc when he says Griffey is a "no doubt top 10 player". Most of the slots up in the top 10 are reserved for guys 100%, no question about it, better than Griffey. Griffey from 1989-2001: 78.2 rWAR, Griffey from 2002-2010: 5.7 WAR. Griffey essentially put up Mike Trout-like numbers for the first portion of his career, and then played another decade of replacement-level baseball. Griffey is no doubt a legend of the game, but top 10 is really a stretch IMO

Fun fact: the silhouette of the mlb logo is Harmon Killebrew

Dude Griff Jr at 13? The dude saved baseball in Seattle AND GOT HIS STATLINE CLEAN during the steroid era!

Fax, Ricky Henderson is actually underrated and like you said he deserves to get talked about and I actually think Ricky Henderson should be a top 20 player at least top 15 at most, his stolen base records are the most untouchable stats in all of sports

I agree with Marc that Bonds is a bit low on the list. I don’t think he should be #1, though. I would have him at #3. That’s just my opinion.

Totally agree the Barry Bonds is hands down the best player ever!! 2500 walks and how many were intentional? It’s insane that he is not in the HOF is ridiculous!!

Darrel Strawberry, D, Gooden, Jim Rice, Was Fred McGriff even on that list. Don Mattley . Vince Coleman , Omar vizquel , man that list is bonkers

“Lou Gehrig was so sick tho” 💀

Pujols should be top 5 without a doubt. His first 11 years in the league (Cardinals years) he hit .328 with an OPS over 1.000 and A TON of bold on Baseball Reference. His Cardinals years are literally awe inspiring to look at. 3 MVPs, top 3 in voting every year from 2002 to 2010, and arguably the greatest rookie year ever. Even until 2019 his season average was still .300/.379/.549 with 35 HR and 114 RBIs and a .927 OPS. Not to mention his career Postseason stats, in 86 games, of .321/.426/.581 with 19 HR and 54 RBIs and an OPS of 1.007. He is one of the greatest to do it in any sport.

still trying to figure out how someone with almost 700 all time homers isnt in the top 20 Pujols was disrespected

Totally please do a top 100 baseball players of all-time!

Trout at 15 is absolutely laughable. Being that the media is so much on his D. I expected them to have him top 10 or 5. Trout is a top 80-90 player.

Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa not being included in this list is criminal... those two saved baseball in 1998

I feel like my man Miggy got a bit screwed up in here

it’s hard to do these lists bc of how differently someone value was tracked not even that long ago. secret base recently showed us that dave stieb was one of the best pitchers of the 1990’s if not the best. and not many people knew his name.

A few thoughts: 94. Bryce Harper. Well, he IS the best at wearing clown makeup - which is appropriate in his case - so ... 89. Joe Jackson. Don't forget that he WAS eligible for the HOF. He just didn't get enough votes and was dropped from the ballot. There's a lot of misinformation regarding that. I blame FOD. :) 69. Ozzie Smith: Agreed that his value is criminally over-rated. And I'm a Cardinals fan. 35. Josh Gibson. Hell, nothing against Josh, but I guess I'll submit MY name as another person who would probably have been the best to ever play the game had I played MLB as well, if we're making ridiculous claims. Everyone gives WAY too much respect to Negro League pitching/competition. 34. Pete Rose: He and George Brett were kind of the go-tos for us kids growing up in the 70s and early 80s who weren't touched by God in terms of natural baseball ability. And Reggie was the superstar. 30. Albert Pujols: Yeah. NFW he's not as good as some of the players higher up. The guy barely struck out for a good number of years while hitting for average and power, while other sluggers were regularly posting 100-K seasons. 25. Christy Mathewson: Yeah, pitching 12 innings per game would totally explain the career ERA being 2.13. 8. Barry Bonds: He absolutely was going to be an HOFer without the steroids. However, he gets no credit for how ridiculous those numbers ended up being BECAUSE they are so tainted by steroids and the change in the stroke zone that took place at that same time. They're too skewed to give them any credence. And he was a defensive liability. The debate finds you. MVP: To clarify, the MVP award we know today - voted by the BBWAA since 1931 - never had a rule barring a player from winning it more than once.

