The Best of New York Baseball Bracket Challenge: Narrowing Down The Candidates

Last night the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament ended but we're still finishing up with our New York Baseball Bracket Challenge. We're going to pit the best against each other so you can declare the best in New York. We'll list all the candidates this round, have you pick three and then we'll list arguments for those three players and have you vote for the top baseball player in New York (Mets or Yankees) history.

I decided to cheat a little and forgo the outfield vote. The Yankees own the three best outfielders in Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, and Joe DiMaggio. Just missed includes: Charlie Keller, Roger Maris, Dave Winfield, Tommy Henrich, Bobby Murcer, Earle Combs, and Darryl Strawberry. But we're just going to go ahead and put the Yankees top three into the finals.

So here's the list (click on the link to find their original argument):

• Catcher: Yogi Berra
• First Base: Lou Gehrig
• Middle Infielder: Derek Jeter
• Third Base (results below): Alex Rodriguez
• Outfield: Babe Ruth (picture from Babe Ruth.com)
• Outfield: Joe DiMaggio
• Outfield: Mickey Mantle
• Righthanded Starter: Tom Seaver
• Lefthanded Starter: Whitey Ford
• Closer: Mariano Rivera

Remember, on the right side, pick your top 3 New York baseball players and we'll pit the top 3 all together head-to-head, to see who is the best baseball player in New York history. And let us know why you chose the way you did in the comments below!

Read more>>

The Best of New York Baseball Bracket Challenge: Third Base

Voting just completed for middle infielders (where Derek Jeter took that in a land slide) and first base (where "The Iron Horse", Lou Gehrig took it easily). Now it's time to vote for the hot corner. We have some more below including information about a similar voting process at MSG and results from the past two polls. But make sure to vote on the right and let us know in the comments why you voted the way you did. And to switch it up this time, we'll give the Mets candidates first. Without further ado, the best 3Bs in New York (stats from FanGraphs and Baseball-Reference):

Mets

David Wright: Since he made his debut in 2004, Wright has been a fixture at third for the Metropolitans. And despite his wacky 2009, he deserves a spot on this list for his time in Queens. His .309/.389/.518 splits are excellent (and are all among the top 23 among active players) and he's added to that a .391 career wOBA. That wOBA total is 10th among all 3B (min 2500 PA) and ranks ahead of such names as Eddie Matthews, Miguel Cabrera, Harmon Killebrew, Kevin Youkilis, Wade Boggs, and George Brett at the hot corner. In 2007 and 2008, Wright won the Gold Glove and Silver Slugger both years. He also finished in the top 9 in MVP voting in each year from 2006-2008. The big question for Mets fans is "can Wright rebound from a low power output in 2009?" Even without answering that question here (he only hit 10 HR and 52 XBH total), the truth is that the guy still hit .307/.390/.447. But this is a guy who averaged 73 XBH a year from 2005-2008 which is impressive for a third baseman. He just turned 27 in December so he should have plenty of time to build on these credentials. But even through age 26, he looks very similar to Scott Rolen and Duke Snider and adds the element of speed to his repertoire as well (119 SB). Since he broke into the league, Wright has been worth 32.0 WAR according to FanGraphs and has been an invaluable player to the Mets. (picture from the New York Times)

Howard Johnson: When David Wright needed some help with hitting this off-season, he went to hitting coach Howard Johnson. Why? Because HoJo was a pretty good hitter back in his day. A .251/.341/.459 hitter with the Mets, Johnson held his own at the hot corner. His two best seasons were 1989--when he led the league in runs with 104, hit .287/.369/.559 with a .416 wOBA (a career high), 41 2B (a career high), 36 HR, 41 SB (a career high), and a 169 OPS+ (also a career high)--and 1991--when he led the league in homeruns and RBIs with 38 and 117 respectively (both career highs), scored 108 runs (a career high), and hit a major league leading 15 sac flies. Both years he finished 5th in the MVP race, made the All Star team, and won the Silver Slugger. HoJo was originally drafted by the Yankees in the 1978 amateur draft but did not sign. He was eventually drafted in the first round by the Tigers before being dealt to the Mets in 1984. Johnson still leads all Mets 3B in HR, RBI and SB. Johnson also became the first Naitonal League infielder to go 30-30 in a season in 1987. (picture from JetsandMets.com)

Just missed: Robin Ventura (who only played 444 games with the Mets and his numbers lagged behind the two Mets candidates) and Wayne Garrett (played more games at 3rd than Wright but was nowhere near the offensive producer)

