The question has come up in all sports at a major level: who is the greatest player of all time? Generations of Major League Baseball has created a wide list of candidates for the position, but many different people from different places around the country all have their own beliefs on the title. Considering all the different positions and stats there are in the game, let's review the different skills and the best players to do it.
I Hitting
There are two very different aspects of hitting, one being power, and the other being efficiency. Power includes the number of homes runs a player has had and how far they have travelled. Barry Bonds holds the record for most home runs with 762 between 1986 and 2007. He also hods the record for most home runs in a singular season. He managed to hit 73 home runs in the 2001 season. However, Bonds was convicted of using steroids and it came out that he had been using them since 1998 which takes him off many lists for the Goat Title.
Barry Bonds also holds the record for the highest on base percentage in a singular season with an insane .609. This record was in 2004 which was during his steroid use. Another part of the efficiency title is the number of hits in a season. Ichiro Suzuki holds that record with 262 also in the 2004 season.
II Agility and speed
Speed and Agility can be measured in multiple ways. You could look at the base sprint of a player, or you could see the number of stolen bases made by a player.
The home to first method is used to test players base speed because in a game scenario, Runners can go as fast as they can since they don’t need to slide to be safe. Mickey Mantle has the fastest time ever with 3.1 seconds. This puts him high on many analysis's lists due to his ability to both hit very well and run quickly.
In the present day, players are growing in numbers of stolen bases. In the early days of baseball most players would only steal bases on a wild pitch that gets past the catcher, giving them the opportunity to easily get to the next base. Fast players like Elly De La Cruz and Ronald Acuna Jr have a plan in their minds to steal on a certain pitch and are getting crazy numbers for it. Hugh Nicol stole 138 bases during the second season of the MLB which is still the record. Many Older players have these records because catchers couldn’t throw the ball as fast as they do now, and pitchers couldn’t get it to the plate in the modern time.
III Pitching
Pitching is one of the most important aspects to a baseball team. A good pitcher can be measured in many ways. Two of those ways are era and strikeouts.
ERA stands for earned run average. This aspect in pitching can make or break a major league baseball team. It can determine how many runs a pitcher is going to let up during his time pitching in a game. Ed Walsh has the current record for the lowest ERA with 1.82 over his whole career.
Nolan Ryan currently holds the record for the most strikeouts over a career with 5,714. He also had 383 strikeouts in one season which puts him 8th overall for that statistic and 1st for any pitcher since 1900. The pitchers on that list all played in the 1880s and 1890s when hitters weren’t as skilled as they were when Ryan made his run.
Picking the greatest of all time is challenging due to the different skills required to play the game of baseball. Picking one player from each category is a lot fairer to players considering the differences in these skills. This strategy gives the advantage to players who can pitch and hit very well like Shohei Ohtani and Babe Ruth.
Willem Crowther
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