Greatest Possible Baseball Team: Slot 7, First Base

Ah, the eternal question: "Who's on first?"

Along with designated hitter and the corner outfield spots, first base has historically been on the bat before all else positions. So, not surprisingly, three of the top ten hitters (by era uncorrected consolidated battings stats like OPS+ and wRC+) of all time are first basemen.

While cases can be made for other players, particularly multipositional players like Musial, Mantle and Foxx, the argument for the best first baseman in MLB history boils down to two players: Lou Gehrig, Albert Pujols. It's a tight enough race that I'm going flip my usual format and have the player discussion mostly before making my selection.

First, some raw batting numbers:

Albert Pujols (at time of writing): .325/.416/.609/455 (avg/obp/slg/HR)

Lou Gehrig: .340/.447/.632/493

It's clear that the Pujols's bid for a roster slot depends heavily on correcting for the different eras he and Gehrig played in, as well as their relative contributions on defense. League and era context matters and that adds an addition wrinkle:

Sadaharu Oh: .301/.445/.634/868

Yes, that's 868 home runs. If context didn't matter, the choice for first base would be easy: Sadaharu Oh, hands down.

Since context does matter, we'll have to look at the context.

Some of that is fairly straightforward: wRC+ allows us to compare batters to their contemporaries, but is only available for the MLB players.

Gehrig: 174

Pujols: 167

Compared to their peers, Gehrig has some advantage over Pujols with the bat. It's not a large difference, though, and league average normalization still doesn't account for the relative qualities of average talent in different eras. Throw in Pujols's apparent advantage in defense, and the fact he plays against talent drawn from a much larger population and I'll call it a wash.

However, wRC+ weights events according to their value in a league average context. For the greatest possible team, the offensive environment is considerably more potent, so not getting out (and getting on base) is an even more valuable skill than normally.

From 1923 to 1938, Gehrig's career before his disease disabled him, MLB average OBP was 0.3448, so Gehrig's .447 was about 1.30 times better than his peers.

Pujols plays in the modern context and across his career, OBP has averaged 0.3304. We put Gehrig in the Pujols modern context, at least compared to their respective peers, by multiplying 1.30 by .3304 to get Gehrig's equivalent modern OBP as .428. So, neglecting the talent difference of the eras (and it's hard to quantify), Gehrig's equivalent OBP is notably higher than Pujols. With the rest of the line up filled by the other greatest hitters of all time, that's suggests Gehrig would be a better choice than Pujols.

But oh, what of Oh? To even begin our comparison, we need a projection of how Oh would have done in the MLB. Fortunately, Jim Albright has already done such a projection, based on the relative performances of MLB players who moved to Japan and explained in part 2 of his discussion of Oh's Cooperstown qualifications. Albright figures Oh's hypothetical MLB career would've resulted in a .279/.412/.484 with 527 home runs line from 1962 to 1980. Clearly, Oh's slugging takes a fairly severe hit, though the 1960s and 70s were low power eras, so the effect is exaggerated some.*

*I'd like to go back and calculate Oh's normalized slugging in an MLB context and make an attempt at estimating his Runs Created value as well. I'd probably use a normalized gross production average (1.8*OBP+SLG)/4 as a first cut, as it should be on approximately the same scale as OPS+ and wRC+. But I've put enough time in this already, for now.

What's more important in this context is Oh's projected OBP compared to the MLB average for those years. Dropping his weaker age 39 and 40 seasons (largely for a better comparison with Pujols and Gehrig), Oh projects to have been about 1.32 better at getting on base than the average major leaguer oh the time. Set in the modern context, that would give Oh an OBP of 0.435, higher than either Gehrig or Pujols.*

*As discussed later, Albright was extra conservative about walk rate. Even if Oh's actual walk rate was used (rather than correcting for the differences in leagues, which would favor Oh), his on base ability projects to about 1.36 times MLB league average, or a .450 career OBP if set in the modern .330 OBP league average context and about .470 in Gehrig's time. It is not unreasonable to conclude that Sadaharu Oh's eye for the strike zone and on base skills were on the level of Wiliams and Ruth*/

And Oh's projections are for years well into the post integration era, so the average talent level they are based on is higher than Gehrig's time, though likely somewhat lower than now. Still, given the offensive context of this potent team, Oh's on base ability gives him the advantage.

By nearly accounts, Oh's defense was well above average. Giving him credit for a modest 5 runs saved above average per season seems reasonable. Added to Albright's projection, that leave Oh with about 80 runs saved above average on defense, making him comparable to Pujols. Even as a league average first baseman, Oh's bat still gives him an edge over Pujols in this line up.