Yankees

Read more>>

The Best of New York Baseball Bracket Challenge: Middle Infielders

What a night in college basketball last night. An upset and a double OT thriller that almost killed Gus Johnson. But that tournament has nothing on our bracket challenge for best in New York baseball. We've voted for the best closer (Mariano Rivera), the best right handed starter (Tom Seaver), the best southpaw starter (Whitey Ford), the best catcher (Yogi Berra--with poll results after this article), and we're still voting on the best first baseman over to the right. Now we're going to go with the best middle infielder. There weren't enough candidates for both second and short on the New York Yankees and Mets so we'll combine them and give each team a few more candidates. Here we go (with statistics from Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs):

Yankees

Derek Jeter: He won the Rookie of the Year in 1996 and brought winning back to the Bronx. He's finished in the Top-11 in MVP voting 8 different times. He won the All-Star MVP in 2000...and then won the World Series MVP the same year. He's a 3-time Gold Glove winner (probably undeserving), a 2-time Hank Aaron Award winner (also probably undeserving), and a 3-time Silver Slugger (definitely deserving). He's also won a Babe Ruth award and a Roberto Clemente award so he's got a lot of the legends in the game covered. Jeter's a career .317/.388/.459 hitter in the regular season with a .375 wOBA--the only shortstops in history with higher in Major League history (min. 4000) are Honus Wagner, Alex Rodriguez, and Arky Vaughan (meaning higher than Nomar Garciaparra, Ernie Banks, Barry Larkin, Robin Yount, Cal Ripken, Jr., etc.). Jeter has 2,747 hits which means he should reach 3,000 sometime in 2011--and become the first Yankee to hit 3,000. He doesn't just lead in hits amongst Yankee middle infielders either; he also leads in runs (1,574---4th among active players and 49th in ML history), doubles (438), HR (224), RBI (1068), HBP (143--5th among active players and 21st All-time), and SB (305--9th among active players). And no Yankee middle infielder hit over .293 (min 800 games) so no one is within 20 points of his average (which is 6th among active players) and his .388 OBP (15th among active players) is tops among Yankee middle infielders as well. He's now played 138 games in the postseason (which is approaching a full season) and his numbers are great there too with a .313/.383/.479 slashes, .377 wOBA, and 20 HR against superior pitching. Amazingly, 2008 was the only year he didn't get to the playoffs in his sure-to-be Hall of Fame career and last year collected his 5th World Series ring. Since FanGraphs started tracking it in 2002, Jeter has been worth 40.1 wins (only Albert Pujols, A-Rod, Barry Bonds, Lance Berkman, Carlos Beltran, and Chipper Jones have had higher totals over this period), equaling about $144.7 million--but he's truly been invaluable. The Yankees captain is still going and going strong so these numbers are sure to increase as time goes on. (picture from the NY Daily News)

Read more>>

The Best of New York Baseball Bracket Challenge: First Base

We're moving right along here on the New York Baseball Bracket Challenge at NYaT. Mariano Rivera was picked as the best closer, Tom Seaver as the best righthanded starter and Whitey Ford as the best lefthanded starter (results below). The catchers are still being voted upon on the righthand side, but Yogi Berra looks like he's going to take that one (though still time left to vote and look at how impressive Bill Dickey's resume was as well). Now it's time to look at the first basemen (stats from Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs).

Yankees

Lou Gehrig: I'm not sure there's this great a player who really seems to be so underrated. Playing with Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio can do that to you, though. Amazingly, only 7 guys have played in 800 games for the Yankees with at least 60% of those games at 1st base (according to Baseball-Reference) and no one even seems to come close to "The Iron Horse". Gehrig won the 1927 and 1936 MVP, but amazingly came in 5th in the 1934 voting despite leading the Majors in HR (49), RBI (165), BA (.363), OBP (.465), SLG (.706), and OPS+ (208). Yes, the man won both The Triple Crown and the slashes Triple Crown and was behind 4 people in the MVP voting. That's incredible. Gehrig had a career wOBA of .474 in the regular season which is third all time right behind Babe Ruth and Ted Williams. On the all-time career list, Gehrig is 17th in average (.340),  5th in OBP (.447), 3rd in SLG (.632), 3rd in OPS (1.080), 10th in runs scored (1,888), 26th in HR (493), 5th in RBI (1,995), 4th in OPS+ (179), 8th in runs created (2,223), 5th in adjusted batting runs (984), 7th in adjusted batting wins (90.3), and 7th in extra base hits (1,190). And this was all before the disease named after him cut his life short. Oh, and he had a nice consecutive games played streak without the aid of a DH or modern medicine. The guy also mashed in the playoffs hitting a ridiculous .361/.477/.731 (yes, that's a 1.208 OPS) with a .512 wOBA, 10 HR and 35 RBI in winning 6 out of 7 World Series--his best performance may have been in the 1928 World Series when he hit .545/.706/1.727 (2.433 OPS!) with 4 HR against the Cardinals. Simply an amazing player. (picture from Art.com)

