I completed an analysis of every major league baseball player ever.  With the All-Star Game still fresh in our minds, I’ll save my methodology for a later post and give the results right now.  Here is what the All-Time Baseball All-Star team looks like:

Starting Lineup

1. Rod Carew (2B)
2. Cap Anson (1B)
3. Willie Mays (CF)
4. Hank Aaron (RF)
5. Babe Ruth (LF)
6. Cal Ripken Jr. (SS)
7. Brooks Robinson (3B)
8. Ivan Rodriguez (C)
9. Edgar Martinez (DH)

*Note: I believe Tris Speaker and Ty Cobb to be better players than Babe Ruth and Edgar Martinez.  I could easily put Speaker and Cobb in place of Ruth and Martinez, but both Speaker and Cobb were center fielders while Ruth spent most of his time as a left fielder and Martinez was a designated hitter.

The Bench

1. Tris Speaker
2. Ty Cobb
3. Eddie Collins
4. Stan Musial
5. Pete Rose

Starting Rotation

1. Cy Young
2. Roger Clemens
3. Warren Spahn
4. Tom Seaver
5. Lefty Grove

The Bullpen

1. Pete Alexander
2. Randy Johnson
3. Greg Maddux
4. Tom Glavine
5. Pedro Martinez
6. John Smoltz
7. Mariano Rivera

*Note: Mariano Rivera is the only closer to make this list, so it makes sense that he will be the closer on this All-Star team.  John Smoltz was a very successful closer for four seasons, but he began and ended his career as a starter.

More Notes

The methodology I used is entirely objective from individual teams. I only follow Washington D.C. teams, which means if I wanted to be biased, Walter Johnson would definitely be on the team.

I based my criteria on (in order of most important to least): All-Star selections, WAR, position, and comparison to other players of the era.

As with any argument for “all-time greats,” there are no definitive answers, and many great players must necessarily be left out.  Notable omissions were all close to my cutoff score (18.08) for position players: Johnny Bench (14.10), Lou Gehrig (13.10), Rogers Hornsby (15.12), Mike Schmidt (14.07), Honus Wagner (17.13), and Ted Williams (16.11). They just didn’t make it most likely because they either had shortened careers or were overshadowed by other players in the same position. (For reference, I consider a score of 12.00 or higher to be worthy of a first-ballot Hall of Fame induction).

As for the LF designation for Babe Ruth, it is because I used the position the player was playing at what I consider to be the prime of his career. For Babe Ruth, it was 1921 when he hit 59 home runs and batted .378 at the age of 26. That season, he played 87% of his games in left field.

As for Walter Johnson, I scored him 11.08 — just below the 12.01 cutoff for pitchers. He was hands down the most dominant pitcher in the ten years between 1910-1919, going 265-143 with a 1.59 ERA and 2219 strikeouts. However, in the 11 years he played outside 1910-1919, he only went 152-136 with a 2.96 ERA and 1290 strikeouts. In those years, he was a reliable workhorse, but not nearly as dominant as other pitchers.

As for Ripken, Brooks, Smoltz, and Glavine being among the all-time greats, it is simply because of their consistency over many years and being well-loved by fans (note that players with less fan support like Barry Bonds or Alex Rodriguez are absent from the list). There may also be a sort of recency bias at work, where old-time players are viewed as legendary immortals, while fans see living players as being more human.