There's also one more card in Oh's hand. While Pujols appears to be leaving his peak performance period, his career line is currently little affected by it. Gehrig died rather tragically had his career and life cut short by his disease and so didn't really have the typical post peak tail. Oh, instead, played for 21 seasons in NPB and demonstrated the ability to play at an elite level into his late 30s.

Selection Sadaharu Oh

The greatest slugger in Nippon Professional Baseball history, with 868 home runs, Oh makes the roster not on his power, but on the strength of his on base ability. His career NPB line of .301/.445/.634 with 868 home runs is not far from what might have expected from Lou Gehrig had he played another 7 years. Jim Albright projects Oh's hypothetical career in the MLB as 0.279/0.412/0.484 with 527 home runs from 1962 to 1980.* Normalizing Albright's numbers by league average, and Oh's ability to get on base (in comparison with his peers) exceeds even Gehrig. In the greatest possible team run scoring context, that's enough. Oh's strong defensive reputation is an additional perk, though.

*Albright was actually conservative in his walks estimates. While he found that players are more likely to walk in the MLB context, he didn't correct Oh's walk totals for either the league difference, actually in Oh's favor, or the extra playing time. Since more walks means fewer at bats, Oh's entire line improves. Just extrapolating Oh's walk rate (at 20.5% behind only Ted Williams's 20.6% among MLB batters) without accounting for the league difference gives a career stat line of 0.287/0.433/0.497

Unlike the Negro league greats who didn't later play in the MLB, Oh (and other Japanese players) actually did play against MLB baseball teams in exhibition games, usually against higher quality teams. His 426 PAs in these games provide nearly a full season's worth of data and help validate Albright's projections: .260/.413/.524 with 25 home runs and 14 doubles from 1960 to 1979. Note, though, that these games were usually held in the smaller Japanese ballparks of the time.

The left handed Oh's best season probably was 1974. His NPB line of .332/.527/.761 with 49 home runs in 130 games projects to .301/.474/.539* with 32 home runs in 162 games in the MLB. That would be good enough to lead the league in OBP (over Rod Carew) by 31 points and place third in slugging, after Dick Allen and Mike Schmidt. As a rough estimate, that's about 192 wRC+. Compare that to Joe Morgan's MLB leading 171. A fantastic peak season.

*Even with Albright's conservative walks estimate

If you like awards and championships: 9 NPB MVPs, 9 Gold Gloves and 11 Japan Series Championships with the Yomiuri Giants.

Alternatives

Lou Gehrig

When I woke up this morning, Gehrig was my selection.

The most legendary of all first basemen, Gehrig, a left handed batter, shined brighter among his peers that even Oh and Pujols. In addition to playing in 2130 consecutive games, the Iron Horse had four seasons with an fWAR greater than 10, a hall of fame worthy achievement in itself. The best of those was probably the Murderous Row campaign of 1927, when Gehrig hit .373/.474/.765/210 (avg/obp/slg/wRC+). Gehrig's optimism and character in the face of a debilitating, terminal disease have justly added to the legend of a truly elite ballplayer.

Gehrig's career line is the best in MLB history for a first baseman: .340/.447/.632/147 with roughly average defense for 125.9 fWAR in only 14 mostly full seasons of play time.

Albert Pujols

Despite being only league average with the bat this season, The Machine is in the midst of a clear Hall of Fame career. Never accruing less than 6 fWAR in a season from 2001 to 2010, Pujol's current .325/.416/.609/164 line with 88.5 fWAR puts him behind Gehrig in value at first base. While Pujols's peak offensive seasons haven't been quite as valuable as Gehrig's, with only the 2003 season (.359/.439/.667/185) exceeding 10 fWAR, his strong defense (almost 70 runs saved above average) and greater talent pool Pujols has faced make a strong argument for Pujols as a co-equal with Gehrig as greatest MLB first baseman of all time. And he stands well with Rogers Hornsby as the greatest right handed batter as well.

Greatest Possible Baseball Team: Slot 8, Catcher

Catchers may be the least appreciated position in baseball. Catching body destroying work, and unlike other position players, catchers are involved in every single pitch. Every pitch that isn't hit and some that are opportunities for a catcher to make a mistake... or a big play.

A truly bad catcher can cost you severely: passed balls and wild pitches, dropped third strikes, poor game calling and an inability to control the running game can cost a team dearly (though no catcher at the major league level is actually bad). Not surprisingly, a catcher's bat is often secondary to role behind the plate. As a result, truly potent offensive catchers are rare and cherished resource at the major league level.

At the same time, a big bat or the ability to get on base can cover a few mistakes behind the plate. Particularly given the sort of line up that surrounds our catcher, those offensive skills are even more valuable normal. A strong argument can be made for true bat first catcher since his hits and home runs are morely to find runners on to score and the outs he doesn't spend mean more plate appearances for the hitters of the Ted Williams variety.