Don Mattingly: Well, someone else had to be nominated with Gehrig. Tough spot for Donny Baseball. But he's definitely deserving of it. His career slashes of .307/.358/.471, wOBA of .361, and OPS+ of 127 made him one of the more feared hitters in the Majors. His end-of-career downfall due to back troubles seems to have clouded some memories of Mattingly, but he could really handle the bat. He won a batting title in 1984, won an MVP in 1985 and his 1986 season--where he came in 2nd to Roger Clemens in the MVP voting--may have been his best (his 1987 was nothing to sneeze at either).  He won 9 Gold Gloves at 1st and even though defense isn't excluding any candidates, it's certainly worth mentioning. He also won 3 Silver Sluggers and made 6 All Star games. the problem for Mattingly is that his power was basically gone from his resume after the 1989 season. He would only hit double digit home runs twice and never showed the offense he did in his peak. He finally made the postseason in his last season in Pinstripes and did not disappoint with a .417/.440/.708 performance including one memorable home run that shook the Old House to its core (I was there so I can testify that when Gary Thorne yelled "hold on to the roof", he was correct). As Sweeny Murti wrote in 2008: Of the top 25 players on the Yankees career games played list, only one never got to play a World Series game at Yankee Stadium. But it's safe to say that none of the other 24 ever received the ovations that Don Mattingly did in the 1995 Division Series." True that, Sweeny (though Mattingly may have been cursed). And it was well deserved for perhaps my favorite baseball player of my youth. (picture from About.com)

Just missed: Tino Martinez (if the Yankees had signed Tino instead of Jason Giambi, he may have replaced Mattingly on this list...and a lot of Yankee headaches may have been avoided)

Mets

Read more>>

The Best of New York Baseball Bracket Challenge: Catcher

The NCAA tournament is heating up and so is The Best of New York Baseball Bracket Challenge here at NYaT. The preliminary rounds are about done for the pitchers (more poll results below) after closers, right-handed starters and left-handed starters were all voted upon, so now it's time to move on to their battery-mates. One rule for the hitters in our bracket challenge: only offense is rewarded. We'll mention defense as we see fit, but since I can't tell you how good a catcher Bill Dickey was, we'll just have to compare him to Jorge Posada on the offensive merits. And this one was a difficult category for that.

The Yankees have had 5 catchers play 1000 games for them and all 5 were legitimate candidates for this poll. Elston Howard and Thurman Munson both won MVPs, Bill Dickey and Yogi Berra both are in the Hall of Fame and Jorge Posada is one of the best offensive catchers of his generation. I decided to take three from them and only one from the Mets. So, without further ado, let's get to the candidates (all stats from Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs):

Yankees:

Yogi Berra: 3 MVP awards. 18 All-Star games. 10 World Series rings. And from 1951-1956 when he won 3 MVPs, came in second twice, third once and fourth once, there was perhaps not better player in the American League--especially considering the position Berra played. 358 HR and 1430 RBI were amazing numbers for a catcher and his 704 BB to 411 SO ratio was simply amazing for any position. A .370 wOBA (weighted on base average from FanGraphs) ties him for 10th all-time among catchers with Jorge Posada (min. 5500 PA) and his 5.5% strikeout percentage is a great testament to his ability to make contact. Berra was a great postseason performer too, putting up a .357 OBA and batting .274/.359/.452 with 12 HR across 14 World Series. His best World Series was probably in 1956 against the Brooklyn Dodgers where he hit .360/.448/.800 with 3 HR and 10 RBI. Amazingly, it took Berra two ballots to get into the Hall of Fame and even when he was elected, it was only 85.6% of the vote. But he was finally enshrined in Cooperstown in 1972. (picture from Dave's Dugout)