Pudge Rodriguez was criminally low and Gary Carter deserved to be there 100%

Biggest stub: Stevie Wilkerson. He has a 100% save percentage for his career. Stevie Wilkerson > Mo And talk about great primes, in July 2019 he had a 2.25 ERA and a 0.5 WHIP. This stretch is 60% of the games he every pitched in, so it’s his prime. Call me Orioles bias but you can’t change my mind.

the reason why there are those 1800's dudes is largely because of how great their careers were some of these dudes were playing in an era where walks counted as hits for awhile and these guys got like 3000 hits (again some were walks but even if you take those out they still have 3000 as that was the case for Cap Anson in his 1887 season which counted walks as hits) which is crazy that these guys even did that achievement during that time and it is crazy that for Cap Anson is he was the oldest to hit the 3000 hits. One reason i think Ichiro was so high up is he was just amzing breaking the single season hit record and if you add his hits from Japan he has more hits than Pete Rose.

beltre>thome the glove and overall numbers speak volumes. also can't hate on older eras. especially with roids buffing stats from the 80s until mid 2000s. making your top players not even truly good.

Top 25 of all time at each position followed by top 100 of all time. I truly appreciate the Griffey love. He is my all time favorite but I agree with you about Bonds being #1. My friends always want to argue but the numbers don’t lie! Great video.

Your reaction of this list is a lot like mine was when I was reading through it. Ozzie Smith was great and with his speed he added a lot of offensive value than OPS shows, he belongs in the top 100 (probably around 95). Cal Ripken Jr. was both defensively and offensively better than Jeter (by a significant amount), simply trade their positions on the list.

In his 20s and early 30s, Barry Bonds had an OPS+ of 163; he was a .288 career hitter who hit 32 homers and drew 102 walks a year. That's a Hall of Fame player. His decline years after the age of 35 would have brought his OPS+ down just a few points and he'd have finished with a career OPS+ of about 155, putting him around 27th all-time. Instead, he went BALCO and, in his late 30s and early 40s, he batted .322 with 40 homers and 141 walks a year and an OPS+ of 221, adding 317 homers and 1128 walks to the back of his baseball card. We don't know if Bonds was clean or using plain old steroids in his 20s and early 30s, but we know that from about age 35 on he was using fancy steroids that were way better than everyone else's steroids. As far as A-Rod, he was caught using steroids, swore he was innocent, eventually apologized for lying, used steroids again, was caught again, lied again, apologized for lying again. If he had played clean, his 8 seasons of hitting between 41 and 57 homers would have been 8 seasons of 25 to 34 homers (exactly what Ripken had). If, like Ripken, our hypothetical Clean A-Rod had the good fortune of playing a long time and never missing a single inning of a single game due to injury, he'd have wound up with around 431 homers (Ripken's total). If Williams, Ruth, Aaron, Mays, Mantle, Foxx, Schmidt, and Frank Robinson had used steroids, at least one of them would have hit a thousand homers... and if they had used BALCO steroids, maybe all of them would have hit a thousand homers and the record might be around 1200. Bonds definitely would have hit over a thousand homers if he'd used the BALCO steroids his entire career. I'm not trying to get anyone to tear their posters of Manny Ramirez and Sammy Sosa off the walls, but when you disrespectfully dismiss Honus Wagner and Christy Mathewson and Tris Speaker, you are embarrassing yourself.

Ichiro, Boggs, and Gwynn ranked consecutively, ridiculously appropriate 😂

Finally a someone that respects Barry bonds GOAT

The first snub that came to my mind was Jeff Bagwell as well. .297/.408/.540 - 449 HR - 1,529 RBI - 79.9 bWAR - .993 Fld% Not top 50, but I think he should be on the back end of the list.

WTF Babe Ruth didn't play against plumbers. There are things you can knock him for but give him credit for dead balls, significantly larger stadiums, higher mounds and PITCHERS THREW HEAT BACK THEN!

Cal's streak alone should probably put him in the Top 10 or 20. All of these players had a job to do, which was to play baseball, and playing all of those consecutive games should go into the ranking...that record will never, ever, be touched; not to mention he's probably the best SS of all-time behind A-Rod, and Cal revolutionized the position, as A-Rod has even acknowledged.