Selection Johnny Bench

That said, I've chosen to be cautious in my catcher selection and taken the best all round catcher of all time, Johnny Bench. His bat, while not as big as some, is still powerful. And his defense -- his ability to control the running game in particular -- is not something I want to risk doing without. Particularly since I've already got a high OBP, bat first catcher in Joe Mauer, I'll take Bench.

Johnny Bench is probably the best catcher of all time. His defense seems to have been above average to explemplary, never below average until his final two seasons and four times above 10 runs saved above average according to Fangraphs, totally 71.0 runs saved above average. His offense wasn't bad either, with a career .267/.341/.476/125 (avg/obp/slg/wRC+) and a peak in 1972 of .270/.379/.541/155 to go with 13.0 runs saved above average and an fWAR of 10.2, the best season ever by a catcher. He's also the career leader in fWAR at catcher, with 81.5.

Alternatives

Mike Piazza

Given the run scoring environment created by the rest of the line up, there's a strong argument to be made that a bat first, (relatively) bad defensive catcher would more than make up for his flaws behind the plate from the box next to it. Piazza is the premier, bat first, glove... somewhere down the line catcher. Defensively, he appears about as far below average as Bench was above it with Fangraphs estimating that Piazza was worth a 62.9 runs below average behind the plate, though his poorest defensive years all came later in his career.

But, wow, could he hit. His .308/.377/.545/140 line is the best ever for a catcher with over 1000 games. Piazza's best season was probably 1997: .362/.431/.638/183 and roughly average defensively for 9.4 fWAR, the 2nd best season for a catcher, ever, after Bench's 1972.

Gene Tenance

Tenance is one of those forgotten greats that you might rediscover looking through Adam Darowski's Hall of wWAR or by sorting catcher's by OBP. Tenance is one of the player's most shorted by the "Batting average is the best offensive stat" crowd, with a lifetime .266 batting average, but an OBP of .388, a slugging of .429 and wRC+ of 138, just behind Piazza. With roughly average defense across his career, Tenance makes a good alternative for offense first catcher to Piazza without being quite the defensive liability Piazza seemed to be.

Furthermore, in this line up, simply not getting out is worth even more than it is normally, and Tenance's .388 OBP leads all catchers with at least 1000 games in the post integration era (though Joe Mauer is only 22 games away from 1000 at the time of writing).

Josh Gibson

Arguably the greatest Negro league player to never get his opportunity in the traditional big leagues, Gibson's power hitting ability is most often compared to Babe Ruth's. Gibson died young, of a stroke at age 35 and lived and played the last few years of his life with a diagnosed brain tumor. His Negro League line looks strong: .359/.413/.644. Roy Campanella, an excellent player and a good choice in his own right, managed only .314/.346/.481 across his Negro League time, though that was quite early in his career. More on Gibson.

Greatest Possible Baseball Team: Slot 9, Designated Hitter

I have mixed opinions about the designated hitter rule. I don't really mind it, as it gives players like Jim Thome and Edgar Martinez the ability to contribute for longer or more often than they would have otherwise, most due to injury risk or age. At the same time, it's an impure hack, particularly the way it's implemented. The DH can only hit for the pitcher, for instance. And it removes tactical tradeoffs that would otherwise matter. And some pitchers can actually hit, too.

So the current situation works well for me, with about half of baseball using it and the other half playing the more pure, tacitcal version of the sport. That's why I chose the 81 games with DH, 81 without hypothetical season. I think it well reflects the effect of the DH on the game. Naturally, the DH is a going to be one of the biggest bats on the team, so I have the added wrinkle of what to do with him when the DH isn't allowed.

There's also the question of whether the DH must have had significant time actually being a DH. That's not an unreasonable requirement, but given that it's a new rule only used in one league and that I'm putting together "the greatest possible baseball team", I decided not to use it.

Selection Ted Williams

Ted Williams is the greatest batter of all time. Admittedly, it's a tight race at the top, with Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds being the most notable competition. Throw in Lou Gehrig, Rogers Hornsby, Mickey Mantle and Ty Cobb, and I think you have most of the major candidates.*

*This is a wonderful and multilayered argument, and one can make good cases for most of these players and a fair number more: Musial, Mays, McGwire, Pujols, Frank Robinson... even the underrated Dick Allen.

My case for Williams over the competition is thus:

1. Williams is either 1 or 2 all time in the important batting stats: 1st in OBP and 2nd in SLG, wOBA, wRC+ and OPS+. The only player ahead of Williams on any of these lists is some guy named George Herman Ruth.