Bill Dickey: I didn't realize how good Bill Dickey was until I went back and looked through the statistics. His .394 career wOBA is second all-time among catchers to Mickey Cochrane (min. 2000 PA). That's higher than Mike Piazza, Joe Mauer, Jorge Posada, Berra or almost any other catcher. Dickey leads all Yankee catchers in the slashes Triple Crown: batting average (.313), OBP (.382), and SLG (.486). His 617 XBH ranks him second behind Berra and despite over 1500 less ABs, Dickey only trails Berra by 179 hits. Here's one of the most amazing stats: Dickey only struck out 289 times in his career (to 678 walks) and only struck out more than 22 times twice in his whole career. Dickey never won an MVP award, but playing next to Joe DiMaggio and Lou Gerhig really hurt him in that cause. Dickey's 1936-1938 was one of the best three-year runs a catcher has put up in Major League history. Dickey was an 11-time All-Star and won 7 World Series rings (in 8 chances). The two most amazing parts are that Dickey only played catcher in his 17 years in the bigs and that it took a ridiculous 9 years to get Dickey into the Hall of Fame. (picture from CharlesPaolino's Blog)

Read more>>

The Best of New York Baseball Bracket Challenge: Lefthanded Starters

We've done closers (and Mariano Rivera won in a landslide--more results on that later) and we've done right-handed starters (with Tom Seaver currently holding the leader there). But now it's time to do lefties. These weren't easy choices, especially for the Yankees. Since I get to make up the rules, I'm bending them a bit for this category to include 3 candidates for the Yankees. Let's get to the lefties (stats by Baseball-Reference except FIP from FanGraphs):

Yankees

Whitey Ford: "The Chairman of the Board" is an easy choice for this list (it got harder between the second two). He's won more games than any Yankee pitcher who pitched with either hand and his .690 winning % is absolutely remarkable (if you take away his last two partial seasons, it jumps to .705). No lefty comes close to his 2.75 ERA (min. 1000 innings). And unless Andy Pettitte pitches a few more seasons, he'll have the most strikeouts among lefties as well. He threw an amazing 45 shutouts in 438 starts. He led the league in wins 3 times, won 2 ERA titles and won one Cy Young. He was a 10-time All-Star and won the World Series MVP in 1961 when he went 2-0, giving up no runs to the Reds in two starts. If you compare his FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) to Andy Pettitte and Lefty Gomez, Ford dominates them both in the regular season and the playoffs and Ford's H/9 is less than any Yankee lefty except Al Downing. On his second try, Ford was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1974. (picture from Yankeeology)

Lefty Gomez: It came down to Gomez and Pettitte for the final Yankee spot...and I decided to list them both. Pettitte now has three more wins, but Gomez has the higher winning percentage and gave up less HR/9 (0.50) than Pettitte or Ford. But where Gomez really shined was in the playoffs where he went 6-0 with a 2.86 ERA and helped the Yankees go 6-0 in the World Series under his tenure (Ford's Yankees were 6-5 and Pettitte's Yankees are 5-2). More impressive were his pitching Triple Crowns he won in 1934 and 1937 (two seasons he led the league in K/9 and SO/BB as well). The one big knock on Gomez is that his career span was too short, having fizzled out by 34--which is one of the big reasons it took 27 years and a Veterans Committee vote to get him in the Hall of Fame. But make no mistake: Gomez was one the best Yankees lefties in history. (picture from Wikipedia)

Andy Pettitte: Pettitte may have been an easy choice as the top Yankee pitcher had he not left for Houston in the middle of his career. And what he does in 2010 and beyond could propel him there. But even without all that, he's still in the running. 192 Yankees wins with an excellent winning percentage and a 4.02 ERA in a hitter's era in the best hitting division in baseball certainly help his case (and a FIP of 3.74--though that includes Houston as well). So does the record number of series clinching wins in the playoffs (though it overshadows some bad pitching performances as well especially the 1998 ALCS, the 1999 World Series, the 2001 World Series and the 2002 ALDS). He also took home the 2001 ALCS MVP, going 2-0 with a 2.51 ERA in that series vs. Seattle. He walked less guys per 9 and struck out more per 9 than Gomez or Ford. And although he never won a Cy Young, he came in the top-6 four different times with the Yankees including a 2nd place finish in 1996. His durability has been amazing, too, starting in 31 games or more in every season except for one (2002) while with the Yankees. (picture from New York Magazine)

Just missed: Ron Guidry (whose 1978 season was one of the best pitching performances in Major League history and who had a couple of other dominating years but just didn't have the raw data needed to place in the top-3, in my opinion)

Mets

Read more>>

The Best of New York Baseball Bracket Challenge: Righthanded Starters

Mariano Rivera looks like a runaway winner in our closer bracket (as he should be) with only one lone vote going to the old-school Goose Gossage. We'll keep the voting going on the right until it's over but we need to start on our next group. Let's move on to the righthanded starting pitchers.