2. Independent of context*, the most important batting skill -- the one most important to scoring runs -- is the one Williams leads everyone in: on base percentage. This is because not only does getting on base enable the batter to score, it means he didn't get out. I'll have to sit down and actually do the math sometime, but as OBP goes to one, runs scored per game, inning and out all go to positive infinity. And a high OBP drives up the chances that follow batters will 1) get addition plate appearances and 2) have runners do drive in. A player with a high OBP makes the entire offense more potent. (As does a player with a higher, say, slugging, but the effects aren't as great).

3. Williams played in a more difficult era than Ruth in particular. While the normalized stats account for some of the difference, segregation in particular casts some doubts on the validity of Ruth's numbers. I'm sure he still would've been brilliant, but excluding black players both decreased the quality of the pitching (and perhaps defenses) Ruth faced and lowered the average hitting stats which Ruth's numbers are normalized against. It's not a large difference, but it eats into Ruth's small advantage.

Also, the majority of Williams career occured during the post-integration, pre-expansion era, where the average player quality was boosted compared to earlier eras because of integration and boosted compared to later eras because expansion hadn't diluted the average quality of the opposition.

Era arguments can be used against Williams, too, of course. Ruth suffers (very slightly) from plate appearences made during the deadball era and old style home run rules where balls that went foul after leaving the park were still foul. Williams's early seasons were also during the segregated era. And Williams faced few Latino and no Japanese players. In general, later eras have larger populations from which to draw players and so the top 400 players in the world are even farther above the mean player than they were in the past. Modern technology, including game advances, health advances and information technology like video also improve the performance of the average major leaguer (and make era to era comparisons harder). There's also the question of what would the past greats done in the modern context? Pie Traynor with a modern glove, Dizzy Dean with a modern pitching coach and medical staff, Koufax with modern surgery and a two seamer, etc, etc.

4. William's lost much of his peak to military service and two different wars. Across 1941, 1942, 1946 and 1947, Williams averaged .360/.506/.669/214 (avg/obp/slg/wRC) in 2642 plate appearances at 660.5 PAs a season. Give Williams credit for 660 PAs for 1943, 1944 and 1945 at that rate, and his career line bumps up to .347/.486/.640/193, which roughly halves the distance in wRC+ between he and Ruth's .342/.474/.690/197. This improvement also sets him farther ahead of batters who played in later, presumably more difficult, eras.

A similar excercise can be done for William's Korean service, but it's less clear which years to choose for the reference points. His service also exacted a cost in training time, travel, etc, that's harder to account for.

*Of course, context matters. And I don't mean protection, as that generally has at most a rather small effect. Nor am I addressing the league context, though that is important. Rather, I mean that the batter's teammates matter. On a high obp team, say of Ted William's clones, an individual's OBP matters more. As his teammates are less likely to get out, he'll score eventually, even it takes four singles or walks.

On a low OBP team, power, particularly home run power, matters more. On a team of Ozzie Guillen's, where there's rarely anyone on base when our hitter comes up and the players behind him are almost pathologically unable to advance him, merely getting on base doesn't help much. However, home runs (guaranteed run) and extra base hits followed by productive outs (double, advanced to third on ground out, sacrifice fly) can still generate runs.

So, when choosing between Williams and Ruth (accepting the validity of their raw stats), the better choice really depends on their teammates. In other words, "the greatest ever" question, in team sports in particular, is generally ill defined.

For his career, Williams hit .344/.482/.634/189 and netted 139.8 fWAR. Peak doesn't really fit Williams, "mountain range" might be a better choice. When choosing between his best years, though, his famed 1941 season (.406/.553/.735/221 for 11.9 fWAR) and his post integration masterpiece in 1953 (.388/.526/.731/223 for 10.3 fWAR) are my favorites.

So, even if I haven't convinced you that Theodore Samuel Williams is the greatest batter of all time, you ought to agree he's a top 2, top 3 sort of guy. And since I'm picking a team here, you'll probably see your top guy too.

Alternatives

Column A: Your pick for "Greatest batter of all time" not otherwise on your roster.

Column B: Great batters who actually spent time at designated hitter.

Frank Thomas

The Big Hurt is the most potent player to spend a significant fraction of his play time at DH, with a career .301/.419/.555/154 line for 76.2 fWAR. He has a legitimate case for best right handed hitter of all time. Thomas's best year was 1994, hitting a Williamseque .353/.487/.729/204 for 7.3 fWAR in just 113 games due to the strike shortened season.

Edgar Martinez

DHs become DHs for a variety of reasons. Martinez, a decent enough fielder at third base, moved to DH due to lingering effects of a hamstring injury in 1992. Taking him gives one more infield flexibility and a still fantastic bat. The right handed Martinez owns .312/.418/.515/148 career line for 69.9 fWAR with his best year probably being 1995: .356/.479/.628/184.

Martinez is notable for not seeing signficant play time until he was 27. It's hard to say what playing earlier would've done to his career rate stats, as batter peaks often occur near 27, but his counting stats would probably put him solidly in the Hall of Fame.

Jim Thome

Some players earn immortality by being memorable. Some earn it by being great. Thome can claim those, but as far as anyone can tell, he might actually be immortal, as he's still a good hitter in his age 42 year. Thome's ongoing 22 year career includes a peak season in 2002, where he hit .304/.445/.677/188 mostly at first base.. Here, Thome provides a left handed option for the DH slot with actual DH experience, in addition to his time at 1st and 3rd, hitting .277/.403/.556/145 for his career so far.

Greatest Possible Baseball Team: Slot 10, Opening Day Starter

I've gone over my general starting pitcher considerations here.

Selection Pedro Martinez

Baseball's Killer Rabit of Caerbannog. Does this guy look scary to you? No, he's... small and cute, just like a bunny. One more reason to love baseball, it's not your size that matters. Hell, he looks like a ten year old next Randy Johnson. But that doesn't matter, he's the ruiner of worlds.

Pedro Martinez is the greatest player I've ever seen on a baseball diamond. In fact, he's the greatest pitcher of all time, hands down. Utterly dominant for an extended period of time, in an era where even the transpacific barrier had fallen, the only weak spot in his resume is his relatively light workload. While his career stretched across 18 years (he actually came up with the Dodgers in 1992), he only pitched 2827 innings. Part of that is due to modern pitcher usage, where any season over 200 innings pitched in notable, and part of that is due to injury difficulties.

But when Pedro played, and he played a lot, with over 100 innings pitched every year from 1993 to 2006, he was the best ever. Particularly from 1997 to 2003, when his ERA was greater than half league average only twice (and even then, only 61% of average, at most). His FIP stayed in a similar range, so it's extremely unlikely that his defense was making him look good. Of course, when your pitcher is striking out 37.5% of the batters faced, as Pedro did in 1999, you don't get many opportunities to effect his ERA.

Pedro is the exemplary power pitcher with strong control and great stuff. His career strike out rate is 27.7% with a walk rate of only 6.7%. That translates to 10.04 K/9 for only 2.42 BB/9. While a heavy fly ball pitcher, Pedro managed to suppress home runs per fly ball a fair bit, only allowing 8.9% of flies to leave the yard, but that doesn't matter as much given his strikeout rate.

Pedro has the odd distinction of having better numbers in the AL than in the NL. Not only that, he posted his best raw numbers playing at Fenway Park half the time. When we correct for park factors and league average, well, like I said, Pedro Martinez is the best ever.

Early on, Pedro threw in the high 90s with movement, mulitple pitches including a fastball, a slider/cutter, a curveball and a change up. Even with his dominant fastball, Pedro threw his entire selection, and quite often. Pitch type data only goes back to 2002, and from then on, Pedro through his fastball no more than 60% of the time. Of course, it was averaging only 90.7 mph in 2002 and continued to decline. But even at that velocity, [pitch type linear weights](http://www.fangraphs.com/library/index.php/pitching/linear-weights/, which estimate how many runs a pitcher saved based on that pitch, estimated that Pedro's fastball was elite, saving 20.3 runs across the season above average, or about 1.12 runs per 100 times thrown. From then until 2009, a mostly post peak Pedro still averaged an above average fastball, slider, curve and change up. Power, control, repertoire, Pedro Martinez had it all.

For his career Martinez has the best normalized rate stats of any pitcher in history, with a career 2.93/2.91/67/67 (ERA/FIP/ERA-/FIP-). That is to say, average Pedro Martinez only allowed two-thirds the runs that everyone else did and did so without the benefit of a better than average defense or pitcher's park. He did this by striking out over ten batters per nine innings, only walking about 2.4 and giving up a home run in less than 9% of the innings he pitched in (on average). As for his best season, take your pick between 1999 or 2000. In '99 Martinez obtained half his outs via strikeout. 13.20 K/9. 1.56 BB/9 (that's 8.46 K/BB) and only 0.38 HR/9. His '99 FIP- is the lowest since 1884* at 30. In 2000, his strikeouts were down ("only" 11.78 K/9) and his homeruns were up (still just 0.78 HR/9), but his control was even better at 1.33 BB/9. And he had better luck in both strand rate (86.6%) and balls in play (a low, low .236 for a batting average against of just .166). Pedro's 2000 is the lowest WHIP since 1884, at 0.76 and the lowest ERA- at 35. Martinez's 1999 line: 2.07/1.39/42/30 in 213.1 innings pitched for 12.1 fWAR. His 2000: 1.74/2.17/35/46 in 217.0 innings pitched for 10.1 fWAR.