Yankees

Mike Mussina: Hey, I was surprised to put his name on this list too. But let's look at the evidence. He won 123 games from 2001-2008 at a .631 winning percentage. He put up a 3.88 ERA in a hitters division during one of the bigger power breakouts in the history of baseball. His wins leave him 7th among Yankee right handed starters but despite throwing a ton less innings than many of the other guys on the list he was 2nd in strikeouts and among pitchers with at least 1200 innings, he was 1st in BB/9 (1.84), 1st in K/9 (7.41), 3rd in WHIP (1.212), and first--by far--in SO/BB with a 4.02 rate there. He had some memorable playoff outings for the Yankees including 2001 against Oakland (the "flip play" game) and 2003 in relief against the Red Sox (the Aaron Boone game), though his most dominant outing as a Yankee was his perfect game through 8 2/3 against the Red Sox in Fenway until Carl Everett broke it up. (picture from Seven Good Innings)

Red Ruffing: It was tough to choose between Allie Reynolds and Red Ruffing. Amazingly, these two missed each other on the Yankees by one year. Each pitcher was 7-2 in the World Series for the Yankees with an ERA under 2.80. Each one won 6 World Series with the Yankees. And both had better winning percentages than Mike Mussina. But Ruffing pulled ahead because of the sheer numbers: 231 wins is 63 higher than the next closest Yankee righty. He had over a walk less per 9 innings than did Reynolds and had a better SO/BB ratio. It's really close between the two, but I'll go with the Hall of Famer Ruffing who came in the top 8 in MVP voting 3 years in a row (picture from A Yankee State of Mind)

Just missed: Allie Reynolds (who was probably jipped both here and in Hall of Fame voting) and Roger Clemens (who, if he hadn't gone to Houston for those years, may have been near the top of the list).

Mets

Read more>>

The Best of New York Baseball Bracket Challenge: Closers

Tonight starts a series we'll do during basketball tournament time: "The Best of New York Baseball Bracket Challenge". We'll be looking at the best of New York Yankees and Mets and try to figure out who is the best of New York. Let's start with the closers in New York (each position will get two candidates per team. Vote to the right who you think is the best of each position in New York as they all go head-to-head. Vote quickly before the next bracket goes up. We'll start off where most games end: with the closers.
 
Yankees
 
Mariano Rivera: He's considered the best among closers. With 526 saves, he's pretty close to the top just in that stat but let's look at the other evidence (stats from Baseball-Reference unless noted): His 2.25 career ERA is top among AL pitchers as is his 1.013 WHIP and 0.5 HR/9. His 202 career ERA+ is highest ever for a major league pitcher. He's led the league in saves three times and his past two seasons--at ages 38 and 39--he put up two of his best seasons as far as his peripherals go. But where he truly excels is in the playoffs where he's 8-1 with a 0.74 ERA and 39 saves in 133.1 innings. His peripherals are unbelievable with a 0.773 WHIP, 5.5 H/9, 1.4 BB/9, 5.10 K/BB, and 0.1 HR/9 (he's only given up two HR and none since 2000). According to FanGraphs, Mariano Rivera is second in major league history with 80.1% LOB and in the playoffs he's even higher with 90.1% LOB. He is at the top of the class among closers and he's still going strong. (picture from the New York Times)

Rich "Goose" Gossage: Dave Righetti has more saves with the Yankees (meaning that Gossage is third among all-time Yankees) but Gossage was the better closer. In fact, he's what everyone likes to call "an old-school closer". He saved games when saves were more than just an inning. While Rivera is 11th All-Time for saves greater than 1 inning, Gossage is second. And while Rivera has an extremely impressive 0.68 ERA in those conditions, Gossage is even better with 0.55. But when you make the criteria greater than 4 outs, Rivera ends up tied for 63rd while Gossage is third behind Rollie Fingers and Bruce Sutter. And if you take it up to two innings or more, Rivera is tied for 277th while Gossage is still 3rd--and he has a 0.68 ERA in those situations. Gossage was what closers used to be before they were what they are today--just pitchers used when the save stat comes into play. (picture from NJ.com)

Just missed: Righetti (224 saves but he's going up against two of the all-time greats) and Sparky Lyle (won a Cy Young but just missed the cut)

Mets

Read more>>