*The 1884 anomally was caused by the short lived Union Association's Milwaukee franchise, who only played 12 games. It doesn't really count. The top five actuals season all belong to Martinez and Randy Johnson. I can't believe I didn't originally have Johnson on my team.

Good defense, bad defense, it doesn't matter. Pedro Martinez was the best pitcher of all time.

Alternatives

Bob Gibson

Dominance. When in comes to dominance, I think one pitcher comes up more than anyone else: Bob Gibson. Best known for his famed 1968 season, where he set the ERA record of 1.12 in over 300 innings pitched, Gibson had the stuff to dominate, posting a FIP- below 70 every year from 1968 to 1970 and averaging a FIP- of 81. That's 7.22 K/9 across his career, including his weak '74 and '75 seasons. Gibson generally struck out 20% of the batters he faced before '74. What made him so dominant around 1968 was the combination of his control peaking, with only 1.83 BB/9 that year and great luck on balls in play, with hitters only managing .230 when they put the ball in the field. His home run suppression was almost always strong, with only a career 0.6 HR/9.

Bob Gibson was a great pitcher with a good peak. A lifetime line of 2.91/2.89/78/81 he was in the right place at the right time for his famed 1968 season: 1.12/1.77/38/65.

Bert Blyleven

Choosing pitchers is definitely the hardest part of this endeavour. I was actually swinging back and forth between listing Blyleven, Kevin Brown or Bret Saberhagen as the alternate. There are good cases for all three. And I think I would go back and switch out a couple of my picks today, all things considered. But that's for another time.

Blyleven was a very good to great pitcher for a very long time. Across 23 years, he managed to pitch 4970 innings. While his ERA occasionally exceeded league average, his FIP suggests that the blame for that should lay on his defense more than him. He was at worse, league average and at best, well, great. Take his 1973 year: 2.52/2.32/63/59 with 325 innnings pitched. Or 15 years later, his 1989 year: 2.73/3.08/72/83. And he manged to be above average to great for all 23 years, for a total line of 3.31/3.19/85/81. About time he got in the Hall of Fame.

Greatest Possible Baseball Team: Slot 11, 2nd Starter

I've gone over my general starting pitcher considerations here.

Selection Walter Johnson

As I've stated, I deduct value from both dead ball era players and pre integration players. Walter Johnson played more than half his career in the deadball era and had nearly all of his brilliant years during that time. In fact there's a distinct drop in his performance (compared to league average) between 1919 and 1920. 1919 was maybe his second best year ever, with a 1.49/2.07/47/66 (ERA/FIP/ERA-/FIP-). 1920, the first year of the live ball era, he managed only a 3.13/2.78/84/78 line. Still good, but the dominance he showed before then never really returned, though his 1924 2.72/3.31/67/84 year is nothing to sneeze at.

Even so, deadball baseball was still modern style baseball. And Johnson may have suffered an injury at the same time the balls became livelier, as he only pitched 143 innings in 1920 after pitching at least 250 and generally far over 300 for the previous 11 years. Or maybe it was just wear and tear, as Johnson clocked a 90+ mph fastball in years before the world's first kinesiology department. One shudders to consider what he may have done after a year of Mike Maddux's or Dave Duncan's attentions.

Either way, Johnson was the dominant pitcher of his time. His career was 21 years long and he still managed a lifetime 2.17/2.36/67/75 line. I'll take it, particularly with a modern defense. The dominant strike out pticher of this day, he had a 12.6% K rate going back to 1916 (before then, batters faced was not recorded) and 6.4% walk rate. Excellent control for any time period. If he's a little too hittable in the starting line up, I'll switch him into the bullpen. With his side arm motion, velocity and strong control, he'd be murder on right handers, for sure.

Pete Alexander

Look, would you want to be called Grover Cleveland? Him neither. Like Johnson, Cleveland was a dominant deadball pitcher who became merely great after 1919. His career line is a little off Johnson's, at 2.56/2.85/73/81, but he was just as dominant during the deadball era. His best year, in 1916, he managed 1.55/2.12/43/62. Generally, the same caveats apply as Johnson, though the bullpen fallback might not work as well, as I don't think Alexander had such a side arm motion.

Roy Oswalt

One of two pitchers playing today with over 2000 innings pitched with both an ERA- and a FIP- lower than 80* (the other being named Roy as well. If you want your kid to pitch, name him "Roy Johnson"). Oswalt (Weir is he from, anyway?) is a statistical chimera, swinging from flyball to groundball back to fly ball pitcher in his career. And his strikeout rate has fluctuated between over 9 K/9 and just below 6 K/9, his control has remained consistently good at about 2 BB/9. Oswalt has also managed to be hard to square up on, with a lifetime batting average against of .249. It will be interesting to see if he can deal with his back issues enough to make a difference for the Rangers this year. A lifetime 3.21/3.35/76/78 pitcher, Oswalt's best year has probably been 2002: 3.01/2.99/71/68

*Johan Santana will make it in another 14 innings.

Greatest Possible Baseball Team: Slot 12, 3rd Starter

I've gone over my general starting pitcher considerations here.

Selection Sandy Koufax

When it comes to "best ever" discussions, there are often two competing philosophies: what was a player's peak versus how long was the player good. Dominance versus duration, if you will. Of the players on my roster, Koufax is the one most firmly in the dominance camp. He only pitched for 12 seasons and the first few were more promising than great.

For the first six years, Koufax pitched like Nolan Ryan's left handed kid brother. Lots of strikeouts, sure, but lots of walks, too. Then, around 1961, Koufax figured it out. His walk rate dropped from 13.3% in '60 to 9.0% in '61. And it kept dropping, hitting 4.8% in '63. And then it stayed low. Still a lethal strike out pitcher, by 1962 Koufax was the best pitcher in baseball since Walter Johnson. And so he remained until 1966, when arthritis forced his retiredment at age 30. For six years, from 1961 to 1966, Koufax not just great, but legendary.

Koufax's legend and career line, 2.76/2.69/75/75 (ERA/FIP/ERA-/FIP-) benefit from his retiring at his peak. After all, Steve Carlton had as many great seasons and a much longer career. However, even had he not been arthritic and pitched another five to ten years, even had he lost some of his stuff, I doubt Koufax would've lost the incredible control he had learned. And he would have had more years of both power and control to balance the effect of his early wildness on his career line. His career 2.93 K/BB isn't the Koufax we remember. 5.38 K/BB, put up in his penultimate, 1965 season... that's the utterly dominant mix of power and control that Sandy Koufax deservedly conjures. That season is as characteristic of his amazing '62-'66 run as any other: 2.04/1.93/63/63. It was his strikeout peak, with a 29.5% K rate.

So it is Koufax over Carlton. Lefty was great for a long time, but some time around 1961, Sandy Koufax transcended the art of pitching.

Alternatives

Steve Carlton

Another legendary lefthander, Carlton was a very good to great pitcher, but mostly in the duration over dominance category until later in his career. Starting in 1977 (or maybe 1980, depending on how much you wish to credit good fortune and defense) to 1983, Carlton enjoyed a stretch of dominance just shy of Koufax's lofty peak.

I say mostly because Carton's 1972 season is one of the greatest of all time. 1.97/2.01/55/60 with with 346.1 innings pitched. (That's the kind of season that destroys pitchers, look at Bob Feller's 1946.) It's the second lowest FIP- of any season since 1920 (the live ball era) with over 300 innings (Bert Blyleven pitched just over 320 in 1973 and was one point of FIP- lower). It's also the 7th lowest in ERA-. 346.1 innings of dominance. It's worth noting that were bad that year, average fielding and poor hitting (a team wRC+ of 80) with a team record of 59-97.

Carlton's career line, across 24 seasons, is brought down a bit by his post Phillies struggles from 1986 to 1988, but is still a strong 3.22/3.15/87/86.

Dwight Gooden

You might call Doc Gooden the mirror image of Sandy Koufax. Not only is Gooden right handed where Koufax was a lefty, Gooden's career looks like an inversion of Koufax's. For the first 5 years, Gooden was brilliant, particularly his first two. Then, perhaps because he was overpitched, perhaps because he lived too hard a life style of the field, Gooden fell to earth. By 1993, Gooden was struggling to be a league average starter*, though he hung on even as his control left him (and managed to stay effective until 2000) in another mirror to Koufax's career. Even with his struggles, Gooden's career line is strong 3.51/3.33/90/84

Gooden started his career as best pitcher in baseball. His 1984 rookie season has to be the best by a pitcher, ever: 2.60/1.69/74/49 with a 31.4% K rate and 218 innings pitched.

*For what it's worth, an average major league starting pitcher -- or any player -- is already a great player. At the major league level, the talent distribution isn't symmetric, it's greatly skewed. Roughly 70-75% of major leaguers are below average.

Some Learning Programming Via Videogames Links

A coworker recently asked me about approaching programming through making video games. This is what I put together:

If you're looking for tools to encourage learning to program via making computer games, Invent With Python is likely the best fit. It's a book written specifically with the goal of teaching programming skills through game creation and it's F/OSS. Python has really gained a strong foothold as a teaching language with strong practical applications, too.

As an immediate impetus, there's the Liberated Pixel Cup. It's a competition to create game content and put together games using that content.

Invent with Python and related resources

Invent With Python

Making Games With Python & Pygame: Sequel to Invent With Python. Includes source code and discussion for various simple games.

Pygame: The actual Python game engine used above. Quite powerful,

Other Python Programming Books/Resources

Using Pygame

Game Programming: The L Line, The Express Line to Learning

Introduction to Programming Using Python and Pygame

Without Pygame

Snake Wrangling for Kids: Learning to Program with Python: Python programming book oriented at kids, ages 8 and up.

A Gentle Introduction to Programming Using Python: The MIT OpenCourseWare Introduction to programming class. Very useful.

Learning Python: In many ways, the book for Learning Python. It's not as beginner oriented and it's not F/OSS.

The Python.org Tutorial and

Python Docs. (These are Python 2.7. Python 3 might be more useful)

Learn Python The Hard Way: One more online book oriented at beginners. Reasonably popular.

Python Wiki Beginner's Guide: An amalgamation of Python beginner's resources.

Python Wiki PythonGames Entry: Discussion on both Python games and game development resources.

Other Programming Language/Intro to Game Creation resources

I found surprisingly little outside of the Python sphere. There's a lot of game development stuff, of course, but little is beginner focused.

Game Maker's Apprentice: Introductory game programming text for Game Maker (Delphi based) proprietary game making software. Very well reviewed.

C Programming's Game programming page: Not really intro oriented and Microsoft focused.

Beginning C# Game Programming: C# intro book. Comes with mixed reviews and apparently has a lot of errors.

MSDN Beginning Game Introduction: Microsoft's Beginning Game development introduction

GUI based game creating environments

Game Editor: F/OSS 2D game authoring

Game Maker: Education oriented, but proprietary, game design software that uses it's own, Delphi based scripting language.

Maker3D Crossplatform 3D RPG. Might be good, looks a bit scuzzy to me.

RPG Maker: Long running RPG creator series. Largely Japanese.

Wikipedia RPG Creation Software Page

Advanced Topics

Programming communities/sites

Reddit

Reddit is a user moderated community with lively discussions with a wide variety of talented contributors. Particularly in technical subreddits such as /r/programming, industry leading experts show up regularly in discussions and often offer a lot of help. It also contains the dregs of the internet, as any such open site does.

Learn Programming

General Programming

Game Development Reddit

Gaming Developer communities/sites

PyWeek: Python Game Programming Challenge community with bi-annual challenges.

AltDevBlogADay: A daily blog with a lot of useful discussion on game design, development, marketing, etc. Very, very good.

GameDev.net: A game development community.

Gaming/Graphics Engines

Panda3D: F/OSS game and simulation engine originally from Disney and now maintained by Carnegie Mellon. C++ under the hood, but intended to be called from Python. Apparently very powerful with several successful commercial games using it.

CrystalSpace: F/OSS realtime 3D graphics SDK. Related is CEL which extends Crystal Space into the game engine realm and includes bindings for Python.

OGRE: F/OSS 3D rendering engine only. C++ based.

Bullet: Commonly used (within gaming industry)F/OSS physics engine with rigid body and soft body support as well as collision detection.

Other tools/Resources

Blender: F/OSS 3D content creation suite. Scriptable with, yes, you guessed it, Python. Related is the Game Blender, a game engine.

OpenGameArt.org: Community and repository for open access art resources. Also hosts the Liberated Pixel Cup.

ccMixter: Community and repository for Creative Commons licensed remixable sound and music pieces.

The Freesound Project: Like ccMixter, but only with sound samples.

Hackable Games

Games and simulators that are open source and useful to look at, perhaps.

Flight Gear: F/OSS flight simulator. Highly detailed, written in C++.

Frets On Fire: Mostly F/OSS music rhythm game built using Python and Pygame.

The Quake/IdTech Family: Open source releases of the game engines behind id's Quake family of first person shooters

Battle For Wesnoth: F/OSS turned based strategy game. Lively community and easily created campaigns plus scriptability (through Lua) and it's own mod community.

The Spring Engine: A F/OSS real time strategy (RTS) game engine and framework. Spring:1944 is one standout game built on the engine. Of note, the computer controlled enemies can be scripted with Python, C++, Lua and Java derived languages.

Widelands: A newer and slower F/OSS RTS game than the Spring derived games.

Cube 2: Sauerbraten: Another F/OSS FPS engine and game.

FreeCiv: Empire building turnbased strategy game

Note:

I've written the post in the Markdown, um, markup language. There are a variety of tools to convert Markdown into other formats, like HTML or PDF. I use pandoc. There's also a web based converter.